Shadowing in the OR

This week I shadowed an orthopedic surgeon in the operating room and watched him do two cases. At first, I was a bit grossed out by seeing the surgical fellow pull on stuff inside the dude's knee, mostly because I was imagining how much it would hurt to have my tendons stretched like that. But then I remembered the patient had a nerve block, was under general anesthesia, and was prescribed some serious pain killers for recovery, and the feeling of empathetic pain went away.

For the first procedure, I had some decent questions to ask the surgeon because I have a bit of background with that injury and knew generally what to ask. So it wasn't so awkward. But the second procedure consisted of me standing quietly in the corner not saying a word, until the surgeon mentioned he had lived in Italy and I inquired where because I, too, had lived in Italy recently. Other than that, I kept my mouth shut, which is not the way to go apparently.

My interactions didn't get any better after that, and instead I managed to communicate the fact that my undergrad GPA was crap and that I don't like evening classes, which resulted in the surgeon chuckling a bit under his breath. Oops. Way to make a good impression. Not! I should just learn to keep my mouth shut.

One of the biggest issues I had with shadowing was not knowing when it was ok to ask questions. The surgeon also had a fellow doing most of the work so he was teaching a fair amount of the time, and I didn't want to interrupt that. He was also doing a lot of shop talk with the biomedical sales reps so that didn't seem like a good time to interject with a question. But there was also a lot of silence, so I can't use all that as an excuse.

My other problems included not being prepared for the second procedure, and being too afraid to ask "stupid" questions. The thing is, as a pre-med, I'm not expected to know anything so unless I'm asking things like "What the heck is a shoulder?", my questions most likely aren't perceived as idiotic.

I'm generally a very curious person, so why do I have such difficulty being around doctors? Why am I so quiet and insecure about medicine? These are the questions to answer.

And since this was supposed to be a learning opportunity, here are some lessons learned:

1. Being prepared is always a good thing.
   I should have looked up the second procedure before I observed one because then maybe I could've asked some decently intelligent questions.
2. I don't have to come off as awesome all the time.
   I need to stop being afraid to ask seemingly stupid questions. Usually, they're not stupid and I have a right not to know the answer.
3. Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
   I need to learn to paint myself in the best possible light and stay away from the self-deprecating talk. I shouldn't lay out my flaws for everyone to see.
4. Doctors usually like teaching.
   This especially applies to those at teaching hospitals and those who take on fellows, so I should not be too intimidated to ask questions. They are most likely more than happy to answer them. At least that has been my experience with all the doctors I've encountered. They've been pretty awesome.

I may ask to shadow this same surgeon again over the summer to see a joint replacement. The two procedures I had yesterday were mostly arthroscopic so replacements would be a nice change. And it would give me a shot at redemption.

Mostly, I want a re-do because if I get into the local medical school, I will most likely be asking to do research with this surgeon. So I need to make a better impression of preparedness than I did this time.

Oh, I almost forgot to add...I posted a thread about this to SDN and this was one of the replies:

Physicians will know that a college student won't know much medicine/surgery, so don't be afraid to ask basic questions. It would be strange to NOT ask questions at your stage.

I guess I was the strange kid in the corner then. Oops.

The good part was that I was fairly animated outside of the operating room, except by that point, I had verbal diarrhea. Here I go with the self-deprecation again. It's a vicious cycle, I tell ya!