I Heart Surgery

On Wednesday morning, I started my day by inhaling my breakfast and sprinting down the hill at 6:27 am to catch my train. I arrived the station breathing hard (Do not worry. It's the normal and healthy exercise induced hyperpnea. Otherwise known as panting ,but humans don't pant. Dogs pant. Can you tell I have a physiology exam next week?) and managed to get a place standing by a handrail in the crowded train car. After a 20 minute ride and a short walk, I arrived at the bus station where I met my fellow classmates and we caught our bus to the local university's hospital.

There we got to change into scrubs  and were assigned to different types of surgery. I think they loved me because I got heart surgery ;). Seriously, it was probably the perfect assignment. I loved every second of it!  I was able to shadow the surgery of a man getting a mammary artery bypass and a part of his inter ventricular septum cut off because it was obstructing the flow of blood to his aorta. The anesthesiologist I shadowed was extremely nice and answered any questions I had about anything going on in the surgery. Preparation for the actual surgery took about an hour. The anesthesiologist and nurse placed catheters in the patient to administer medication, attached ECG leads, drew blood, set up the blood pressure and blood oxygen systems.  The patient was then wheeled into the operating room. During the surgery, there were at least 3 doctors in the room (two surgeons and the anesthesiologist), the pump specialist (the pump functions like the lung and heart of the patient because during surgery both organs are not functioning), a nurse handing the physicians instruments, and at least two other individuals who helped with the other odds and ends of the surgery like fetching a specific instrument from the adjoining room.  As a biomedical engineer, seeing all the computer systems and machines was extremely interesting and inspiring! The operating table was the coolest thing. It went up and down, tilted from side to side, and tilted the patients feet up and head down or vice versa. It was very precise and moved slowly. My anesthesiologist held the REMOTE!! Like with no wires!! Ok, so I know we are in the twenty first century but still. A table controlled by a remote in an operating room. Do you know how reliable that remote has to be? How hard those engineers worked on that? It was glorious.

Ok, now enough about the fancy equipment. On to the surgery. They opened the chest and the patients heart was beating! Moving! I thought I would be squeamish as I peeked over the green screen between the sterile and non-sterile sides. However, it was the exact opposite. Throughout the surgery I found myself moving around the room trying to get a better view of what the surgeons were doing. Everything from the opening of the chest, to the stopping and starting of the heart and lungs, to the eventual stitching of the tissues layer by layer was incredible. The only time I felt a little uncomfortable was when the surgeon was removing the vein from the patients leg for the bypass. As I saw the cuts in the patients leg, I started having sympathy pain in the exact same leg. Just thinking about makes my leg feel funny.

My favorite part was definently seeing the heart beating. Our body's are just so incredible and to be able to see the heart in action just blew my mind! Every moment I stood in that operating affirmed my decision to enter into the medical field. I ❤ medicine!