Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Decisions Decisions


I feel like I’ve spent my entire life second guessing myself . . . should I have bought this or that . . . was that trip really worth the money . . . did I make the right choice in regards to this, that or the other.  The problem is, the decisions we make can have ulterior motives, and sometimes they aren’t even that obvious.  My entire chief year . . . every case that I gave to a lower level, I would always wonder if I was doing it completely out of the kindness of my heart or because I was being lazy.  Then there is also that fear of . . . If I spend enough time not doing something, am I going to forget how?  Will I lose my skill set?  Did I ever really have one to begin with?

As I had mentioned earlier, the nurse who was supposed to be helping me for the second half of the week had to leave the country emergently for a sick child.  She will be back on Monday (hopefully), so I’ve got several days here without an interpreter.  Yesterday, arrangements were made for a medical interpreter to come by this morning.  Shortly after I was notified of this, our surgeon notified me that he had two hysterectomies scheduled at another hospital, which he wanted me to help him with.  What gynecologist wouldn’t want the chance to perform two abdominal hysts in a day.  If you add a vaginal hyst in there, it would be like Christmas.

So . . . the decision . . . do I arrange to have the interpreter canceled for today so that I can go to the OR and remind myself that I am still capable of operating (a fear that I admittedly have); or . . . do I stay, and continue my screening efforts (with the knowledge that there will hopefully be many surgeries to come).  I think that the right choice was obvious from the get go . . . I stayed.  I did not come here to become a better surgeon, and increase my exposure to open cases . . . I came to teach a very simplified skill set that will hopefully save lives.  I screened three people today, two were VIA positive, and we did our first LEEP.  The second gal lives close by and will come back on Monday for her treatment (I know . . . goes against the concept of see and treat, but at the moment we only have one coated speculum . . . something that will be changing in the future).

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