Week 19: A Surgeon's Bane

The surgery work week continued Monday back in clinic from 7am-5:30pm, surgery Tuesday from 7am-5:30pm, and Wednesday and Thursday followed suit in clinic and surgery respectively. Each of the surgery days I left before the last case of the day was even over as the chief resident Dr. Shridarani stayed often to 10-11pm each night and was back at it 6:00 am the next morning. Don't get me wrong, I found from the experiences I had watching multiple surgeries scrubbed in and patient side holding retractors, pretending to review my anatomy in situ, very rewarding and very interesting, but after this week a new realization of the surgeon's lifestyle really hit me. A surgeon's schedule stinks!

Not only was I physically and mentally drained at the end of every day, but with 4-6 hour spine surgeries under hot lights, sweating, and standing on one foot watching the time go by one surgery at a time is unrelenting as well. I mean you could pay me $700 and hour, but at the end of the day, and the end of the week, and the end of my life I probably wouldn't even have the time or energy to spend it all! It is amazing what Dr. Huddleston does in the time he has each day - and that he manages to be so involved in everything on top of it all, from being the president of the bone bank, sitting on various Mayo committees including education, and also being a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army as well.

Friday I took off just to recover as our leadership block started up on Monday. At the end of this selective I really reflected a bit on the fact that despite surgery being very interesting, it is also a lifestyle hardship making me question whether radiology or anesthesiology might fare better to allowing me to actually see Mikey grow up which I missed this week.

For now my doors are still open - but in my two weeks to attempt self-discovery in orthopedics I think I found myself with more questions than I have answers for in choosing a specialty.