I can breathe again

Well I'm finally beginning to feel like myself again since being sick for most of this week. It wasn't a very fun week and having it be my first week at Ben Taub certainly didn't help much either. However the past two days have been considerably better. Yesterday we did two "prostatectomies", which are complete removals of the prostate gland, usually from prostate cancer. The surgeries were fast paced and fun to help with, especially since I got to really help the scrub nurse with passing instruments back and forth. It doesn't sound like much fun, but with things flying back and forth and the two surgeons litterally yelling for things faster than you know what's going on, it was really fun and exciting. (medical nerd speaking I know). The surgeries were long, but the time flew by and the day was over before I knew it. It also meant we spent minimal time in the clinics which so far I can't stand here at the Taub. It's not so much the clinic aspect, but the administration which is horrible. Nothing is where you need it when you need it, and it's that way all day long. So I was happy I didn't have to deal with that.

Today was Thursday so a half clinic day/half afternoon lecture day. But it got started off with a 7 am comedy session almost. Every morning at 7 we have our subspecialty lectures, and this week has been all ophthalmology. This morning was ophthalmic trauma and emergencies and the professor was hilarious, sometimes at our expense but we were all still laughing our heads off, and at 7 in the morning that's quite the accomplishment. We were talking about injuries that can happen around car batteries and Drano, specifically alkali chemical burns, and he was just having a ball with the people who didn't know how to jump start a car, or even how Drano works. So then we got to talking about a patient who claimed to be whacked upside the head with a 2 by 4, he had several gashes across his face and a place where the hair was taken off his eyebrow. He was trying to get us to come up with a way that a 2 by 4 can "shave" the eyebrow off of someone, since being beaten that way usually doesn't leave injuries such as that. Well once clueless classmate answered rather reluctantly that maybe he was using a 2 by 4 that was somehow dripped in Drano, and of course this brought out instant hilarity from everyone in the crowd. After the lecturer himself stopped laughing he then claimed "Why stop there, why not have a 2 by 4 dipped in Drano, set on fire and soon you could have plague, death, famine and pestilence and the rest of the Four Horsemen come and take the other eyebrow." It's probably one of those things where you had to be there, and it being 7 o'clock in the morning, none of us were really in our right minds, but we just nearly about died with laughter. It was at least a good way to start off the day. Clinic went much better too. Still had some problems communicating with the patients, but it was pedi urology day so it was at least fun. And of course we got out at a predictable time too which is always nice.