Fresh blood..

I definitely feel like fresh blood in the hospital. For one, the place is huge and hallways are always twisting and turning on themselves and you're almost always lost and disoriented in there. Not to mention constantly being reminded of just how little you know compared to most everyone else there. I'm catching on though. It seems like mostly lectures and conferences still, we actually spend much much less time with patients on the wards than I was expecting. But I did manage to make it in on my first surgery today. It was what's called a carotid endarterectomy. It's a procedure where you go into the neck to uncover and open one of the carotid arteries in order to remove all of the fatty plaque that builds up in there with age. It's to increase the flow of blood to the brain and "hopefully" prevent a stroke. It was impressive to see them working around such a delicate artery and all the while having the patient be totally awake during the entire procedure.

Tomorrow, everyone is on vascular clinic, but I think we have lectures all day back at the school.
Honestly, one of my main complaints about this service is that we always seem to have lectures or conferences to attend, and no one bothers to tell us what time or where they are. We always just have to find out second hand. We think we have lectures tomorrow, but no one is even sure how many or where. I'm sure we'll find out though, things have seemed to work out so far.