After having travelled two and a half hours from my rural LIC (longitudinal integrated clerkship) GP practice I arrived at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, bright-eyed and eager to learn. I had three tasks to do.
- Find a changing room.
- Find my assigned doctor’s office, hoping they would be willing to teach me and invest in me even though I am only there for the day.
- Find and persuade a surgeon to let me scrub in for surgery.
I arrived on the ward just in time for handover. I knocked and gently opened the door to see everyone sitting in a circle. I met their eyes and they beckoned for me to come in and nodded towards a set of stools, one of which I promptly took as I pushed my bag underneath the table. They then passed me a copy of the handover document. I stayed on for the ward round after handover, after which they assigned the jobs for the day. I was tasked with taking some bloods. I took note of the other doctors jobs for the day and realised that the surgeon was off to the surgical high dependency unit to see a patient with another consultant. I caught the surgeon before they left and asked if there was a theatre list. They then asked if I would like to come down for it and I immediately said: “yes, please!”. They said they were unsure what time the surgery would start but would try to let me know.
I carried on with my day, and after not hearing from them I assumed that they had forgotten about my request. Later in the day the phone rang in the doctors’ room. I answered the phone and introduced myself, and the surgeon from earlier said that I was just the person that they were looking for! They asked me to come down as they were going to be scrubbing in within the next ten minutes.
I went downstairs and I got to see my very first laparoscopic cholecystectomy. When I arrived, they had already scrubbed in. They motioned for me to come forward and cautioned not to get too close to the sterile field. They explained each step, quizzing me along the way, as they ligated the cystic duct and cystic artery. I was in awe of the skill and precision of the surgeons. The next case was a complicated laparoscopic appendectomy and I was asked to scrub in. I was placed in control of the camera, and given very clear and specific instructions. Throughout the surgery the surgeons were always helpful and reassuring. At one point, I was told to switch places with them when they wanted a better view of the right iliac fossa. It was like a dance! They would say “turn right” and I would, or “point the camera higher” and I would. The surgery was taking some time and I was in between the registrar and consultant whilst they had an academic debate on whether the surgery should be converted to laparotomy. In the end, the registrar had the better argument. However, the consultant said that they were not finished within ten minutes they would have to convert the surgery to an open laparotomy. Luckily the appendix was set free in under five minutes.
This placement was a Friday and I was offered to come back over the weekend, if I so wished, as there was a theatre list. I did choose to come back and I learned so much from the experience. I even got to do a couple of my own stitches on the last day, whilst tiptoeing on a stool and getting grilled on the benefits of an Aberdeen stitch.
Surgery is a specialty I had never considered up until that placement and I am grateful for the wonderful experience I had.
Steph is a current Year 3 ScotGEM student based within NHS Highland.
