What it’s like to be a surgeon
IN MY SHOES: Here’s a snippet of an excerpt of the newly published book, "Confessions of a Surgeon" by Paul A. Ruggieri, M.D. published by The Wall Street Journal:
Surgeons are control freaks. We have to be. And when things don't go our way in the operating room, we can have outbursts. Some of us curse, some throw instruments, others have tantrums. These explosions are a go-to reaction when we're confronted with the ghosts of prior complications. …
When the [defective colon stapling device] hit the wall, I had been in the operating room for more than four hours, struggling to remove a diseased segment of colon from someone I'll call Mr. Baker, a 330-pound middle-aged man. Trying to keep his fat out of my way during the operation had been a continuous battle. The pain in my upper back reminded me that I was losing the fight.
Obese patients create more physical work for a surgeon during any type of procedure. The operations take longer, tie our upper body in knots and leave us with fatigue and frustration. Obese patients also automatically face an increased risk of complications like infection, pneumonia and blood clots during recovery. …
Why does this guy have to bleed like this? As if it were his fault. Here I was blaming him, even though I was the one causing the bleeding. But in surgery, it always has to be someone else's fault. It's never the surgeon's fault. …
Like poker players and their cards, surgeons are sometimes only as good as the patients they are dealt. Obesity, excessive scar tissue from a previous surgery in the same area, disease that is more advanced than anticipated – any one of these physiological conditions creates more work and a more difficult environment for the surgeon.
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