First week finished

With a 24 hour call last night, I spent 79 hours at the hospital this past week. Students aren't to exceed 80 hours in one week, so I guess I had an extra hour to spare. This week has been a rude awakening to clinical medicine. I'm not used to working 11-12 hours everyday!! I've been so tired all of the time. It's too bad I don't drink coffee because I really needed it this week. I'm sure I will acclimatize, but right now I am exhausted.
I've been able to see some really cool surgeries. This week I was introduced to laparoscopy. The surgeon can put a camera into the abdomen and do an entire surgery through tiny openings in the skin! It is really cool to see everything done on the screens. I was assisting with the camera during one surgery and half way through the Dr. asked me to go clean the camera on the kid's liver. So I navigated the camera to the liver, wiped the camera a few times against the liver, and came back down with a cleaner view. It was super weird to clean a camera on somebody's liver.

I saw an appendectomy, repair of a belly button so urine would stop leaking out of it (Urachal cyst), insertion of an abdominal drain in a preemie baby (born at 25 weeks), and insertion of a subcutaneous port. The subcutaneous port is a cool device that allows medicine to be injected directly into the heart without a needle stick in a vein every time. This is helpful in people who get a lot of shots: chemotherapy, regular transfusions, etc.