The Third Year Manifesto, Part 1: Cutting Suture

I will now discuss the stuff of third year that is not happy and glamorous. Having a blog places slight pressure on a person not to whine. But not to disclose the negative parts of medical school would be dishonest. So it’s time to air a few grievances, and (because I can’t seem to not do this) discuss morality and holiness at the same time.

At some point during my third year, I got very demoralized. It’s hard for a person who wants to do great things well (and is used to doing great things well) to find herself unable to hope even for mediocrity.

One response to this predicament: Ah, what a chance to grow in humility!

THIS IS AWESOME.

"Ah," goes this response, "I have had many peers, past and present, who have struggled to get the things I’ve gotten, like A’s and letters of recommendation and leadership positions and success…. Now, God is making me more like them, to help me see that they are my brothers in everything. I have nothing of my own and am happy to have God, because I truly lack nothing."

Another and much more human response to this predicament:

THIS IS TERRIBLE.

In its severest form, this disappointment becomes sadness, loneliness, isolation, depression, and despair.

It was a war between these two responses for the second half of third year. However, it is old news that 1) I am a little soul and 2) there's a war going on in me between holiness and not-holiness. God is exerting Himself to the maximum and employing all kinds of things (sacraments, virtues, habits, circumstances, living people, dead people, people I’ve never laid eyes on, angels, and even me) to make me like Himself. On the other side are all kinds of things (occasions, vices, habits, circumstances, living people, dead people, people I’ve never laid eyes on, angels, and especially me) persuading me to stay in my nice little hidey-self-in-hell-hole.

But morality aside for a teensy moment: seriously! This year was so demoralizing at times!

Do you have any idea what it is like to stand in a surgery, not allowed to do anything except trim suture? Somebody ties a knot around [whatever], and I come in with scissors and snip it. That is 90% of my intraoperative action. This is especially painful because I’ve been given great responsibility and responded rather well to in the past. I wish I could speak my mind in those ORs.

“You know, I am a person.”

Snip.

“With an intellect.”

Snip.

“A rather good intellect.”

Snip.

“And I have pretty good hands, too. Did you know I paint? And I’m handy around the house.”

Snip.

“And if you let me stick-tie the ovarian vessels/close the fascia/dissect adhesions/use a bovie/debride dead tissue/MANY OTHER EXAMPLES, I bet I could do it.”

Snip.

The worst part is, I am not even permitted to stupidly cut as I like. I am chided because I am not doing it properly. Since the clinical years of medical school are a dizzying merry-go-round through services and surgeons, I can never acquire expertise in one thing. Many have pretened to, but no one ever has, given me a comprehensive lesson in how to properly cut all types of suture in all places according to the preferences of all surgeons. (I expect even the Eternal Father would have difficulty with this one. Just kidding, Abba.)

“Whoa!” says one surgeon. “Too short.”

Or again, the surgeon is uncomfortably silent after I cut. I timidly ask, “too long?”

At least I have never cut someone’s knot. There was once when I took the blame for a broken knot. A few minutes after I snipped, one of the resident’s knots came undone. To save the resident face, I said, “Oh, I cut your knot, didn’t I. I’m sorry.”

I became the queen of taking flak this year. There was an “Oh, thank you,” after every correction; there was a sincere-sounding “I’m sorry,” after every action someone objected to.

Today, while snipping, I grew less and less successful. I began to wonder whether there was a problem with the scissors. Surgeons and residents are quick to ask for a different instrument if the one they’re holding does something silly or inefficient. Not being a surgeon or a resident, I waited out my silly, inefficient instrument for a good five more snips. While I waited, a new scrub tech clocked in. This meant I lost the rapport I’d built up with the first one (my pulling a gown and gloves, helping in setup, etc) I didn’t think anything of this at the time, but now I wonder whether er shift change made a difference in the answer I received when I eventually asked, “Do you have another pair of scissors?”

There are at least four pairs of scissors in almost every set. I know because I know their names: curved Mayos, Mets, tenotomies. There are also Potts and Dietrichs, but even I wouldn’t use those for suture (now I’m just showing off how many types of scissors I can name without looking things up). The suture scissors are called “heavy sciz” by some, but their real name is straight Mayos. Technically, you’re supposed to use the straight Mayos for stuff, like foam, suture, and mesh. Cutting these undelicate things with the better scissors would dull the blades and damage tissue. But I’ve seen surgeons get frustrated with a pair of straight Mayos. They drop them to purposefully exclude them from use, then start to use the curved Mayo’s or the Mets. I’ve even seen someone use the tenotomies. So certainly it would not have been absurd for me to use a different pair of scissors. But what did the scrub tech say?

“Is it the scissors, or is it you?”

I felt like exploding.

“Please,” I wanted to say, “even if it is me, could you think of a different way to say it? Maybe ‘show me how you’re cutting’? Or maybe, just maybe you could humor me? I humor people to ridiculous extent. Could you just hand me the curved Mayos? Maybe then I’ll learn that it is, in fact, not the scissors. And you know what else? Even if it’s not the scissors, I don’t like that you said ‘me,’ as if I/me/my person is a problem. My technique might be lousy, but why the ad hominem? Why do I become a problem because I don’t cut suture properly? And anyway, who has taught me how to cut? No one! I have had to cobble things together myself!”

See the med student, doing nothing?
Oh wait, I forgot to get them in the camera view.

But I said, smiling doormat that I have become, “Oh, probably me.” And she said what I should have been doing. My success was unchanged: some good cuts, some lousy ones. In retrospect I think the scissors were fine and I was fine. The problem was that the incision was getting deep (down to the retroperitoneum) and therefore the sutures were getting further and further away from me. When you have to stand on tiptoe and crane your neck and reach to cut something, nothing works quite as well. I can’t wait to be the surgeon or the resident and have a legitimate place to stand so that I can see the operative field all the time.