Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

[Top: Prepared medications for the hip surgery. Middle: The patient's being cleaned and put under anesthesia. Bottom: An x-ray is used to see where the fracture is.]

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?  

So far this year I've had some pretty amazing opportunities regarding my senior project. I feel so lucky to be able to follow my mentor through the OR to observe actual procedures and watch my mentor at work. I've already had some interesting experiences, such as the most recent time I went to do my mentorship, I was watching my mentor do anesthesia for an elderly patient receiving hip surgery. The elderly patient's teeth were already loose and as my mentor tried to intubate the patient, a tooth just popped out and casually the nurses nearby just picked it up and put it in a little cup to give to the patient afterward. It's things like that that have made this project so much more enjoyable because most of the time I do observe procedures, the doctors doing the cases talk to me and allow me to ask questions as they work. During that hip surgery, the surgeon was open to me asking any questions and as he continued with inserting screws into the patient's fractured hip, he explained what he was doing and my mentor would explain how he maintains the patient's vital functions.  

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

Though I'm able to get so much information whenever I go to my mentorship, I can't go as often as I would like. Not only is my mentorship all the way in Victorville, but most of the time, surgeries are scheduled during my school hours during the weekdays. There are very few cases that happen during the weekend when I'm actually free, so I can only go once every other week or so. Even if we get off at school around noon, it's still quite the drive from school to Victorville, and by that time, cases are already wrapping up. This puts a lot of pressure on me to get more mentorship hours in because I really do want to gain more knowledge while I'm actually at my mentorship, but I don't want to get too stressed over not being able to go as often as even once a week sometimes.