"Now It's Your Turn To Stitch"

This story is about the first time I stitched a real patient.

It was my 7th day in the general surgery department at my summer practice. I scrubbed for a routine thyroidectomy procedure, which I explained in my last post that it is a procedure made to remove the thyroid gland from its anatomical position in the neck. 

The patient was a young women, well, in medicine 46 is still young. 

She grew up in a small town in Eastern Europe, and as a child she was exposed to the radioactive remnants of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. This exposure during childhood result in a disease of the gland that evolved to cancer. She underwent an ultrasound examination of her thyroid by an endocrinologist (like every women should have after a certain age, in certain countries), when she was informed of her situation and sent to us for a thyroid gland removal.

The professor himself (head of the department) was the lead surgeon in this procedure.

surgeon number 2 was standing in front of him and I was standing on a small stool above the head of the patient, which is in the territory of another species that nest in the operation theater called “anesthesiologist”.

This species doesn’t really like to be invaded by surgeons let alone by a student (the horror!). 

Anyhow, from this angle I can help holding the “muscle retractor” to open the surgical field for a clearer view.

The operation went well, first cut, cauterization of bleeding, cutting though the muscles, separate the adhesions, reveal the gland, find the blood vessels and tie them, find the recurrent laryngeal nerve (the most important part of the surgery, and secure it. We want to avoid any injury to this nerve because his rupture will lead to paralyze of the same side of the vocal folds), take the gland out, make sure that there is no bleeding and… time to close the wound. 

While closing the first layers of the surgical field, the muscles, the prof’ asked me some questions about my future intensions in medicine, what I like to do and what I find “cool” - very interesting conversation.

Then, he asked; “did you ever suture before?” I didn’t hesitate to answer that I did, but never on a patient (only pigs and chickens). He looked at me and said: “well, today is your lucky day”.

I switched places with surgeon number 2 and under the guiding of the professor I started suturing.

The feeling was great! let me tell you that it doesn’t matter how many times you practice on chicken breast or pig’s leg, there is nothing similar to human flesh. My hands were shaking for the first 2 minutes but then it passes and the rest went smoothly. 

In the rest of my time in this department, In every surgery that I scrubbed in, I was suturing and practicing different techniques. That was an amazing experience for a 3rd year medical student.