Letter from LaGuardia

3:51 AM

Author | Aditi Ramakrishnan

This post is a month-late but was actually written (mostly) at the LaGuardia Airport (edited in Ann Arbor much later though):

This past Labor Day weekend marked the end of my two-month Surgery clerkship and the final good-bye to summer.  As I'm sitting here in the LaGuardia airport in New York, waiting for my delayed flight back to Detroit before beginning Family Medicine tomorrow morning, the weekend-long chorus of questions and comments from family and friends (none of whom work in medicine) runs through my mind: How was Surgery?  You look so tired! Did you like cutting up people? Do you wear your white coat while operating?  You look so thin.  What do you actually do during the operations?  Do you like surgeons?  Here, eat more!

What have I seen during the past two months of Vascular Surgery in the gleaming green-glass building of the Cardiovascular Center and Surgical Oncology/Colorectal Surgery in the underbelly of the hospital (the operating rooms are located below the cafeteria—a very intelligent design as nurses, surgeons, techs can dash up the two flights of stairs for sushi or sandwiches and dash back down)?

A bulging aorta pulsating and gleaming beneath the surgeon's headlamp, ready to rupture, before being neatly sliced and parted and the cream-colored plaque carefully scooped out.  The shiny, hairless legs of peripheral arterial disease.  The satisfaction of drawing the skin neatly together with a subcutaneous stitch.  The smell of burning skin as I've "bovied" my way through an ancient incision into the axilla of a man with metastatic melanoma.  I've driven the camera during a laparoscopic surgery and seen bowels ripple past each other and the spleen—a blue robin's egg resting atop the liver.  The pulsating heart and lungs of a child with coarctation of the aorta.  The immaculate fist-sized uterus and delicate fimbriae in the depths of a young woman's pelvis.  Removing a patient's gown only to see a red cauliflower-shaped cancer blooming atop the breast—the worst cancer the surgeons had seen in many years and a product of lack of access to care and self-denial.  A surgeon who held the hand of every breast cancer patient in the operating room before a surgery while the anesthesia settled into the body.

My emotions have been a rollercoaster, ranging from a 2/10 when I've had to scrub out for the 5th time during a surgery because I touched my mask yet again to a 10/10 when racing to the operating room to see my first anal-perineal resection, when seeing a mother with newly-diagnosed breast cancer in clinic on my first day of surgery and seeing her again with her family, far more ready and confident with her decision, in the pre-operating bay and finally in the operating room and in the recovery bay on my last day of surgery.

A few mementos from the surgery experience:

Suture workshop: Square knot basics

Suture workshop: Square knot basics

Suture workshop: Square knot basics
Media Contact Public Relations

Department of Communication at Michigan Medicine

[email protected]

734-764-2220

Stay Informed

Want top health & research news weekly? Sign up for Health Lab’s newsletters today!

Subscribe
Featured News & Stories
Department News
Kudos to HILS Master’s student Patrick Lewicki on LHS publication
Faculty and staff in the Department of Learning Health Sciences and the Health Infrastructures and Learning Systems (HILS) program congratulate HILS Master’s student, Patrick Lewicki for his recent publication about LHS in low resource settings.
graphic drawing of hospital with road in front of it with red car driving
Health Lab
Long drives, high costs stand between rural adults and safe surgery
Rural patients face long drives for surgery, especially if they want to reach a high quality and affordable hospital.
Cancer Aware
How De-Implementation Can Improve Health Care in the U.S.
In the United States, unnecessary tests and treatments not only drive-up health care costs but may also contribute to a waste of valuable resources and avoidable patient harms. Today we talk with Michigan Medicine assistant professor of surgery Dr. Lesly Dossett, M.D., MPH about an effort to reduce such practices through a process called de-implementation.
Joanne standing in front of a research poster she created
Points of Blue
Joanne Constantin, Postdoc: Bridging the fields of public health and medicine
In this interview, Joanne answers questions about her work as a postdoctoral fellow in Health & Healthcare Research and the real-world impact it’s having.
UMMS student Amy Kwarteng with other participants at the Winter Schools 2024 session.
Department News
Winter is coming: Brazil partner seeks applicants for Winter Schools program
2025 FMUSP Winter Schools program applications now open, funding available
older woman taking care of plants at a job
Health Lab
Working later in life linked to positive health impacts
People over 50 who work say having a job aids their mental and physical health, but disabilities, caregiving and other issues act as barriers to working for many, including those who aren’t working but aren’t yet retired.