Beyond the Exterior.

That’s it! I just finished my final surgical rotation of the year, and damn, how these first three rotations have just flown up. It was only yesterday I was struggling to place a cannula in a patient’s arm, and now I’m lowkey assisting in surgeries? (By assisting I mean retracting an instrument, while the surgeon does their thing)

I have been a part of many teams and surgeries in the combined ten weeks of surgery. From ACL repairs, to exploratory laparotomy, and laparotomy cholecystectomies, haemorrhoidectomies to hernias, hernias and more hernias! It has truly begin eye-opening- although haven’t seen eye surgery yet. I would always get mesmerised, halfway through a surgery. Mind you, I couldn’t see anything remotely resembling the nice glossy anatomy pictures in the textbooks. All I saw deep burgundy, merlot wine like blood that ubiquitously presented itself in whatever was being done. During these times of being mesmerised there was always a constant thought: we are all the same underneath the external surface of our skin. We all have the same cardiovascular highway that sends blood around our body; we all have an ACL; a gallbladder and when literally under the knife, there is no discrimination. It makes me think how an unnecessary emphasis on a variant of biology- the amount of melanin produced by melanocytes in skin- has dictated and lead to a history- and still today- of discrimination, death, dispossession of coloured population groups. Melanin is intransigent, a feature that a dark-skinned person cannot control and just, opportunistically tone down the amount of melanin. I learnt that surgery is not a microcosm of society; in surgery, we are the same.

I most enjoyed seeing a laparoscopic cholecystectomy surgery. In this surgery, the surgeons make little incisions in the abdomen and insert a camera into the abdomen to assist them in viewing and then ligating the gallbladder. These clipper devices are inserted into these incisions that are made and, just like a game controller, a surgeon manoeuvres and manipulates the surrounding to get the gallbladder out. That hand-eye co-ordination in these surgeries is exquisite. It was the precision, the technicality and the ability to respond to changes and unexpected occurrences that drew me to this surgery. You need to think on your feet and have the requisite arsenal to adapt to unpredictability in laparoscopic cholecystectomies.

After my 10 weeks, I am still undecided whether surgery is the pathway I want to pursue. After talking to few different surgeons in different areas of surgery, a commonality kept arising that was difficult to ignore and not consider. That commonality was that surgery is a niche area of medicine, with the prerequisite of dedication to a serious craft and dedication to consistently being the best prepared surgeon you can be in every single operation. SHEEESH. I don’t want to rule out surgery as a pathway, just because I think it will be too difficult to do. I want a better reason than perceived difficulty to rule it out, and so far it has not been crossed off the list.

Besides medicine, I have been occupying myself mostly with Netflix shows, hockey and some delicious dinner recipes. In a period of two weeks during my surgery rotation, I finished Money Heist. Such an amazing show, by the way- would recommend. My hockey team is performing well, with zero loses so far! Things are looking good for our team.

Take care everyone! See you on the other side of my GP rotation and remember to eat those pancakes.

Anei