I’m currently on my 2-week Anesthesiology rotation, and I’m having an absolute blast!  I get along very well with my preceptor.  He likes to give people a hard time, and so do I, so naturally we have a pretty good time.  I knew things were going to go well on day one when he called we a “Wise A** From Nebraska.”

I always thought anesthesiology was pretty boring.  I mean, who wants to mess around on their cell phone all day.  But really, anesthesiology is anything but boring.  My anesthesiology works with the Trauma service at the hospital, so all the cases we’ve had come from the ICU.  So far we’ve helped with surgeries ranging from a fasciotomy for a case of compartment syndrome to a maxillofacial surgery for a man who was in a motor vehicle accident.  I actually got to scrub in for the second case when the surgical resident had to leave, so that was pretty cool.  We’ve also helped with several orthopedic cases, which involved a lot of drills and hammers.

The anesthesiologist gets to be involved at every step of the way.  He gets to go on rounds in the morning with the trauma team.  He meets incoming trauma patients the second they hit the ER.  He sees the patients before surgery, and helps transfer them to surgery.  He stays with them and monitors all of the vitals during their whole procedure.  And then he is the one who takes them to Post-Op and makes sure they are doing okay.  It’s really pretty cool how dedicated they get to be to one patient at a time.

All in all I’m having a really great time.  It’s fun to watch surgeries without having to stand in one place and hold retractors.  It’s fun taking care of the patient the entire time.  And it’s fun working in trauma.  I am definitely looking forward to my Critical Care Rotation when I can see my own patients in the ICU.