Stitches for Surgery

Yesterday, the CCLCM Surgery Interest Group hosted a practice session for learning to suture. I really hate going into school on Thursdays when I don't have to. But I'm doing Core I this summer, so I thought I probably should go. Core I, to remind you, includes the surgery, medicine, and family practice rotations. We had a couple of cadavers in the anatomy lab, and we cut their skin and then stitched them up again. After an hour at it, I was finally starting to feel semi-competent at doing the two-handed knot the resident showed me. He was showing some of the other people how to do one-handed knots, but I decided that it was better to stick to one kind of knot and do it well. At the end, there were a bunch of stitches all over the cadavers' arms and legs, like something out of Frankenstein. I don't know if they plan to use these cadavers again on Monday for the first years, but it's going to be hysterical if they do.

Today, we had PBL and then a pharm seminar. They were both excellent, although our PBL patient died. I knew that was going to happen because his prognostic factors from Wednesday were very poor, but it still sucks. Our POD talk was pretty good too. It was about how to improve the consenting process for clinical trials that involve children with cancer. After POD, I went to the OR to shadow one of the docs who had led one of our seminars last block. I had arranged to do this before the break. It was really interesting. I saw a couple of ENT (ear, nose, and throat) surgeries and helped a little bit with prepping one of the patients for surgery. The ENT residents had told us in anatomy last year that the thyroid bleeds a lot when it's cut, and I can now confirm that they were right. I felt a little nauseated at one point, but not bad enough that I had to leave the room.