Big Cases, Small Cases
Updates: 1) I'm currently a third year resident. 2) I still love what I do. 3) I'm planning on going into Hand surgery. Anyway, I thought about this blog for the first time in a long time today, and here's what reminded me of it: I was on the phone with my father, telling him what cases I had done today (which has become a pretty regular occurrence now). I mentioned the bigger cases of the day - femur fracture, hip fractures, and even some hand cases. Then, almost as an afterthought, I mentioned the relatively uneventful case (in my opinion, anyway) which was an exploration of a forearm laceration. Warning, gore ahead: The patient had sustained a cut to their forearm which nicked an artery. This means the blood was pumping out rather briskly, and so she was brought to the OR for exploration. We washed it out and found the source of the bleeding, which was a partially cut radial artery. The hand has dual vascularization, one arterial source bein...