Legacy Emanuel Hospital

Whoa! I'm on a roll with the blog (sarcasm). Excuse my "half-post" from a couple of days ago. I guess you could call it my very first attempt at something that may or may not (hopefully) resemble something along the lines of a hazy, preliminary college admissions essay? DONT LAUGH. 

Anyways. The real reason for today's post: I job shadowed in the Trauma center at Legacy Emanuel Hospital today. I was finally able to actually shadow and follow THE trauma surgeon. It was an awesome experience. Here's a copy of the email I sent back to the doc (he had asked for my impressions):

First of all, I'd like to thank you again for allowing me to shadow you. I truly enjoyed my time today. One of the first things I noticed while in the TRACU was the unexpected level of calm amongst the majority of the staff. I was surprised to see that so many people essentially caring for many patients with life-threatening conditions were able to stay level-headed all the time and work efficiently without panicking (like when the patient lost control of his bowels and yelled for help). I also learned that there are actually many people that "do rounds" together with the attending physician. Watching you, your interns, the pharmacist, the nutritionist, the nurses and the PAs all work together to care for the patients seemed somewhat confusing and frantic to me as an outsider at first, but as rounds continued I realized that the team was extremely well-orchestrated and very efficient in that everyone contributed to help each patient in a different way. Although there were some terms/acronyms and drugs (like oxycodone and coumadin) that I recognized, there were so many new terms that I had never heard of before (Paige was really nice and explained a lot of things to me). I also realized that the role of the trauma surgeon cares for so much more than just the immediate admission. I had thought that trauma surgeons wouldn't be as much apart of the patient's care all the way until they leave the hospital. I appreciated being able to watch you react with the patients and assess them almost through casual conversation. I especially admired your sincerity and care for each individual patient and their needs. 

The lunch/seminar was "a little bit above my head (to say the least)," but I appreciated being able to sit and listen to you teach. It was interesting to see exactly how much actual science and numbers factored into much of the clinical work (especially of just trying to maintain homeostasis). 

In short, I realized that some of my preconceptions of "the trauma surgeon" were wrong, but my experience today has done nothing but reaffirm my interest and longing to pursue emergency/trauma medicine. 

Enjoy the copy/paste extravaganza.

Unfortunately (I AM a terrible person), there were no traumas. 

I seem to continue to be the anti-trauma.

which may or may not be a good thing (probably a good thing...but still kind of frustrating sometimes).

-Your Future Trauma Surgeon