Surgery ER Duty 2 : The Stabber

Back from my second ER Duty in surgery. As fate would have it, me, Niña, Sandy, a little of kim, Dr. Fabie our acting SROD (while Dr. Varela was doing surgery upstairs) and our surgeon-rotator from Capitol Medical Center were wearing ORANGE! I didn't know if it was a goodluck charm or a curse. Our duty was more toxic than the first one but not necessarily too exahusting for me. I'm here writing right?!

Kim, Outgoing SROD Dr. Garcia, Chris, Sandy, April

I was able to do something new in this duty though. 1. I saw brain peeking from the skull of a living person (a child actually); and 2. I apposed muscle together ON MY OWN!

This kid got hit by his godfather driving a tricycle, talk about fate. I don't know what happened with this kid after he got admitted but I saw his scans and he had A LOT of fracture. I guess a tricycle's a really big vehicle if it's hitting a small child.

With Dr. Fabie temporary replacing Dr. Varela

We had a 4 stabbing victims last night. Two were stabber and his victim (he alsto stabbed back), one was stabbed two times with an ice-pick and one knife stab wound, and the last one was stabbed by the rake behind his farming tractor when it turned-over. The man hurt by the farming equipment was quickly sent to the OR while two just went home. I got the last one left (the stabber) and sew his forearm extensors together. Whew! I don't remember how long I took, must be long and I had one time I was calling for one of my residents because I had a bleeder I can't find which I found when he was already wearing gloves hehehe. Anyway I felt like a surgeon suture-ligating the vessel and then continuing on reattaching the muscles. I think I really enjoyed doing it even if I was half asleep, it was 2 am in the morning. By the time I was sewing the skin together, we had ran out of anesthesia and he was squirming. Good thing he's so drunk he really can't focus on his pain. By the way I was doing this on his left arm while his right arm was handcuffed to the stretcher (in case he runs away?!). I remember enduring his stomach turning smell, his naturally bad-odored body (hahaha) and his vomit (remember he's drunk) - lots of it urgghhh.

To cap it up, this morning while getting ready to go up to endorsement-meeting, I (along with two more residents) got hijacked by Dr. Roxas (senior resident-on-leave) to help him to do a mastectomy (for a consultant) at the Philippine Heart Center. It was my first time to see the PHC OR. Nice... It's not new but I can see that when it was built, it must have been the most advanced thing on the eastern hemisphere. It's still very well-equipped but old has blended with the new already. Heart lung machine just lying on the side. They have laminar-flow, where bacteria-filtered air in the room is directed in one direction only via an entire wall that looks like a radiator and a vacuum on the other side. This helps in keeping the air sterile.

One of the things I liked about the design of this building is that it's so intelligently designed that hospital staff and visitors/patients/family are separated functionally and physically. It has been already modified but I can see the intention of the designers, hospital staff can go around without meeting the public, separate corridors, even in the operating room. Patient's enter from one side, staff on the other you have to necessarily pass through the changing rooms to get to the OR so you can't cheat. The OR lounge area has a great view of the courtyard, scrub suits are provided for. Sigh... you can't complain about anything. I deeply thank Mrs. Marcos for this. This is one thing she did good. Kudos.

This makes me think If I still want to be a surgeon, going full-circle back to my first interest. Can't I be all of it? If I can only live forever...