Life Of A Surgeon

WRITTEN BY VISHMI KAUMINI PERERA CLASS OF 2027

This blog is about efforts and sacrifices, challenges and achievements, humiliation and praises, qualities and responsibilities of a surgeon's life.

INTRODUCTION

Once a medical student graduate, he/she will be able to choose the path they want to continue as a doctor. The doctor who chose to be a surgeon, opens the door to a new level in the game of life. Surgeons are the ones who have valuable gadgets which help to save the patients in the brink of death. The skills they developed, the knowledge they obtained during sleepless nights over 6 years will be their magical powers to save the lives of patients. Operation theatre is surgeons’ battle field and they are the masterminds which lead their team to victory in this war of life and death. Once surgeons enter to their battle field, they put whole heart to their work, as if nothing else exist around them. If a doctor chooses to face above situations as a surgeon, he/she should be responsible, straightforward, confident, independent in their decisions and also should be devoted to their patients.

WHAT A SURGEON DOES IN THE HOSPITAL?

In the hospital a surgeon has specific tasks to attend. Early in the morning they attend to ward rounds to check the condition of the patients they have already operated. There they adjust the needed treatments in order to speed up the recovery of the patient. Also, in most of the hospitals, the week is divided in to several sessions. In Sri Lanka, they have 2 days as “clinic day”, 2 days as “surgery day”, and the other days are normal days unless there’s an emergency. In “clinic day”, new patients arrive for the consultation.

Most of those require surgical treatments. Also, patients who were previously operated also arrive in order to know about progression of their recovery. In “surgery day”, all the previously scheduled operations are performed. In other days of the week, surgeons go to ward rounds as usual and if there’s an emergency, despite of which day of the week or the time of the day, surgeon on call arrive to the hospital and perform the surgery if required.

PROS AND CONS OF BEING A SURGEON.

There are many pros and cons of being a surgeon. As a surgeon, he/she can have a wel-reputed life in the society, a satisfying salary, self-satisfaction by witnessing their patients recovery. These are some major pros you can experience as a qualified surgeon. However, the chalenges they face often become significant cons of being a surgeon. First thing is, the difficulty in work-life balance. Due to tight schedule, they may not be able to spend time with their families most of the time. This becomes quite a big problem for the families with parents who are both surgeons.

But they are capable of making family time by adjusting their schedule or sometimes bringing their kids to work, as they can at least see their kids for the whole day.

The next thing is the stress they experience. This mostly occur due to long working hours as well as them having to make decisions on their patients’ lives depending on their medical condition. Sometimes even if they try hard to bring a patient who’s at the brink of death to life, they fail due to unavoidable medical conditions of the patient. So declaring death of a patient is the hardest moment of any surgeon’s life. Malpractice suit is another challenge surgeons face. For this to occur, there are 2 reasons. First reason is surgeon actually making a mistake during surgery (iatrogenic causes). Second reason is that, even though surgeon did everything properly, sometimes patient’s family may complain that their family member died because of the operation. This reason mostly depends on the emotions of the family. So, facing a malpractice suit may cause a degradation of surgeon’s reputation and may cost his whole career.

So, in order to overcome these challenges, they work harder by paying attention to his/her every single move, starting from studying theory every day to practicing their scalpel skills. They learn from every experience they get, so that they will build their inner soul to grow much stronger and confident during their occupation.

CONCLUSION.

The most common words that any surgeon have heard in their lives are, “Thank you doctor for saving him/her, without you he/she won’t be able to live” and “Everything was fine until you performed the surgery, he/she died due to the operation you performed”. So, if you are a surgeon, you should be precise in skills and knowledge. You should be able to find time for everything that you need to do in your life including your private life. You should also be rational and independent when you are making a decision about other person’s health.

For a surgeon, most important thing in his/her career is experience in their specialty and practice because once you hold the scalpel, you are responsible for your action and you can’t blame even your scrub nurse for your actions. Surgeons should not choose the patients they treat depending on personal reasons. They should try to save the patient within their capabilities until the end.

In my opinion, a surgeon should ask themselves the reason they have become a surgeon, because if you forget the reason, the passion and quality of yourself as a surgeon will be lost. Then it won’t be the best work of you for your patients. I think being a surgeon is the best thing, because a surgeon knows that they can stand straight with self-respect and without regrets every day.