Hi again, i dont know why i am doing this. I often talk with my friend , who i have known a great many years, that its time to pass the baton, figuratively, to the next generation of doctors. We as physicians, all share a burden of despair and irrepairable grief, but thats another story and another time. Today, i want to focus on the more positive moments of medical school. Medical school is a bitch. There is no other word to describe this, there is no other feeling, in my opinion. This is all my opinion, and my opinion only.
As a junior medical student, i went through my surgical rotation. I cant remember how long it was, but this was the general surgical rotation that everyone must do, and then you could pick some electives for further surgical training. So one day, the four of us, started rounds with the surgical attending physician. And the question came, what nationality has the most fat content. So the professor, asked us, one at a time, and we each answered, and then instead of giving us the answer, he asked us again, round two. Well no one got it. And i remember, my team, we had some studs on our rotation. One of the studs was a woman, and hell, if she didn’t know it, then forget about all the rest of us. Lol. So round two, came and went , quickly, very quickly. And the professor got angry and started berating us, with , “where did you get ur license, from sears and roebuck”. “You call yourselves doctors, you guys are nothing but quacks” , “i would be ashamed and i would go home and cry, because no one is going to make it through this surgical rotation” , “Did you buy your license at the Mall” , “Was there a special going on, two for one”, “Did you cut out a coupon in the newspaper to get ur degree” I had never seen my professor as angry as i had that day. He had stopped rounding on the patients and was just yelling at all of us. At that moment in time, the key is to look down, never make eye contact with the professor, and hope one of the nurses on the unit could distract him. No such luck this time. Well we waited for the answer, the answer finally came, and it was the the Eskimo because of all the blubber they eat. I started to laugh at loud, but quickly held that. And then i got angry. And once rounds were over finally, we talked amongst ourselves and all of us felt, he had taken this way too far. No one in my entire group had ever seen an Eskimo, let alone treated one. EVER, and we were all quite sure, an Eskimo had never been seen or treated at the hospital we were at. So all of us, felt, this was a step too far, by this professor, and he had a reputation for this.
The next day, we were in surgery. It was an exploratory abdomen, and this may have been my first surgical operation. That part i can not remember. But all of a sudden, the heart stops and the ekg started flat lining, and the alarm went off. Now at that time, there is a nurse, assigned specifically to start the 5 minute clock, because after 5 minutes, with no oxygen to the brain, the patient’s brain is dead. So pretty immediately, i hear over the intercom, they are paging the professor to come to the OR stat. Meanwhile, the surgeon, probably the 3rd year resident , i can’t remember, was trying to fix the problem. And after every minute, the nurse would count it down, “4 minutes”, then “3 minutes”, then “2 minutes”, then “1 min”. By that time, they had paged the professor multiple times. Suddenly, with perhaps 25 seconds to go, the professor enters the operating room, and i can’t remember if he had gowned up. All i remember is this, without saying one word to anyone, including the chief resident, he stuck his left hand into this woman’s open abdomen, turned his hand backward to get around the stomach, and with his one hand, (his left hand, and i cant remember if he was a lefty or not) tied off the bleeder, the machines started to chime again, the heart began to pump normal and we had normal EKG functioning with seconds to spare, i am sure. As quickly as he had come into the operating room, he left just as quickly, without saying a word. The operation continued and there was a successful outcome. All of us understood the significance of this man. After that, for the rest of the time, i was on his rotation, i called him , Sir and he was G-D to me. (OH, and I also read about eskimos and i am not ashamed to admit that one) In all my years of medicine, i have never seen something like that again, and i never really want to either.
I went back for my 25th medical school reunion and on the surgical board, this professor had become chairman of the surgical department. I smiled at that, and felt, what a fitting end for him.
