Tumors are people too

I'm inspired that people are able to look at their own bodies when they are deformed in some way. These skin grafts for melanoma are not pretty. A rectangle of skin is taken off of your thigh and put through some device that turns it into mesh skin and then slapped on the site where the cancer was resected. And then a ring of staples is put around it. Some of these wounds are 8 - 10 cm in diameter. I flat-out asked this woman today, "Is it strange to see your body look like that?" and she nodded and even smiled, maybe slightly fascinated instead of grossed out. It takes humility, a check of vanity, and a buttload of acceptance.

I was also inspired that even surgery residents are willing to change course. One of the guys is bailing out after year two because he doesn't like being in the OR. Good call, bro! I just like it when med students are willing to step off the track, "waste time," and do what will make them happy.

Nurses, medical assistants, and administrators are my favorite people in the world, my collective guardian angel. There's this "don't bug the doctors" current throughout healthcare, but I have to bug people because I'm clueless, so I bug the non-doctors. They help me generously and gracefully. I was wandering around the ORs today looking for a bonnet when a nurse pretty much tackled me with one before someone could scream at me for not having one on. Thanks, sista!

Speaking of those bouffant surgery head covering things. I saw this woman in the cafeteria the other day wearing one over her epic afro. It filled the volume of the hat precisely, this globe of hair frosted by blue chiffon. By far the best surgical fashion statement I have seen.

i stapled skin and removed staples from skin for the first time today. My neck turned very hot and red when I was removing them in front of a bunch of people. The second time I was removing them, the guy kept wincing/flinching away in pain, which was very unnerving. I hate hurting people!

This tumor they took out today was a gnarly little bastard. Big bastard, I should say. It was the size of like a mini football, larger than a mango, but like a redwood burl, all knobby and irregular and angry looking. These masses totally have a personality. They seem belligerent, maniacal.

Do we acknowledge that everyone must have PTSD to some degree after surgery? As soon as I start feeling like the time I spend on surgery is totally irrelevant to my interests and future practice, I remember that people are going to need some serious somatic work and plant spirit healing before after and during surgery. I start fantasizing about a world in which surgeons and the whole OR staff take a real "time out" before a procedure to set a healing intention for the patient, create a healing field of energy around her, express explicitly that the trauma they are going to inflict has its root in therapeutic intention. If I had another lifetime, i would spend it creating a different kind of medical school with its own hospital. An integrative education, for reals. Not sure I'm going to get around to it this time, though.