I just finished my first night of call ever, in neurosurgery. I ended up being there for 35 hours. It started and ended well. Yesterday, I saw a live cauda equina for the first time, sitting there in its dural sack; I was assisting in a laminectomy. I was feeling a mixture of elation and awe as I suctioned and retracted away. This afternoon, I scrubbed into a craniotomy, and saw a live brain for the first time. It looked a bit sad at first, but by the end of the procedure was pulsating away happily in its skull. Wow. That's a living skull. That's a living dura. That's a living brain. That's a living person.
I also attended an interesting clinic in the morning. Overnight, though, between 5 p.m. and 6:30 a.m., all I did was write up an admit note and history for one patient. I was expecting to be pushing myself a bit harder...
Well, at the moment I am preparing part of a talk for Friday morning rounds. Fun! :) Suddenly, though, I am missing having a lab to play around in... maybe I should ask someone in neuro here for a project I can work on.
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7 comments:
Very exciting!
ahhh sooo exciting!! still have a year to do before doing that... but I'm not all ready yet to be up all night long ;)
How did the talk go?
I can't say that I understand asking for more work to do, but then I am in the middle of a research project so I am definately not missing the lab right now.
Hoo boy, the talk. I could have written an entry on it, but I've been too tired. Basically, on Thursday afternoon, we found out that the subject we'd chosen had been presented two weeks earlier. It was a rare diagnosis, that we never would have expected someone else to present.
Anyways, to make a long story short, we got a new patient with a new condition, came up with some ideas for the talk, and I got just one hour of sleep, between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m., with the rest of the night spent reading papers and making up slides.
It actually ended up going fine, which made me very happy. There's nothing better than the feeling of being presented with a big challenge, and rising to the occasion.
I had call on Friday night, though, so you can imagine how happy I was to get to sleep in the student lounge around 2 a.m. Saturday... and staying asleep for the rest of the night. I was nodding off in my chair while writing up the last admit.
Way to respond to a challenge! I hope your coming week includes a little more sleep.
Argh! Squishy bits!
Seriously though, how utterly cool. Were your terrified to slipping with the retractor and causing irreparable damge? I would have been...
The talk-writing sounds awful, so congrats to you for getting it done. I have never (yet) pulled an all nighter in my student career. Does that demonstrate a gross lack of commitment?
O and I'm very excited right now cos I'm gonna be in Calgary in 24 hours!
Canadians are so lovely! And Banff is spectacular. I am extremely jealous of your local scenery... Hope you are enjyoing the snow as much as me...!
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