Jusqu’à la prochaine fois

Translated from French to English: “until next time” (essentially the extent of my french-speaking skills)

My summer culminated in an entangled web of sentiments all of which were delicately, unintentionally,  yet nevertheless inextricably, attached to the medical field.  In their own unique ways such sentiments (of nostalgia, of apprehension, of euphoria, of  anxiety, to name a few)  were indubitably validated and indescribably connected.  Medicine, I have come to realize, is not a one way path: the surgeon has as much an impact on the field as the field has on the surgeon.  One emotion could never encompass the entirety of emotions the field carries within itself, each marking a different location along the spectrum and retaining its own importance.

A question I have been battling for quite some time now is whether or not I truly desire to become a doctor upon graduating from university.  After all of the medical work I have engaged myself in, and perhaps even inflicted upon myself, this summer, from delivering babies in Tanzania, to assisting with endourological surgeries, to observing such operations as a heart transplant and an aortic valve repair, to perfusing for a lung procurement, one would think that my final decision would have been elucidated come the termination of summer 2013.  I am, however, even more mind-boggled than I was prior to the initiation of summer.

The summer certainly helped clarify to me the various and specific occupations I do not wish to participate in.  Child birth? No, thank you.  The “miracle of life” may just be a bit too miraculous for me.  Endourology?  Nah.  The field is intriguing but I do not want to be constantly diagnosing and operating on issues involving the bladder.  Perfusion?  Physician’s Assistant?  No– for me it’s all or nothing.  I either lead or find another place to utilize and express my skills.  And now we approach the field within which my main dilemma lies: cardiac operations.  I absolutely love the heart.  This organ is unequivocally and irrevocably my favourite as it is the one body part that is the most direct determining factor of the continuation of life and of health.  I am intrigued by it.  The field of cardiac surgery offers insight into the most vigorous, hectic, hefty, and sporadic sides that medicine has to offer. Cardiac operations also require the most hours, as most surgeons have little time for family life, the greatest number of years involved with medical school and training, and happen to be by far the most risk-involved as most encompass life-or-death procedures.

A number of cardiac surgeons at Columbia University Medical Center warned me of its implications upon family life, sleep, and overall well-being.  Some even straight-out advised me to choose another path, for it is a field that requires full-time work and dedication.  However, my main goal in choosing my occupation is finding one wherein I can successfully dedicate my life to the well-being of others’.  If I save lives, is there really any better reward in this world?  For me, there is none.

So, the final verdict is, if I decide to become a surgeon I strive to become one directly involved with saving lives.

Luckily I don’t have to decide now.  No matter what path I choose, I know I will forever donate my life to sustaining those of others, in both literal and figurative scopes.

I thank the Women’s Health Centre in Arusha, Tanzania, and The New York Presbyterian Center at Columbia University for giving me the most eye-opening summer of my life.

These organizations planted a seed in a young, pre-med girl on a determined mission to intertwine her wanderlust desires with the medical field in her ultimate aspiration to save lives.

To touch a beating heart

8.06.13

Hey, readers (if any of you actually exist)!

I have not posted in a while but my legitimate excuse for not having done so is my recent lack of medically entertaining stories.  I suppose, however, it is true that good things come to those who wait.  Usually when I come into work every morning my day goes somewhat like this: I grab a coffee at the NY Presbyterian cafe, head over to the Black Building, sip my coffee, and read (most likely papers relating to my thoracic research) for a few hours to familiarize myself with the ins and outs of the experiment I have been preparing for. My day, from start to finish moves at what feels like a snail’s pace.

Yesterday, once I had set myself up and was just about to delve into my newest novel, “Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Varghese, Dr, Singh texted me to meet him in the Milstein lobby at 1 pm.  “Great,” I thought, another day of carrying supplies from one building to another via Columbia’s intricate inner corridors.  Le sigh.

