Like a surgeon, cutting for the very first time

I’m 3/8 done with surgery, which seems like the natural time to sit back and reflect. Things that happened:

- 3 minutes into the rotation I started getting yelled at. True, he was a security guard in an elevator, not a surgeon, but it wasn’t a good way to start off. (He thought I should have asked him to move so I could get off the elevator, which I did, and that I bumped him, which I didn’t.)
- 5 minutes into the rotation I met one of my attendings. He greeted me with a fist bump.
- After working with me for more than 2 weeks, my team couldn’t page me because they couldn’t remember my last name.
- I’ve put in roughly 3000 foley catheters. I’ve heard roughly 2999 references to masturbation while doing so.
- I told one surgery joke, which was greeted by cold stares. I haven’t told another.
- I was saddened one morning when I referred to getting up at 5:30 as sleeping in, non-ironically.
- I’ve heard more Coldplay and Linkin Park than anyone should ever have to.
- I’ve been praised for holding a camera still, and criticized for not reading a trained professional’s mind.

I’m not going to be a surgeon.

But in actuality, it hasn’t been that bad. I have zero horror stories, and if I can make it through surgery with no horror stories I figure that’s pretty good. I think surgery is an unfortunate mix of being bored and being anxious you’ll do something wrong, but it has by no means been the torture experience sometimes described. And the first time I saw a lap chole was pretty cool; the next dozen not so much.

I’ll be pretty happy come the end of June.