Last week I went to surgery for the first time and I saw a patient get pins in their ankle. The patient was playing ice hockey and fell on the ankle the wrong way. The patient ended up fracturing not only the ankle, but also cracked the tibia bone that’s in the lower leg. The surgeon put two pins where the tibia met the ankle to help repair the damage It only took about 40 minutes, which I thought was very fast for a surgery. It was a great experience to be able to go into the surgery room and see how the surgery is done!
We also went in the field on Tuesday and I went back to the surgery floor. There was an ankle surgery, a knee surgery, and a scoping going on. Since I already saw an ankle surgery last week, I got to see a bladder/urethra scope. During a scope, the patient is put to sleep and they put a camera in the bladder to see if the doctor can find anything that looks abnormal. The camera is very small, but the picture is really clear. The doctor looks at the screen and if they want an x-ray taken of a certain part, the radiologist is in the room to take the x-ray. There was also an anesthesiologist in the room watching the patient’s monitors, another doctor, and three nurses to assist in handing the doctors the supplies that they need and to change the patients IV bag. They took some tissue samples from the patient’s urethra to test since the patient had a history of cancer. I think that it is really awesome how much technology is used in hospitals now and how much they can do with it. I really liked my time in surgery and could see myself working in that floor as a nurse.
