reflection
When a Surgery Resident Gets COVID Pneumonia
By Dr. Sara Parmiter I awaken fatigued with body aches, not abnormal for a surgery intern. No one would think twice about taking acetaminophen and going to work. That is how I justify it to myself now. Hurrying to the clinic, I force myself to walk faster. I sit and catch my breath feeling the sweat roll down my back. I’m just tired. Walking back to the hospital, I stop and take a break; my legs are filled with sand. By the days end, I struggle to concentrate; it is physically taxing to keep my eyelids open and type. I have a cold, thinking to myself it cannot be COVID. That evening my temperature rose to 101; I reluctantly scheduled an appointment for testing the next morning. I am tough. My entire life I have been the strong girl, the one who can grin and bear it. I pride myself...
Making the Leap from Trainee to Staff Surgeon
By Lakho Sandhu ‘The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.’ –Voltaire The moment you’ve dreamt about for years finally arrives. You pack up your belongings and move across the country or perhaps just down the hall, to start a new journey as a staff surgeon. Without a doubt, it’s an exciting moment – the culmination of years of dedication, hard work and sacrifice. It’s also a significant transition into a new role that can stir feelings of doubt and anxiety. A sense of imposter syndrome can make even the most confident among us start to second guess themselves. During my first 18 months of practice, I received many pearls of wisdom from colleagues and mentors that have eased my transition from trainee to staff surgeon. What follows is by no means an exhaustive list but just a few lessons that...
Cura te ipsum — Surgeon heal thyself
By Lilah Morris-Wiseman, MD, FACS "Stepping into the operating room to perform heart surgery on a sick patient, being fully in control of the large team of people who are required to do the procedure, and feeling totally prepared to perform the task at hand is an unbelievable feeling that can barely be described." –Renee Hartrz, MD, FACS, Cardiothoracic Surgeon, FACS website “Why do surgeons become surgeons?” I received a call from my program director after the second time I didn’t show up to work. “We need to meet,” he told me. I was a fourth-year general surgery resident on our night trauma surgery team. I didn’t wake up for my shift and I wasn’t answering my phone or pager. I woke up to let the paramedics in, but only became truly aware when there was a needle in my vein infusing dextrose. I had not adjusted my insulin pump...
#WhyIAWS: Calling on all medical students (MD/DO/MBBS) pursuing surgery
By Ashley Choi As I reflect on the past three years of being a part of the AWS National Medical Student Committee, I am blown away by how much I have grown personally and professionally. One thing is clear: AWS has given me much more than I can give back. It has gifted me with my tribe. Who we are: The “Med Student Committee” is a 20 person committee with every position grounded in leadership and service. We have specialized roles to ensure that tasks are completed in a short period of time, including Research Coordinator, Resource Development Coordinator, Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator, Social Media Coordinator, Mentorship Coordinator, and 11 Regional Representatives who together manage 80+ AWS chapters worldwide. At the end of the day, we all work together to be a resource to our colleagues in need. What we do: I want to share some of the work that...
Not What I Planned, More than I Expected
It was approaching 3:30 pm in the afternoon as I sat finishing up progress notes for the day. As I looked at my watch, I felt the feeling of dread start to creep in. At any moment I would be getting a text message from my husband about how our son’s day at school had gone. Lately, the reports had been pretty grim with lots of refusing to do his schoolwork, hitting and swearing. I had little confidence that today would be any different. The stress of raising a child with special needs and being a surgeon was starting to wear on me, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could carry on worrying as intensely about my son’s behavior as I did about the critically ill patients I cared for in the burn ICU. It would have been so easy to give up hope and believe that my...
The Token Foreigner
By Patricia Martinez Quinones “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” - Ralph Waldo Emerson Imagine receiving an email that you have been selected to present as an invited speaker at one of the largest surgical meetings. That feeling of excitement, a sense of pride, knowing all your hard work is paying off. You are wandering the hallways of your hospital and run into a senior male member of your department. Unable to contain your emotions, you share the good news, only to be met with a response of “well, looks like you’re the token foreigner.” Certainly not the response you were hoping for, not a “congratulations” or “job well done.” Your excitement, happiness and pride are now replaced by feelings of self-doubt and you sense the imposter syndrome creep back in. As a Latina in surgery my...
Being Non-Traditional in a Historically Traditional Field
By Jackelyn Moya My first memory of being in a space where I was treated in a “traditional” manner was during my senior year in high school. My counselor was creating my schedule for my final year and deciding whether he should place me in statistics or physics. I remember his words, “I doubt you’ll ever need physics in your life, so I’m placing you in statistics for your fourth class.” Without having any input from my 17 year-old self of what I planned on pursuing after high school, I accepted his statement as truth and thought, “hmm, When will I need physics?” I suppose that for my high school counselor, my traditional path would not require taking physics, so he placed me in what he assumed would be a more traditional class for me. I always knew that I loved science and wanted to be a doctor, but the...
Splendor: The Art of Compassion in Surgical Training
Deciding on a career in surgery was very difficult for me. I went into medical school believing I would become a family medicine physician or a pediatrician. I wanted that patient-physician relationship, and that was one of the hardest aspects of falling in love with surgery: I thought I would never develop those relationships. How wrong I was. Even as a resident, where patient continuity doesn't exist as you rotate to new hospitals or services every 4 - 8 weeks, there are several patients I will never forget. The first was a young man who came to the ED with symptoms of a large bowel obstruction. He had undiagnosed Stage IV colon cancer with tumors throughout his liver. As the third-year surgical resident on call, I had to tell this patient and his lovely wife that he had metastatic cancer, and that was causing the blockage in his colon. We...
