I’m sorry this post has been so late in coming. I really haven’t had the time to post, which sucks. I’ve learned so much in the past few weeks and I can’t even write about it.

Tomorrow is my last day of Trauma Surgery. I’m actually going to miss it, believe it or not. The hours have been hell (4AM-6PM or later, every day, including weekends), but it has been ridiculously awesome along the way.

Yesterday my attending slapped the electrocautery device in my hand with a grin on his face and said in his thick accent “lets see what thees guy can doo with thees thing”. With that I started cutting necrotic tissue off with abandon. It was awesome. Then 20 minutes later I got to suture the skin graft in place†. I felt like I was actually performing surgery - which in a way, I was.

I love surgery. It’s totally fun, and the surgeons themselves - for the most part - are fun people. What’s killing me is that the life of a surgeon is literally as bad as it gets. 2 of my interns are married and don’t see their wife and kids for days at a time.

Any advice from my readers? I’ve been told multiple times that “if you want it badly enough, you can deal with the hours” … but I’m not sure I can.

I’ve been thinking subspecialty (ENT, urology, ortho) might be a good compromise of physically doing surgery, but not having to deal with the hell that is a General Surgery rotation. Input?

† “help” may have been a good word to interject… it took me about twice as long to throw my sutures as it did the resident. Still and all, I can point to about a quarter of her skin graft and say “I did that!”