Volunteering

Getting the volunteer position wasn't hard at all. After I got my scrub card and TB test, I went to search for the OR. In our hospital the OR takes up almost all of the second floor, it has 36 rooms along with ICUs , pharmacy, etc. The hospital has the layout of a large X, making navigation difficult. As I entered the second floor, a strong smell that most associate with the hospital hit me, and I have to say that I liked it. I went to the large scrub machine and chose large bottom, large top out of fifteen different variations. Then I went to the changing room and quickly learned that a large is more like a XXL. Because the scrubs are unisex, you might have some 300lb woman wear a brand new pair of L size scrubs, that become XXL after she takes them off. My volunteering assignment was in the anesthesia work room; a place where anesthesia support staff work and supply all the rooms with needed equipment. In the first few weeks I quickly learned that for every surgeon there are at least three support people, making the OR a busy place. My assignment was to make packets of forms, and connect IV tubes to IV bags. Volunteering in the OR is the best kept secret in the pre-med crowd, because students are allowed to be in the operating rooms. It is perhaps the closest that you will come to seeing real doctors do real medicine; I have had more than a few cases of blood splash on my scrubs during some amputations. The other positions are mainly paper work.

The first week I mainly did manual labor, but on the second week I saw my first surgery. I kept a journal of my experiences and here is my entry from that day:

Procedure: (1) Gastric bypass laparoscopic
Notes: This is my first surgery ever. I was really nervous before coming in. When I entered I saw a large man lying on the table asleep. His stomach was covered with iodine. And I thought that’s it, they are going to cut him open, and I will faint. But nothing like this happened. The surgeons came in, made some incisions in his stomach and then inserted long tools. IT turns out that these types of operations are done with little invasiveness. When the lights were off, the cord from the light going into the stomach looked super cool. The nurse anesthesiologist was awesome, and we talked a lot. I got to sit right next to the patient.

Was I nervous during the first time? Of course I was, the anesthesia tech that took me into the room sensing that I was a little pale, told me to sit down on the floor if I felt sick. Everything in there was unfamiliar; new smells, surgical tools, racks with gowns and sutures...all new and exciting.

The experience of volunteering that first month can be compared to the first roller coaster ride, lots of anticipation followed by a spike in the heart rate. In the four week period I observed a heart beating in the chest during valve surgery; a double-lung transplant performed by a famous transplant surgeon; and a grizzly tumor that destroyed half of a man's face. Pretty big stuff for a 19 year old kid.