This is So Cool

Skipping Outside the OR

In OBGYN, I’m in an OR where we're doing gyne stuff. It’s really cool, but at the same time, as a clerk you're just watching. So I’m scrubbed in on a laparoscopic surgery, and I'm just looking at the screen the whole time. I couldn’t hold the camera because a resident was scrubbed in. It's kind of cool, but also not really, because I don't do anything.  Then I was my first c-section, and that was so --ing cool. It's amazing and barbaric at the same time. You go in there for the c-sections, and we’re just going to rip open someone’s belly and shove the baby out! I loved it!

There was a day that me and Olena (another student) were on the floor. I went into the OR for the c-section, and I didn't just stand there and do nothing. My attending let me help her and let me hold things. At the end of the procedure, she was like, “Do you want to close?” I was like, “Yeah, I want to close!” She asked me if I knew how to do the sub q stitch, and I was like, “Yeah, I've been practicing.” Like, literally I had been practicing on the little flesh pad thing. I thought that I would never really use any of that other than doing laceration repairs in the emerg. So, I do sub qs through the belly. My attending’s watching me, the resident’s watching me, and they’re giving me nice feedback. I was trying to stay super cool and calm. When I’m done, she said that I could head out and I was like, “Okay, thank you” and I walk out of the OR calmly. The second the door closes, I'm skipping, I am SKIPPING down the hallway. I did a little happy dance because there's no one around. Then, I ran over to Olena and I'm like, “I just closed the skin! It was amazing!” In clerkship, there's been things I've liked like delivering a baby, but there’s nothing that had made me feel so accomplished. It was such a little task, but I finished it and did a good job. I looked at it thought, “Yeah, I set that up and the line is straight and she's not gonna have a bad scar.” I felt really --ing cool. When I say skipped, I SKIPPED outside of that OR.