Another day, another procedure

Today was pretty cool, again.

I am just waiting for this bubble to burst. I mean, I need to really mess up soon, don't I?

I got to do/help with two procedures. In the first, I did sutures on a person's finger. The last time I did sutures was about 1.5 years ago on a dead pig's foot. It is amazing how similar this guy's skin was to a dead pig's... Not exactly sure what that means, but there you have it. The sutures weren't the best, but there were only two and it was on his finger. Also, this guy didn't really mind what was going on. He apparently has had over 700 stitches throughout his lifetime. It was a good first suture patient. :)

The second procedure was to help remove a little skin tag from the inside of a woman's nose. I injected the lidocaine solution to numb up the area and then the doctor removed the skin tag. That was an odd location.

I also got to see my first patient that had a new problem that was quite possibly very serious. It seems like he was in the beginning of congestive heart failure. Unfortunately, I will not be a part of any final diagnosis this guy has because it will be made by a cardiologist. It was disturbing to me to realize what this patient probably has and what his course might be like. It is not disturbing to me because of the physical course of the disease, it is disturbing because I actually had the knowledge to be able to make the possible diagnosis.

One of the other highlights of today was a patient who thanked me for my caring attitude. She also said that she "knew" I was going to be a good doctor because I actually was listening to her. She told me not to lose that art (active listening) and that she wished me good luck in the remainder of my schooling. I really wished that I could fold her up and stash her away in my pocket for the day sometime in the future where I make a mistake and wonder what the heck I was doing.

I am still continually being amazed at how much I learned over the past two years. What keeps happening is that I feel like I won't know a diagnosis or the name of a certain feature, but when I am told what it is, the information is dredged up out of the recesses of my mind and dusted off. It turns out that I have been exposed to (in at least a verbal manner) many of my daily encounters. I didn't remember them, however, because I didn't have an experience to tie the name to (like a patient encounter). Now that I am seeing patients, the names are sticking soooo much better!