My 7th rotation was Surgery at NYPQ. This was my first rotation at NYPQ so I felt a bit loss on my first day as I was trying to get my ID and access to the computer system. My first 2 weeks were in general surgery, and the last 2 weeks were in other surgical departments such as urology, neurosurgery, ENT and vascular. Overall, I enjoyed all 4 weeks and I got a lot from this rotation.
After 2 weeks of general surgery, I did 3 days in urology, 4 days in neurosurgery, 2 days in ENT and one day in vascular. I was lucky to rotate in so many different surgical departments and got to see a lot of different surgical cases. A normal day in NYPQ surgery would start at 5-5:30 am when I would go and see my patient in the morning and ask them (if awake) and the nurses how patient did overnight. I would then present my patient everyday to the surgical team during morning rounds and receive any feedback. After morning rounds I would then go scrub to my assigned cases for the day and introduce myself to the patient and surgeon. Around 5pm I would then go back upstairs and meet with the team again and do a final round-up before heading home.
One element that I loved during this rotation was the ability of scrubbing/observing for any case that you were interested in. Surgeons and residents were very welcoming and always willing to teach and explain. I was able to scrub for a lot of cases that I was not assigned but was interested in such as a few plastic surgeries and orthopedic cases such as total knee replacement.
One memorable experience during this rotation was during my ENT rotation. I was able to scrub in for a “commando procedure” which included mandibulectomy, neck dissection, flap from pec major, tracheotomy, block dissection of the cervical nodes and partial glossectomy. Patient was diagnosed with oral cancer and the procedure lasted a total of 9 hours. It was definitely the most gruesome but also interesting case I saw during this rotation. Procedure went really well and patient was doing a lot better after it.
One challenge I experienced during my Surgery rotation was time management. Coming home after a 12-13 hour shift its almost impossible to do any schoolwork or study for most of the days. First week was really tough to adjust to the long hours and I had to really push myself to study even for just an hour once I got home after a long shift. I started to plan my weekends better and used every little break I had during my surgery rotation to study and prepare for the EORE exam.
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