That ain't supposed to happen.

How to bond with a trauma surgeon.

Catch him just as he starts to vagal.
Reach your arms around him and pull off his lead apron.
Help two other people lower him into a chair.
Support his head as he loses consciousness.
Support his head as the three of you drag him STAT in his rolling chair through the OR to a gurney in preparation to intubate.
Help five other people lift him onto the gurney.
Wheel the now alert and oriented trauma surgeon to the recovery room and help start some O's and hook up monitors.
Tousle his hair as you prop his head up on two pillows.
Tell him you will scrub in and finish assisting the case.
Stand by the bedside until he is stable and you're sure he's going to stay awake.
Tousle his hair one more time before you go scrub in.

How to freak out an assistant who loves all of the trauma surgeons.

See above.

You know you're tired when....

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You know you're tired when....

You drink a triple latte, have two giant iced teas with lunch, drink a hot double green tea on the drive home, sit down at your desk and promptly fall asleep in the office chair.

You hear something in the middle of the night and check your cell phone, home phone and pager before you find the right one because in your stupor you can't remember what any of them sound like.

You hear that same noise in the middle of the night and after checking all three of the aforementioned devices, you realize that you were just dreaming.

You wake up after a night of on-call and have slept so soundly that you are in a state of panic until you can verify that your pager never went off.

You actually nod off for a brief moment while retracting for a distal radius fracture.

You fall asleep in the middle of a meal.

It's nine thirty at night and you are positive that the trauma you scrubbed at 0330 that same morning was two days ago.

You have no idea what day of the week it is.

No matter how you wrack your brain, you can't remember where you parked so you walk around the parking garage with your remote keyless entry hitting the lock button repeatedly so you can follow the sound of your horn to find your vehicle.

You have to pull over and grab a cat nap before you can safely complete the 15 mile drive home.

You make the drive home, park in the driveway, and fall asleep before you can get out of the vehicle.

All of those big fancy medical terms you know so well completely escape you. In fact, most multiple syllabic words escape you.

You avoid eating anything but peanut butter and apples because if you eat anything heavier, it's lights out.

And, you know you're tired when ..... after working seventeen hours straight, you get a second wind.

Left brain week. Right brain weak.

All right, three drafts started and nothing finished. My brain seems to be engaged in the left hemisphere this past week. The right side is apparently lying dormant, out to lunch, gone fishin'.

I got all of my tax prep completed and off to the CPA dude. Who BTW looks exactly like the Family Guy with blonde hair. I watched an episode last night, and today while we looked over what I had brought him, I couldn't look directly at his face without an incredible urge to burst into laughter. For those of you who don't watch The Family Guy, Peter is naked at some point in just about every episode. So, who say's accountants aren't funny?

Here's an off beat quote typical of Peter.
Bonnie: Somebody save him, he can't swim!
Peter: Oh, he's not even kicking. Kick Joe, kick.
Lois: Peter, he's a paraplegic!
Peter: That doesn't mean he can't hear. Kick Joe, kick!

Well, until my creativity decides to return, I'm off to fill out a Uniform Residential Loan Application.

Do the Robot

Well, technology has finally caught up to my town. Not one, but two area hospitals have purchased the DaVinci . In casual conversation with surgeons I haven't found anyone who professes to want to use it. I hear it is great for suprapubic radical prostatectomies and no, I haven't talked to any urologists lately. Then again, how many rad prostates are done in a year? How giant is the learning curve? And how quickly can the team open if there is trouble? Another example of hospital administration spending everyone's money but their own on a behemoth that could well take, hmm how many years......well possibly, never to pay for itself.
Which brings me to the real point, for myself anyway. If, and that is a big if, this little multi-million(?) dollar piece of technology does catch on, where does that leave me in my role as first assistant? I thought laparoscopic surgery was boring (don't tell the bariatric doc I said that). It's going to be no fun at all if my only role is to exchange instruments in the cold dead hand of a robot.

Thought before dinner

I'm not on call tomorrow.
But I haven't worked today!

I didn't work yesterday and
next week, one orthopod is away.

Tonight is my last chance
of the last days three,

To do what I love the best
and get in some surgery.

O.R. Funny of the Day

I work with four orthopaedic surgeons now. Two of them are very intense. One is outwardly even tempered but has been known to go off on an occasional tantrum. The fourth one is super laid back and has a sense of humor that I totally get and he cracks me up. Today, during our last case together, I mentioned that one of the other surgeons called me by his wife's name once during a case. I thought that it showed that he was comfortable with me as an assist.

To which he replied, "That's nothin'. I told the E.R. nurse I was talking to on the phone that I loved her before I hung up."
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And, he was with his wife when he did it!

I can do that in my sleep......

Another week has flown by. I had an awesome, very busy week. Almost like old times. Scheduled cases all day, trauma all night.

Sunday night, just as I was getting ready to go to bed around 11:30, my phone rang and off I went to the hospital. Assisted the trauma surgeon until 0330 Monday morning. Then another trauma surgeon who happened to be on ER (general surgery) call that night, asked me if I wanted to help him on his two cases to follow. He and I both had cases that morning at 0730. We got done just in time to head off to other hospitals.

I had five ortho cases to assist on Monday. That evening I got home around four thirty. I fixed myself a grilled cheese sandwhich and some tomato soup, one of my favorite gourmet combinations. I settled into the recliner with my food, a warm fuzzy blanket and the cat. Next thing I know, I am trying to aspirate a mouthful of grilled cheese! What the hell! Seems I was so tired that I actually fell asleep mid-chew. As if that wasn't enough, I did it twice. I finally decided I was more tired than hungry and gave up on the food.

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