firsts

Well it was not the first day to get up at 3.30, but it was the first day being the only student on the service.... I got to pick which ever patient I wanted to see in the morning. After my first presentation today I was told what I should do better, which was really good!
Since I was the only student I also got to pick whichever surgery I wanted to scrub in on... so I started scrubbing in at 8 and got finally out at 6pm. It was a long day, but I got to see a lot of really great cases. We did a Kasai-procedure on a girl who suffered from biliary atresia. It was a 6hour surgery and my arm will be sore tomorrow, but only one in a million kids got that problem and therefore the surgery is not performed often. It was kind of spectacular and it was definetely worth seeing it. I also got to do my first intracutaneus suture and write the OR report after surgery! The attendings ask a lot of questions, bad questions, things I have not revised since 2nd or 3rd semester (all kinds of anatomical questions, embryology...) It definetely helps to learn a lot, but having to say I don't know after every other question makes me feel kind of bad... Especially since I know I did know it at some point.... Fortunately it comes back quickly!!!! Right now I am having my first on call night. Well see how that goes. After 3hours of prerounds and round, 10hours in the OR I now got 10hours of on call time ahead of me till we will start prerounds again... Hopefully there will be some sleeping time in there.
I've got to say, even though the first day wasn't the greatest experience, I am starting to really enjoy the time here and think I will learn a whole lot!