The first week of 3rd year has come and passed in a whirlwind. Vascular Surgery at JFK Hospital is my first 6-week rotation. After 3 days of orientations, meetings, videos, trainings, and certifications, I saw patients with my surgeon in the office on Thursday.
There exists various preconceptions that medical students have about certain specialties. Regarding surgeons, it is recurrently assumed that the doctors don?t know their patient. Often this is accurate. They meet the patient beforehand, they schedule the surgery, they see them afterwards, and that?s the end of their relationship.
But there are other patients that need constant follow-up who actually become more than a stranger to the surgeon. I witnessed several interactions between the surgeon and his patients similar to what I?d witnessed in a general practitioner?s office. The open and relaxed environment was apparent as the surgeon weaved in and out of lightheartedly joking with and comforting his patients. It was a sight I hadn?t expected and was happy to see: there can be a gratifying doctor-patient relationship in surgery.
Friday, I scrubbed in on two surgeries ? a tracheostomy and a femoral artery embolectomy and endarterectomy. And of course, over the operating table during the tracheostomy, I was asked a bunch of anatomy questions about the neck muscles because all I had been reading about the night before was endarterectomies of the femoral artery.
I?m convinced the Socratic Method works. The combination of being already trembling and sweaty because you?re in surgery and you?re not a surgeon, and then getting asked a question to which you don?t know the answer provides a level of awkwardness and embarrassment that will force you to look up the answer as soon as you get a chance so as to avoid this situation again at all possible costs.
That being said, the strap muscles consist of the sternothyroid, sternohyoid, thyrohyoid, and two bellies of the omohyoid. Will I be asked that again? Unlikely. But I?ll be ready.
With the first two years of medical school and the Step 1 of the boards completed and passed, I finally felt like I had grasped something in medicine. I had proven that I was competent in physiology, pathophysiology, microbiology, and pharmacology. Plus, I felt confident with my history and physical exam skills.
After this first week, the all too familiar feeling of the more I learn, the more I realize I don?t know has returned. This is the feeling of the medical student. I suppose it felt strange without it the first few weeks following the Step 1. And now it?s back with a vengeance. Will this feeling of barely treading water in a tumultuous sea of medical knowledge ever leave me? Or is this what ?lifelong learning? is all about?
I hope when I?m a practicing physician I will have constructed a sturdy boat of experience and I will only have to occasionally trace my hands along the surface of the ocean day to day as I navigate patient problems and diseases. But for now, I?ll have to settle with a few pieces of driftwood.

Source: http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/becoming-a-doctor/2010/06/27/treading-water/
Jill Duggan Jill Duggan Palm Beach Jill Duggan Palm Beach Florida Jill Duggan Florida Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman