Pediatric Neurosurgery

This past Monday I was able to go on my first actual mentor visit and it is safe to say I was blown away. I am not a morning person and I usually find it extremely difficult to wake up early. But when Monday morning rolled around, I was up about one hour before I even needed to be up. Once I arrived at the hospital, I changed into scrubs and for the first hour or so, shadowed Nurse Practitioners. I was able to see two spinal taps and it is amazing how much I learned through those two procedures. Although the procedure itself was the same, because it was preformed on two 2 very different patients, I was able to learn quite a bit of information. After that, I went into the operating room and watched my mentor and one of the residents preform a tumor removal on a patient. Before going into the operating room, I was quite worried.  Some of the nurses had warned me that the smell might be overwhelming and instructed me to take a sit if I ever felt dizzy or nauseous. The fact that they even had to tell me that was quite worrying. However, after stepping into the operating room, I did not even notice anything -- I was more fascinated by what was going on. There were x-rays on the walls and various equipment spread out across the room. In addition to my mentor and the resident, there were 3 other nurses and an anesthesiologist. During the initial part of the surgery, the anesthesioloist should me her side of the job and walked me through what exactly her job and tasks entailed. Not only did she teach me about what she did, she also explained why her job was necessary in regards to the patient and how the body reacted to whatever drugs she was adminstering. The surgery itself lasted about 4.5 hours and it amazes me how fast the time went by. There was never a moment in which I was bored or disinterested. I could go on for quite some time about how much I enjoyed my visit, but I will spare you the otherwise belaboring details. I cannot wait for my next visit!