Testing out the Hennessey Hammock...

Last Friday I finished medical school. So, to celebrate, Taylor had a cook out and had some friends over. Taylor is such an awesome cook, the meal was delicious. I completely pigged out! After that, Doug and I went camping. I had previously got 2 jungle quality Hennessey Hammocks for my trip to the Costa Rican jungle... and loved it. If you've never seen these hammocks, let me tell ya, it is the coolest adventure camping equipment you will ever own! My hammock weights less than 2 lbs, fits into a tiny sack, setup/tear down in about 5 min, and its environmentally friendly! I will not camp without it. So, Doug wanted to test it out...

Jeeping and hiking in...

Check out our set up! It was so nice and compact... we camp right next to a creek... looking up to see trees and stars.

Doug hoisting all our food to get it out of bear's reach.

I was told to avoid these... 3 leaves of terror... poison oak; and the hairy ball... hum... no comment.

Ok, so, we both convinced each other to go bare bone... minimalist camping, no sleeping bag, only a jacket and a thin blanket... Ouwy... we were both up for most the night thinking of ways to get warm... we were both SOOOOOOO COLD! I was shivering and thinking about the warm Costa Rican beach water and then my thoughts would shift to dreaming about my warm foot box of my 15 degree Marmot sleeping bag... Then, I would start thinking about what if I started packing and hiking out... then I felt it was forever long and looked at my watch hoping its about 4-5am so to tough out another 1 hr to get up and warm up... AWWW its only 2:30am! So, I started getting into fetal position and trying to do everything to warm up my legs... then, I decided to put the rain tarp on my hammock... well it worked... probably raised about 10 degrees in there... as I hear the leaves rustle and creek water churn, I fell asleep into the starlight. Then, I woke up at 6:30am, Doug was already out heating a pot of green tea... what a warm encouragement for the day. What a night! I will never do that again without my sleeping bag.

Guess what?! Da Vinci Surgical Robot!

So, I'm half way through my general surgery rotation. I have been doing a lot of exciting surgeries so far. Being the only student working with a group of 4 surgeons, I am treated as an surgical intern. I have to pre-round on all the patients and present them to the surgeons. I also have to do surgical consults in the hospital, the ICU, and the ER. So far, I have been first assist for all the surgeries and also being on call whenever the surgeons are on call. I'm also expected to research and know all the procedures, complications, treatments, managements, and pathophysiologies of all the cases we see and operate on. So, needless to say, I haven't got much free time. Daily we evaluate abdominal pain, obstructions, perforations, and we do surgeries when we need to. I've assisted in removal of cancers, stitching the bowels when they get perforated from ulcers, taking out appendix and gall bladders when they get inflammed, draining fluid out of every infected orfices and wounds, saving people's lives when they get critical, and assisting doctors of other specialties (such as OB/GYN) with surgical needs. I have gotten to do a lot and starting to get a feel of what internship is like and what being a doctor is like. I've got to admit that many times I do feel like I can't ever learn enough. The more I ask questions, the more I've been asked questions, the more I realize that I don't know enough. At times I do get satisfaction to be able to answer questions that are asked, but I still struggle to find ways to retain what I've learned and to keep learning more.

So, today, I met Da Vinci! I can't describe to you how excited I was. Da Vinci is a robotic system that allows doctors to do 'minimally invasive surgeries.' What that means is that this robot allows complicated surgeries to be done with the smallest possible incision sites. The robot has four arms that inserts instruments into the belly. It also has 2 cameras that goes into the belly and projects the images to a screen. The 2 camera system gives the surgeon a 3 dimensional view so they can do abdomenal surgeries with the highest degree of accuracy, also minimize risks and complications. Right now, we routinely do laproscopic abdomenal surgeries with instruments and cameras, but this robot take surgery to the next level. The surgeon is doing surgery in a console. The potential is that you can literally do operations on someone half way across from the globe. How about doing surgeries in the field on wounded soldiers or astronauts in space? The draw back is that the machine is several million dollars to purchase and costs more than $10,000 per month to maintain. I guess for the time being, the art of surgery still involves human touch.

Seriously, the surgeon let me sit in the console and see through the 3D camera... it was so cool! If you want to experience and see what it does, click on this site:

http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/products/da_vinci_video_overview.aspx

I am thoroughly impressed! I want one. I want one NOW!!!