Due to the fact that my family are living in France and I'm attending boarding school in England, it's very difficult to do any work experience in the UK, despite my best efforts, but I did manage to find some to do in France. The obvious downside to this is that of course all of the doctors I was able to follow were speaking in french. Although at times this was frustrating for me because I was unable to ask some of the more technical questions I had, I am happy to say that I was able to understand the majority of the things the doctors were telling me in french. The anaesthetist who I was shadowing, Frederic, was extremely helpful and allowed me to see a wide range of things and also allowed me to get scrubbed up and sit in on 4 surgeries!
I was so so excited to put my scrubs on and be able to watch all of the amazing things the doctors were doing. To start with, I followed around another anaesthetist, Carine, who showed me how they put up the fluid to put the patient to sleep. It was interesting to see the fact that some of the drugs had the exact same names, such as morphine, ketamine and adrenaline. I was able to talk to this lady about the surgery I was about to watch and she told me that it was to be on a man who's chin was too large and so they were going to perform a reduction. I was looking forward to this but was obviously a little bit nervous because it would be the first time I had watched a human surgery, and despite the fact that I was not phased by the surgeries on animals I'd watched, I still didn't know how I would feel.
However, right before the op was about to start, I was ushered out by Fred who took me into another operating theatre, because apparently this operation was quicker and would allow me to see a larger variety of surgery. I arrived while the patient was still lying awake and so was able to observe the interaction between the doctors and the nervous patient. There were a lot of jokes made and the atmosphere was really light and fun despite the fact that this guy knew he was about to be cut into! I hadn't yet been told the operation that was going to take place but the interactions before the anaesthetic was administered illustrated to me how important good people skills really are in this type of career even if the majority of the time your patient will be asleep.
Fred injected the drugs in the order Carine had previously told me about and the patient fell asleep. He allowed the patient to fall into a deep sleep and then explained to me that when the patient is under, they would stop breathing if the tubes were not placed into their trachea. He used a laryngoscope to open the trachea sufficiently to show me the vocal cords and explained that the tube is placed in between the vocal cords. Once all attached to the correct places, the screen began to beep, and Frederic explained what each number meant and I was then able to watch the different numbers change as the patient became ready for the operation to begin.
I had not yet been told what this operation would be so obviously I was fairly shocked, being a 17 year old girl, when his genitals were revealed. I'm sure I must have blushed but luckily my mask should've covered that up! So all was revealed and it was very evident that there was a problem, because the scrotum was severely enlarged due to a build up of water. This was carefully removed by using an electrically charged instrument which burned away the tissue attaching the sac of fluid to the testicle.
I think it's fair to say that I was thrown in at the deep end and I wish I could say the next operation I was able to watch was slightly more pleasant (if operations can be pleasant to watch) but unfortunately it was probably equally as intense. I was watching a swollen prostate effectively be scooped out using an endoscope. The thing which I found really interesting about this was that there was a fluid pumped into the cavity of the prostate leading up to the bladder despite the fact that the instruments being used were electric. The doctor controlling the endoscope asked me if I had any questions, so I managed to ask how the fluid wasn't electrocuting the man and he told me they used a fluid which was non conducting.
Next, Fred took me for a walk around several of the operating theatres. He showed me two theatres where heart surgery was taking place but unfortunately I was unable to see anything due to the fact that there were so many surgeons around the patient. Luckily though, there was also a lung operation taking place, and I was able to see this through a glass screen on a television connected to an endoscope. Frederic explained to me that this patient was a smoker and this was very evident by the black deposits on his lungs. I watched a section of his lungs be chopped off and removed through the tube. I was so fascinated by the fact that a part of lung tissue can simply be cut off and removed so easily, even if it was damaged or dead.
Finally, I sat in on a surgery on a lady who's bladder was sitting too low down in her abdomen. Again this used and endoscope and the doctors simply made a hole just below her bellybutton and pumped air into her stomach to inflate it so that they had room to work. They then proceeded to use surgical thread the attach her bladder to the inside of her abdomen in a better area. The doctors showed me the various organs which were visible and after a rather funny conversation which involved me trying to explain the female reproductive system in english words for them, the operation finished and my crazy day in the hospital was over.
I had had an amazing time watching all of the fascinating things the doctors were doing, and this definitely just made me more excited to start my application! I could see the various qualities required to carry out this job correctly, one of which, surprisingly, is most definitely a sense of humour! Everyone was always laughing and smiling and despite how serious the environment should have been, it was still a really fun day.
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