It’s official, 4th year orientation has begun. At my school they split all of the 4th year students into different “colleges” based on the field that we choose to go into. Since I am going into a field that requires good understanding of anatomy, I chose to be in the “Applied Anatomy college.”
The first day was sooo fun. After the standard welcome speeches we headed straight to the lab. We had a lab where we dissected rats that were freshly euthanized. It was great. We opened up the rat completely, initially exposing the heart and lungs. We placed a tube into the trachea and inflated the lungs, which is so amazing to see while the tissues are fresh and not all stiff from fixative. We also placed an NG tube. I even cut the fallopian tubes and then sutured them closed; great practice for future gyn surgery! Then we closed the animal up and practiced suturing in the different layers and with different techniques. Fun times 
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Today, I did my first hysterectomy… on a cadaver! We had anatomy lab based on our different specialties. We literally had to open 4 cadavers before we found one that hadn’t already had a hysterectomy. I guess that shows how common the surgery is. Anyhow, we had a Urogynecologist as our session leader and he was great. We did alot of dissection of different vessels, the ureters, and several of the ligaments and other anatomy surrounding the pelvic anatomy. With the hysterectomy, we did it just as we would in the OR, practicing the correct order of clamping and cutting and suturing that you would do in the OR. I loved it! I do need to brush up on some of that anatomy though…
Tomorrow will be yet another exciting day. We will be doing lap choles, splenectomy, and bowel resection on an anesthetized pig! I can’t wait. Even though we are there from 8-5, it flies by. I know that I am in the right place, cause when I was on medicine I was already looking at the clock wondering when I could go home before the mornings were over.
P.S. I passed the CPX exam! That means that I have the school’s approval to take Step 2 CS… which is in less than a month! I suppose I’ll start thumbing through the First Aid for USMLE Step 2 CS book, which will likely be my only source for that exam. I made it through interviewing 8 in the CPX, 12 shouldn’t be much worse.
wow, that sounds awesome.. and exciting! Congrats!
Oh the jealousy! I miss the OR so much. I would have loved to do all that dissection and operating. If only surgery and OB had better lifestyles, you wouldn’t be able to hold me back! The most exciting part of primary care college is breakfast! Well, you know what I mean. The only “hands on” experience was a simulator session with “Stan.” (the mannequin from CPX)
At least I get to do some obstetrics as an FP.
This was like your best post in a while. The labs sound like they should continue to be really interesting if you did all of this day one!! I wish we could have gotten to work with cadavers at my program..I keep hearing about how cool they are!