Zwölf

The first surgery I saw at the Uniklinik was of an infected knee joint replacement. The replacement was an older model that none of the doctors really knew the specifications of. Also the patient’s heart rate got dangerously low so operating on removing the knee joint replacement was out of the question. The model also used less sophisticated materials which could have been a reason why it became infected. The surgeon just drained out the pus and infection and flushed it with water and saline solution. The knee joint replacement has to eventually come out but only when the patient can take on a full surgery. The next surgery was not until an hour later so the surgeon suggested me to shadow someone else. After wandering around for a while and asking one doctor outside to see if I could shadow any surgeons behind closed doors, since at that time, all the operating room doors were closed, there was finally a room that I could enter. As I walked in, to my horror, I saw a urology procedure. I physically cringed as they stuck a catheter in the man’s urethra. They used some type of voltage contraption through the catheter to burn off while cauterizing some white stuff in the man’s prostate. I am not sure what it exactly was but it could have been some cancerous tissue growth they needed to remove. We went to the Anesthesia Museum on Friday. It was very interesting seeing the development of anesthesia through out history. We learned some of the development of anesthesia in our pharmacology class.