I was wrong. As soon as I met Dr. Singh, he hailed a cab, and along with 3 research assistants, shoved me ever-so-gracefully into the taxi, squashing 4 of us into the backseat (my back is still in pain but the experience was indubitably worth it).  We raced to a run-down hospital on the other end of the city; based on the looks of the building as compared with CUMC, the hospital could have been located on the other side of the globe.  Yes, there was the unfortunate yet ever so familiar wait time upon our arrival.  Eventually, however, I was able to “scrub in” for my first time, ever.  When I scrubbed in, the brain-dead patient was on cardiac bypass.  I had to wash my hands three times due to other peoples’ mistakes and the insane number of people in the room, causing contamination and general pandemonium.  The first time I had to re-wash my hands (they were literally red by the time I began to scrub in) was a consequence of the error of the research assistant I came with, whose towel happened to briefly brush against the bottom half of his body, which is considered unsterile.

The procedure to scrub in is quite a process and surely harder than one would expect.  First you must roll up your sleeves to above elbow level.  Then you open a soap-filled sponge wrapped in plastic and, without touching anything but the water and the soapy sponge, you scrub your arms and under your fingernails until they are positively crystal clean.  My arms/hands were definitely the cleanest they had EVER been, especially by the time my third round approached its ultimate end.  After washing your hands you must keep them up, as if you’re about to lift a chair above your head.  Only the top portion of your body is deemed sterile.  Then, when entering the OR, your gloves, gown and towel must be set up.  A towel is handed to you and you must take it with one hand, wipe the water off your arm, and then take the clean arm and dry the other arm without moving your hands down or touching a contaminated area of the towel.   This process is proceeded by putting on the gown, which is like putting on a dress because the tie part goes in the back and, since your backside is considered insterile, you must spin and have someone else tie the gown for you in the back.  Then the gloves come on; they must be handed to you at mid-waist level.  Finally, you’re ready–but be careful not to become contaminated by the people surrounding you or accidentally moving your hands below your waist.

So yeah, actually having the opportunity to scrub in took quite some time.  But I completed the process successfully and, held the left ventricle of the brain-dead’s beating heart in my right hand.  It was beautiful.  I had an epiphany: perhaps I will become a cardiothoracic surgeon–not because I am dying to become one and it has been my lifelong goal so achieve such an accomplishment, but because I have forever attempted to find some sense of inner satisfaction and ultimate purpose in my life and have repeatedly failed to do so.  The truth of the matter is, I do not value my life more than that of someone else’s.  If anything, I feel as though I owe my life to a few different people.  I wish to dedicate my skills and abilities to saving those of other’s in the attempt to achieve a greater sense of self, place, and purpose.  I seek neither fame nor glory.  I simply seek motivation and life in their purest forms.

Not only did I get to scrub in and hold a beating heart today, but I also (very unexpectedly) was given the duty by Julie, one of Columbia’s research assistants, to be the head perfusionist for the thoracic portion of the lung procurement.  I was shocked, incurably apprehensive, and rather excited.  In other words, for this man’s lungs that we were obtaining for research purposes, I had the responsibility of injecting fluid into the man’s blood vessels in the thoracic and cardiac cavities in order to reach the organs and tissues to supply nutrients and oxygen that would keep the blood flow going long enough to properly extract the lungs.  I then had to help with the preservation of lungs by containing them in an icebox.

I at last returned to Columbia after what seemed like a century.  After a day of hard work and seemingly never-ending chaos, Dr. Singh gave me the day off tomorrow!

Unpaid Internships: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Well, let me clarify: the following poem is merely a reflection upon the ugly side of an unpaid internship.  Or mine, to say the least.  Don’t get me wrong, internships are a great experience and I am so appreciative of the fact that I could invest a great portion of my summer in conducting experiments and observing operations without having to experience the pressure of having to work for money.  However, the unpaid internship can surely have its downsides as well.  So without further ado, a poem written after reading 109 pages of “Angels and Demons” by Dan Brown during the time I could have been observing the orthotropic portion of a cardiac transplant.  Try scrutinizing it for yourself!

The hustling, the bustling,

Radiating in a neverending cyclone

Of energy

Encompassing and engaging

All that surrounds her

The huffing, the puffing

Of that one stoic girl

Wandonly sipping a useless coffee

Flipping hrough pages of a

Thrice read book

Her angst accumulating

At an alarming rate

Escalating to the point of

utter exhaustion

And eventual acceptance.

Impatience yet inability

To change, to insert her being

Into the oxymoronically fast-paced

pusillanimous-faced

laughing

crowd.