After the week in Vienna, it took a while to get back in the swing of things. I had been so used to travelling and enjoying the time that I had forgotten to worry about studying and doing well in school that when I was thrown back into it, I felt disoriented. Week 5, we had the uniklinik and my first exam.
Never in my life, I have never seen anything as cool, life-changing, jaw-dropping, etc as I did when I went to the uniklinik. when I first got there, I was watching a gallbladder removal. It was very cool to watch, it was a laparoscopy so I was able to see into the abdomen and see exactly what the surgeons were seeing, however, it wasn't extremely invasive so I got bored after the first hour. When I was there, I was planning out my day and I decided that I would leave around 1pm so I could go home and start studying for my exam that I had later that day. However, that plan completely changed when I was told by the anesthesiologist that at 2 there would be a leg amputation in the surgery room that I was in. That's when I decided: I have to stay. I had an exam review at 5:20 pm and I feared that I wouldn't see it (cause if the current surgery was taking longer than expected it would push back the next one). Nevertheless, I stayed as long as I could. And let me tell you, it was so worth it.
It started with cutting a butterfly-like incision into the patient. Originally when I thought of the incision, I simply thought it would be a straight incision at the diameter of the leg. I had never thought of the fact that there would need to be a skin flap over it, so it was nice to learn that. Then as they were cutting through the muscle and the tissue, I saw the method in which eh surgeons decided what to cut with a scalpel, what to cut with scissors, and what to cauterize. They know, for the most part, exactly what to do. However, occasionally, there would be some "sprayers", arterial blood squirting out of the leg of the patient (and one time it almost hit me!) and the surgeons explained to me that since the major arteries in the leg of the patient had begun to close, his leg had dilated his smaller arterioles in order to compensate for the low oxygenation. After cutting the muscles and surrounding tissue, it was time to saw off the bone. Apparently, the electric bone saw was being used in another operation room so all they had was the manual bone saw (even better in my opinion). To saw off the bone, they had one surgeon stabilize the bone by surrounding it in doughnut-like metal plate, while the other would saw. It was gruesome but very interesting, the bone looked to be as hard as a regular piece of wood. Once it was completely sawed off, there the leg was: once attached to a living human but now just a leg. One of the best experiences I could have asked for and something I hope I will never forget.
However, things turned around once I had to go back to the exam review and I discovered that I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was. I spent the next day and a half studying, preparing, skipping meals just to learn everything I could for the exam. When I went in the day of the exam, the test was even harder than I could've prepared for. I walked out feeling defeated, but it wasn't the first time that a test like that has discouraged me. I found out a week later that I ended up getting a 75, not a good grade on my standards, but considering the average was in the 50s, I didn't do too badly.
Overall, the week was a rollercoaster but still one of the most memorable in my life.
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