Maggots, munchies, and my first slice

So intern year has not yet killed me.  I know all three of you were worried.  And, oh, what a way to start a year.  Here are the highlights of week numero uno.

- Maggots:  It's my first day of work.  I am terrified (see last blog.)  I have been in a clinic all day - completely bumfuzzled and convinced that I am the worst intern of all time.  I survive the first chunk of the day, and head back over to the hospital for afternoon/evening rounds.  (Sidenote:  No one bothered to tell me that there is a free shuttle for docs between the main hospital and the ambulatory clinic which lies about half a mile away.  So I have hoofed this distance twice already and am even more sweaty than my nervousness has already had me.) 

I find my fellow intern, M (technically a pseudo-intern because he's finishing his intern year, as I am just beginning mine.)  He says we have a consult that I need to come see with him.  I dutifully and ignorantly agree.  

Little did I know what I had waiting...

The patient was what I would learn to know as our standard vascular surgery patients - fat, ignorant about the general concepts of personal health or hygiene, and lounging on this hospital bed eating some form of junk food that I family member had snuck in to them.  I ascertain from the conversation between she and M that she has a sore on her heel ("From my di-uh-beetus.")  Mike and I glove up and unwrap the foot.  The wound is brimming full and spilling over with waves upon waves of 

MAGGOTS.

Splendid.  Nothing like wildlife wound care on your first real day as a surgeon.  I had seen maggots before, but usually on dead wildlife on the side of a highway. In the foot of a 50-something year old woman is not on the family feud list of top places to find maggots.  We researched and found that pouring alcohol directly into the maggots would kill them and a plan was made to commence the slaughter as soon as our chief resident say the show.  Luckily, I was released from work before the maggot extermination exercises commensed.  Nonetheless, it was an exciting and interesting start to my medical career.

(Side note: I really have a problem with people who let themselves go so far as to not be able to know whether there are other visible living creatures living in/on them.  Parasites should be an easy one to catch.  This woman wasn't homeless - she was fat and slovenly.  Sometimes, I really wonder about America.)

- Munchies:  I have discovered that the hospital cafeteria sells gummy bears in bulk.  Danger, Will Robinson!  I have already had to outlaw myself from them.

- My first slice:  Several days into first year, I was invited to "ride along" into the OR for my first real case as a Dr. - a below the knee amputation on a little old lady.  Yeah, not that glamorous Grey's Anatomy stuff.  Real intern year is hacking a leg off someone's grandma.  Food for thought.

All the same, I was stoked!  That surgeon fire in me took hold before I could get too upset about who or what it was that I was doing. Of course, I was operating under Dr. P, the most notoriously difficult attending in the hospital - known for outbursts, extreme pimping, and general torture.  Standing at the operating table, I had a hand tremor that could have registered on a Richter scale.  When he said, "Please hand the scalpel to young Dr. Funk", I thought I might fall over.  I did the entire incision, but through the calf muscles, scored the tibia, filed down the tibia, tied off the arteries, clipped down the fibula, and then helped close the flap.  to a non-surgeon, that may not sound all that exciting, but for me it was a little piece of (scary) heaven.  Dr. P even told me I did a wonderful job and bragged on me the next day in conference.  I glowed for about 72 hours post-op.

(In good news, my pt went home 5 days later and is doing well.)

So yes, I survived my first week.  (Actually, as I have been to lazy/tired to blog, I have survived the first 3 and a half weeks.)  I promise more stories soon.