I woke up really tired today - and it seemed like everyone felt the same. Med rotations have been amazing, but really tiring. I've learned so much over these past few days, not only about medicine but about my own preferences. And today was one of the most interesting day of them all! At 7:45, our bags needed to be in the front lobby. Our leader here told us to pack light, however my beast of a blue backpack had been allowed on every other part of the trip, so I had hoped that the same would be true for this leg. After hearing no complaints when i dropped off my bag, it was time for my last buffet breakfast for at least a few days. It had been the nicest part of this hotel, along with reliable wifi, and now we would be leaving both of these behind. No complains though, as we would be leaving these to help out our project village, Camarones. But first, our final rotation. We got in taxis and were taken to the police hospital again - it was time for the much anticipated "OR1 Shift". We were taken to the surgery department and changed into scrubs before entering. This time, we actually had a board of scheduled surgeries, so we were sure to see some interesting things. The first thing I got to watch was a knee replacement surgery. The cool thing about these rotations are that we're literally watching in the operating room over the surgeon's shoulder. This first surgery was the most violent of them all. They were literally working with power tools, hammering metal supports far into the knee, then sawing chunks of the bone off. Pretty nuts. Next, I saw a ligament graft. If I remember correct, the surgery involved taking a tendon from the leg out, turning it into a ligament and applying in back in. Interesting method - i wonder who thought of that! I next saw a cataract surgery. It was crazy that they could open the eye up like that and still keep in functional in the end. The stitches they used to sew the eye back up was barely visible to the naked eye! The next surgery I saw was really weird. I've found it's very common for them to use the same spinal anaesthesia as the C-section on many of these surgeries. The next surgery used this - the doctors were going to remove a renal hernia. I stood by this man's head to get a good view of the procedure. This is when things got weird. This man had his torso cut open, and this man, fully conscious, turns his head over to me and tries to talk with me. I didn't understand what he said, but the anaesthesiologist told him that I was english speaking before i could respond. Can you imagine - a guy undergoing surgery, talking to you normally?? Anyway, the last surgery before we were out of time was on a complicated wrist break, but we only saw the first bit of it. It was so cool to see all of that. Next, our tutor drove us to the next hospital. Here, we had lunch in the cafeteria, then made our way up to the usual 9th floor. It was time for us to present our case study. We volunteered to go first, and it seemed like we actually had a better time of it because of that. We didn't get many questions that we couldn't answer and overall, we presented very well. Our disease was Lyme Disease and we were correct. All the other groups did very well too, but it seemed like the questions asked got progressively harder throughout the presentations. Finally, after all were done, we jumped in a van and we were on our way to Camarones. The bus ride took forever. And of course, not half an hour after I figure we're not stopping for dinner and eat a protein bar, we stop for dinner. Of course it was another Ecuadorian place with a broken visa machine and no change. It took us just as long to eat as it took to pay. By 12:45 in the morning, we arrived. The gate to the same resort as last time was locked, and a sketchy, masked gunman showed up to unlock it for us. Security must be an issue here. We were greeted by all our leaders here, but as soon as we got our room, most of us, including myself, promptly hit the bed.
Ready for a day of surgery
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