Hepatectomy

Today on the last day of my surgery rotation I helped cure an old lady of cancer by taking out the entire right side of her liver. (mostly I watched and held held a retractor sometimes)

I have a strong understanding of the importance of what we did. But there is something about being in the moment of surgery where the gravity of seeing all the arterial and venous architecture of the liver dissected away is lost on me. This is stuff that even most physicians rarely see more than once unless they are surgeon specializing in liver surgeries. And while my instructor is telling me this and having me touch these vessels with my own hands to feel the blood pulsing through them I am just thinking about how sore she's going to be when she wakes up. 

So for a third year rotation I got to be very involved with these surgeries.  But I think I learned that while caring for critically ill surgical patients is interesting - actually standing around an operating table is not my cup of tea. 

The cartoon picture from the San Francisco Center for Liver Disease is about as close as I will get to that again.