The Curious Scalpel

I had a great time on call (again), this time we happened to see 3 gallbladder cases in a row: one with cholecytitis and two with probable choledocholithiasis.  It was a good learning experience, I think, because I have since assigned faces to these amorphous disease monographs.  Two other exciting events took place yesterday: 1) I scrubbed in on a laparoscopic splenectomy and got to see it done with great skill by an expert (it really makes a difference when the surgeon has a plan 5 steps ahead of time), and I got to do the closing sutures... and 2) I got to scrub in on a hip replacement! Here, let me describe some wonderfully gory detail since I haven't done that in a while and want to see if the red on my screen's pixels still works (Ed's note: Storbag is turning 4 in Feb ( Meta -Ed's note: Storbag is my computer)).  Ask our old friend Joe Everydude how to replace a hip, and he'll probably sit there for a minute asking himself why on Earth one would do such a...

I'm going to use today's post to discuss the Medical Student Gloves Phenomenon (MSGP).   The MSGP is a proposed principle of universal functioning, observed by yours truly (and probably several hundred thousand other people before me, but they didn't put it on their blogs and if they did I'm not following their blogs, so it's their fault).  It is basically summed up thusly: The Medical Student's gloves will almost always be the cleanest gloves in the OR. The Corollary to the Medical Student Gloves Phenomenon(MSGP-c) is that whenever the medical student's gloves are NOT the cleanest gloves in the room, one or more of the following things MUST be true: 1) it's a trauma, and blood just goes where it goes. Just as likely to hit the student as the ceiling. (90%) 2) the medical student contaminated him/herself (8%) 3) resident or attending just changed gloves (1.9%) 4) it is an extremely boring case and they're letting the student do everything (...

No surprise there. But interestingly enough, the thing that really clinched it for me did not happen in the OR. I was on call last night, which basically means I worked during the day (it's usually 6am to 6pm, ish) and then stayed overnight in the hospital to do more work.  It's better than it sounds, if you like what you're doing. Anyway, I was on the consult service with the 2nd-year general surgery resident, who is really awesome - knew exactly what he was doing, had a good idea of what I knew and what I was supposed to get from the experience, and a very good teacher. Anyway, so we get a few calls, go see a few consults, and before I know it, I look at the clock and it's past midnight.  It was crazy.  I hadn't eaten in 7 hours, I hadn't slept in 20, and I felt like I could stay there working for another 24 hours.  It was that good.  Now, that isn't to say that the OR is not as good.  It's also awesome.  I got to operate the bovie a bit this we...