Hey, who let YOU in here??

A reader boldly asked a very good question recently.  What business do I, a first-year medical student, have being scrubbed into a total joint replacement?  What do I know about surgery?  I haven't even finished half of the academic courses yet, what good could I do standing around an already crowded surgical field with minimal (more like "zero") experience?

It's a good question, and credit to the reader, he asked it in a very tactful way.  

So, what am I doing there?  The answer, of course, is learning.  Mostly.  I also help out a little, but whatever I do could be done by the resident or the surgeon, or the scrub nurse.  I pass stuff, I lift stuff, stabilize the patient when there's drilling or sawing or hammering to be done, that kind of thing.  But the learning is the key thing. I'm learning what surgery is like, trying to imagine doing that a few times a week for the rest of my life.  So far, it seems possible.  But I've got loads of time to decide, change my mind, and re-decide all over again, over and over.

It's a teaching hospital, so the philosophy is usually "see one, do one, teach one" though thankfully they don't extend that to people without adequate licensing.  I might know the whole procedure of how a total knee replacement is done, but I would never dare to attempt one because of all the things that could go wrong, and all the adjustments that would have to be made on the fly if things weren't going perfectly.  If everything went according to the manual, you know, I might be able to get it done, but there's a while until I have that kind of chance, and also that kind of responsibility.  Until then, I'll stick to passing tools and holding up a leg when asked.