Week 5 - Sara

This week has been very exciting as I decided to step outside of urology and explored the different departments.

I went to cataract surgery with Jose's mentor, and it was definitely a very interesting experience. The patients are only under local anesthesia so they can still hear the surgeons. Also, it felt weird that the surgeon was operating directly on the eyeball with the patient awake as I could still see the patient constantly moving their eyes. The surgery was actually minimally invasive with almost no blood loss. The tools are also very specialized to allow for the opening of the eye bag to break up and remove the cataracts by aspiration, and then the insertion of a new plastic lens that have arms to hold the lens in place. A new fellow also was present at the surgery and has taken the liberty to explain various aspects of the surgery to us, which was extremely helpful.

I also had the opportunity to be in labor & delivery, which happened to be a fascinating, wonderful and heart-warming experience. I observed a scheduled C-section in the morning. The surgery was much quicker than I had anticipated. Essentially, a cut was made in the lower abdomen and the uterus was cut open. The baby was pushed out by the surgeon from the stomach. The nurses then proceeded to clean and examine the baby after the umbilical cord was cut (they took her footprint!). All of this occurred in a merry atmosphere in which the father was present also, and everybody was conversing about their dinner plans. The stark contrast between this surgery and other surgeries I have observed in the past weeks definitely stood out to me.

I also observed a vaginal birth later in the day. The hospital has a screen that tracks the heart rate of the mother and the baby. Designated nurses also go in and check with the mother to determine when is the best time to deliver (or push!). I was amazed that the delivery does not need to occur in the OR, but instead in the private bedroom the mother was already located. The pain experienced by the mother prior to the delivery was definitely unbearable as many of them were shaking, could barely talk and sweating. The pushing part was also another entire new experience as the nurse teaches the new mother how to combine her breathing and pushing with her lower back muscle with her contractions. It was also amazing to see the baby coming out of the mother with subsequent pushes. The quick pushing by this mother also gave me the illusion that vaginal labor is easier than I anticipated, but I have learnt from nurses that pushing may go on for hours depending on the mother and the situation. (Eek!)

Finally, I also went into NICU with Dr. Frayer in the morning. The rounds were definitely not what I expected. In the beginning, so much was going on that I was just overwhelmed. Eventually, I began talking to one of the residents, who then proceeded to explain the different conditions of the newborns and what treatment they were to receive. It was also interesting to see the high number of twins and triplets from IVF due to early childbirth. After the rounds, Dr. Frayer explained to me the normal procedures used to treat the baby (i.e. feeding to help the babies grow) and the diagnostic procedures used to diagnose these babies. He also took me to pediatric radiology to looked at the MRI (to examine the bone and brain of the baby) and chest Xray (to examine the lungs of the baby).

I also went to clinic with my mentor this week, and everything is as per usual. Project-wise, I cancelled my experiment this week as it took longer than expected for me to get my cells, but I have schedules more experiments for next week and hopefully (fingers crossed...) I can finish them before I leave.