Weeks 1 and 2: "Gahh, they took my freakin' kidney!"

I can finally post to the blog! Apparently all the emails that Belinda sent about the blog were going to my spam mail for some reason. Thanks to Alberto, I finally figured that out!

Post for Week 2: 

This is pretty ridiculous, but if you haven't seen it, here it is. Someone showed it to me for the first time years ago, and I thought it was pretty dumb. Yet, I still remember it for that last line...and the creepy way in which they say Charlie's name. Anyway, that being said, the most exciting bit of exposure to clinical work I had last week was that I actually got to go into the OR! It was a long time coming, but I saw three surgeries in one morning. It was crazy. I shadowed Dr. Joseph Del Pizzo, a urologist at NYP, and his surgical team.  Honestly, I could not have asked for a better first experience in the OR. If you're looking to see surgery and haven't yet, go to the 9th floor of Starr Pavillion Urology Department and ask to meet with Dr. Del Pizzo's secretary, Marina. She's great, happy to help, and sends in all your paperwork pronto to get you in for surgery the next morning even though the form says must have at least a 48 hour notice. 

The next morning, I was pretty sure I was going to get rejected for surgery because I had no idea if the head RN who is supposed to sign off on requests to see surgeries had approved me. Especially since my form was submitted less than 12 hours before I walked in to ask for scrubs. The key? Act confident. I walked up to the OR front desk as though I belonged there but when I got to the desk, I panicked when I realized no one was there but I needed to be in surgery in less than 15 minutes. I managed to flag a random nurse down and turned out she was scrubbing in for the same surgery I was hoping to see. She tossed me some scrubs and told me to come on back to the OR when I had changed. That's it? I can just go in? I didn't have to shell up an arm and a leg to get scrubs?! Nope. Ok, sure thing! I'm not gonna ask any questions! So much for going through so much trouble to get approved and ID-ed in advance. (Heads up, if you get to the OR before 6AM, chances of anyone giving you a hard time are slim AND they will always have your size). I ran to the women's locker room only to realize that I couldn't swipe in, so I went over to the nearest bathroom did a quick change and dashed back to the OR. I was told Surgery started at 6AM sharp and patient prep would be at 5:30AM. Turns out the patient arrived at 6AM-ish and prep took about an hour. The prep was longer than the surgery itself. I was amazed at what needed to be done before a patient was ready for surgery. The banter and jokes that took place following the anesthesia was pretty entertaining...although not comforting to think of ever having to undergo a major surgery like that. The doctors and the nurses in the room prepping the sterile equipment and patient for surgery were discussing what was actually involved in most surgical procedures and how if anyone knew what was involved, they would never actually opt to give out a body part...let alone have unnecessary plastic surgery done. 

Anyway, back to the surgeries! The first surgery that I got to see was a laproscopic donor nephrectomy. I was standing around awkwardly just observing and trying not to get stepped on when the nurse who had tossed me the scrubs earlier, Jessi, looked at me and said, "Wanna help prep the patient?" I was a bit uncertain that I would actually be able to contribute to the team, but with a few instructions, I was helping in small but meaningful ways; I actually existed to these people! An hour later Dr. Del Pizzo casually strolled into the room and started to get people positioned. I was a bit intimidated, but walked up and introduced myself anyway. He noticed my excitement and after a brief conversation, he realized this was my first time in the OR. He made sure I had a "front row seat" and instructed the nurses and residents to make sure I could see the entire procedure and that I had someone to answer my questions throughout the surgery. I learned quite a bit just watching and listening and every now and then, I'd have a few questions to ask. During moments of downtime, Dr. Del Pizzo would talk to me about what he was doing or about to do and explain how this novel approach (laproscopy) had a profound impact on how surgeries were done. In the past, a kidney transplant procedure involved a large incision in the side/back of the patient to get to the kidney which involved cutting through not only fat but muscle, making patient recovery time 3-4weeks not to mention very painful. Now, a small incision near the belly button is made then using a scope/camera and small surgical utensils, the kidney is removed all through one small cavity (craziness!). It was actually fairly impressive. 

Following the kidney nephrectomy, I followed Dr. Del Pizzo out of the OR in Greenburg to another operating room specifically for the Urology department on the 9th floor of Starr Pavilion. The next procedures involved a kidney stone (DRINK LOTS OF WATER-- you do not want to have to undergo this procedure let alone deal with the pain of passing a stone!). One part of the surgery required the insertion of a stint removal/replacement to provide the patient a pain free way to relieve himself while bypassing the kidney. Following that procedure, the kidney stone was broken up into smaller pieces using a holmium fiber laser that was inserted via the ureter to the stone location. Watching the resident surgeon work to repeatedly position the laser and blast the stone into smaller pieces then maneuver a small gasket to clamp and pull out pieces of stone by watching the screen oddly reminded me of watching my brother play video games growing up (I would have taken the controls myself except he always hogged the remote).

Post for Week 1 (abbreviated to make up for the length above):

My first week was fairly uneventful. I spent most of my time looking up papers to read and working in the library. I did meet with my physician Dr. Guathier multiple times to talk about potential projects as well as hash out summer plans. Dr. Gauthier is a nuerologist specializing in Multiple Sclerosis. Her life is a balance between research and clinical responsibilities; she spends 3 days of her week working on research related things and 2 days working in the clinic seeing patients not to mention her other responsibilities within the hospital as an attending. I also teamed up with some of my peers and did rounds in other departments as well as explored parts of the hospital while trying to stay out of the way of people actually working to save lives.