Cancer Surgery Experience 2

March 8^th, 2012

           

Frank Epitropoulos (left) shadowing Dr. William Farrar (right)

            Today was my second time coming in to the operating room to observe surgery. My mind was at ease while I remembered the graphic and gruesome procedure I witnessed last time. I met Dr. Farrar in the lobby and as we walked, we discussed the cases he had in store today. He told me that he had four parathyroidectomies. In laymen’s terms, that’s when the patient has cancer in the throat and they need to have their thyroid removed. He described it as a pretty simple and fast operation. I was relieved since last visit I had to encounter a five-hour surgery with the most blood I’ve ever seen in my life.  As we were walking down the hall, we stopped in the locker room to change into our scrubs. I changed into my pair and looked in the mirror, again asking if I could see myself doing this every day for career.  Once Dr. Farrar was ready, we walked down the hall into the operating room where the patient was laying in bed waiting for us to save her life.

           

            Although I saw a similar procedure last time I shadowed Dr. Farrar, I learned a lot more this time. The patient was still awake by the time we got in the operating room. To my surprise, it was a 24 year old girl who had been complaining of throat pain. On the pre-op exams, they suspected that she had a small cancerous tumor in her throat but they were not positive if it was malignant or benign. Despite never talking to the patient prior to seeing her in the operating room, it was harder to watch since she was such a young person. While the doctors were scrubbing their hands, the anesthesiologist began to sedate the patient. Within a minute she was unconscious. After the doctors entered the room, the scrub nurse dressed them in their blue sterilize gowns and gloves.  Dr. Farrar and his resident made the opening incision and performed their magic. Just like before, I stood behind Dr. Farrar as I noticed the smell of burning skin as they cut through the different layers of dermis.

           

            After Dr. Farrar had removed the micro tumor in her throat, they began to sew her neck back up and clean the incision. Dr. Farrar took the specimen (micro tumor) to a lab downstairs, they ran tests on it to test it if was malignant. After about 5 minutes of analyzing it through a microscope, they came to the conclusion that it was malignant and they had to remove both thyroids in case it had already spread.  By the time we got back upstairs, the patient had almost been completely stitched up. Dr. Farrar ordered for them to open the incision once again to remove the other thyroid.  Analyzing and removing the tumor hopefully will ultimately save this young girl’s life.

Robotic surgery being performed on a patient with lung cancer.

            After observing three similar operations, Dr. Farrar thought it would be a good idea if I got to see a different surgery.  He walked me down the hall into Dr. Frowler’s operating room. I walked in the room and was in awe. It was completely dark and looked like a robot was in the room. Dr. Farrar explained to me that he was doing a robotic surgery on a patient who had lung cancer. I sat and watched this surgery and was in shock by how advanced we are technologically. This robot had 4 mechanical arms and TV monitors showing what each arm was looking at. The advantage for these is that the incision is exceptionally smaller and that it is similar to having two doctors doing surgery when actually its only one. He described that the doctor looks in a 3D monitor, to help with depth perception, and controls each robotic arm with a big controller.  This was by far the coolest thing that I saw while shadowing.  It made me think that this could be the future of medicine - Robots doing surgery rather than the human hand.  The end of the robotic procedure mentally exhausted me due to all the excitement. Overall, I was able to get great first experience in medicine, which has really motivated me to pursue my desire to become a physician.