Attention Span

I find myself comforted by the fact that I get bored during long surgeries.  When they're interesting, surgeries definitely are fun to watch or to help with.  I like sewing people back up and feeling the immediate gratification, so I can only imagine the satisfaction that must come with opening up someone's heart and making it better.  But it's not worth spending a lifetime of not being able to take a break!  A few years back, one of our UCI surgeons had a heart attack during a super long surgery.  There was no one else who could take over, so he just had himself hooked up to a nitro IV and finished the surgery because he couldn't walk away and leave the patient flayed open on the table.  Now that's just craziness.  Admirable, certainly, but crazy nonetheless.

I find my boredom comforting because for a little while I thought surgery might sway me away from emergency medicine.  Switching to surgery as my specialty choice, however, would throw my life into a vortex, because every extracurricular activity I've done so far, my whole medical career foundation, revolves around emergency medicine.  Many ER doctors I know confessed to their utter boredom during their med school surgery rotations.  One, very near and dear to me and who shall remain unnamed - a certain Dr. P - fell asleep while he was holding a patient's chest open with the retractor!  So by being bored in surgeries sometimes, I know I'm on the right track.