First day of surgical posting

Happy New Year! And…I am back in King’s Lynn. Today is the first day of my first surgical posting here in Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital, King’s Lynn. I was not sure what to feel. When I first started clinical school, I wanted to be a surgeon, but after watching several surgeries, I am not that sure anymore. In some way, I think Medicine is very ‘sexy’. I mean, most of the time, without touching the patient, you will know tonnes about the patient, and probably can come up with a pretty accurate diagnosis. The examination and investigations are, as if, just to support and confirm your diagnosis. It’s like solving a puzzle!

Surgery is, well, straightforward.

For this week, I am attached to the colorectal surgical team. They care for the patients mainly in Denver and Elm wards (Surgical assessment units). Since there was no teaching scheduled for the day, I was expecting my day to be quite dull and same old, as in core clinical method, with no one to entertain me, and no consultant to acknowledge my existence.

Upon arriving at the ward, I was introduced to the team. To my surprise, they were all very warm and welcoming! I met 3 consultants, 2 FY2s and 2 FY1s, who were all very keen to teach! During the ward round, the consultant explained about the conditions and even invited me to his theatre tomorrow. The FYs were kind enough to let me tag along and got me involved in whatever they were doing – from doing ward rounds, writing TTOs, issuing a proper sick notes, filling in drug charts, to clerking patients properly in the A&E. I was even supervised to do a PR in the A&E, which I only did it on mannequins before. They kept mentioning, ‘you must be bored to death watching us do this.’ But, hey, I have never seen all these before, what more got taught to fill in one of these on my own. It was all very fun and interesting, all because these were all new to me and I was actively involved!

I stayed there till 5.30pm, but the day didn’t seem long at all. For the first time, I actually get to experience the life of an FY. And for the first time, my presence was acknowledge by the firm I am attached to. Maybe, surgical posting isn’t that bad at all.