It occurs to me about once a month that a journal might have the word “jour” in it for the peculiar reason that one might consider writing about his day-to-day life in it. Yes, that strange non-electronic interfacing. Where I’m in fact male, in fact very much not anorexic (unlike all the people I draw), and also not in the least bit able to use normal conversational language.
This summer’s highlight so far has really been shadowing at the hospital. I don’t think I’m at liberty to really talk about much of the specifics (because it’s the patients’ and doctors’ own business, and because this isn’t really the right place for it anyhow), but I can at least say that in the days I’ve been there, I’ve been able to see interactions with patients with anything from sleep apnea to cancer (very depressing …) to heart failure to seemed-like-something-but-fortunately-was-nothing; surgeries on inguinal, umbilical, and diaphragmatic hernias, laparoscopic cholecystectomy – gallbladder removal (brand new flat-screen TV panels!), cardiac catheterization (with rotoablation* followed by the introduction of multiple stents), and chest lymph node extraction; and five major endoscopic procedures – bronchoscopy (with fluoro, for lung biopsy), colonoscopy (to check for polyps), ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, for removal of gall stones from the bile duct), PEG (percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, aka putting in a feeding tube), and upper GI endoscopy (which diagnosed gastritis).
Needless to say, I am very, very grateful for the wonderful opportunities that I have been given. I never would have imagined being able to watch and listen to so many interactions with patients or being able to stand that close to the operations (and even getting to help set up some background music or turn on/off the fluoro via the foot pump when the nurse had to go get something). I am certainly fortunate to be blessed with such great doctors who have explained so much for me and opened my eyes to so much that I never knew about before.
* there isn’t a Wikipedia article for this, but it’s just using a tiny drill to remove plaque that’s blocking an artery, in this case for the purpose of getting a stent past the plaque along the guidewire.
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