Interesting friday

Today was an interesting day, and it sums up my year well...... there have been a lot of great experiences at the hospital with a lot of variablity.

This morning I assisted my attending doctor during a vasectomy (male sterilization). I have never done one before, let alone never seen one done. It took about an hour, 10 mls of lidocaine and a few instruments, but without using a scalpel the procedure was done. It was mostly painless (it didn't hurt me a bit) and it was very cool to see. If I do more of them under supervision then I may be able to do them myself.

In the afternoon I was working in a dermatology clinic..... we see about 10 skin cancers a day. Today we had a patient in who has a history of melanoma and a new skin lesion that looks strikingly like melanoma. We excised it with 1 cm margins which left him with a cut that was 12 cm (4 in) long...... suprisingly, the doctor who was attending allowed me to cut out this giant piece of flesh on the patient's chest and then do most of the stitching. I was tremendously slow and a little bit embarrassed at my lack of skills, but it is done....