Week 6: Uniklinik? More like Un-clever title for this Post

This week, we went to the Uniklinik medical facility and had the absolutely amazing opportunity to watch surgeries as they happened, feet or even inches from the actual procedure. One thing I’ll note is that I’m not a big fan of how we keep getting separated by BMEN vs BIMS. Though, this time, Jessica came with our group instead of the BIMS students so that was a variation on the routine. Anyway though, Uniklinik. On Wednesday morning around 7, we went to the clinic and were split into smaller groups of 2-3 for each type of surgery and then sometimes further divided into individual surgery rooms. I was initially paired with Yoong and we were lead to the ENT area of of the clinic and watched the removal of a lymph node from a patient’s jaw. The anesthesiologist (who was very nice and helped us understand the procedures being undertaken by the surgeons) told us about how the patient had previously had a tumor in a lymph node in the same area and had actually grown multiple extra lymph nodes in the area. She had been feeling soreness and other symptoms in the same area and was worried about a recurrence of the cancer. By the time Yoong and I got there, she had already been put under and were finishing up preparations before they took her into the room. We got seats that gave us a relatively clear view of what the surgeons were doing but, given the nature of surgery, their hands blocked large portions of the view. However, the information given to us by the anesthesiologist and what we were able to see made the experience for sure worth the time. After they removed the lymph node, they let us leave and check out other surgeries while they waited for the lab results to come back (it turned out later, luckily, that she had not had a recurrence of her tumor). 

For the rest of the day, we browsed the rooms of a few other surgeries including a cardiac surgery of some kind and an orthopedic surgery (I came in mid way through these surgeries so I was not always certain what the issue at hand was). At one point, I heard I might have the opportunity to watch a neurosurgery and I was incredibly excited that I might have such an experience. However, I eventually realized that the neurosurgery area was in a building I did not know how to get to and I was very tired after the excitement of the day so I decided to return back to the AIB and get to the plethora of work left to be done. We had the next day off for the most part, which was nice, but a lot of it was spent preparing for the math 308 test we had that night. I am fairly confident in how I did on the test except the last question which did trip me up for a while before I managed to figure out the answer. Well, an answer. We’ll see if it was the right answer later, I guess.