malemailmale
Oct 15, 2014
Undergraduate / Man's chest cavity suddenly filled with blood - I felt the seeds of uncertainty sown into my mind [2]
This if for the Common App's prompt: Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?
As of right now, I'm not sure if I should scrap the whole thing entirely, as I don't think it shows enough about myself. I'm open to any comments/suggestion/criticism!
I was the only person in the room surprised when the man's chest cavity suddenly filled with blood. Apparently, such occurrences are routine in a coronary bypass surgery. As one of the nurses nonchalantly began to siphon away the offending fluids, I felt the seeds of uncertainty sown into my mind. Perhaps it would have been ideal to begin my foray into the medical field on an operation more vanilla than crimson. I had previously discounted my mentor's warning regarding fainting as mere precautions, but now, as my faculties were assailed by countless enemies, such a prospect was not completely unappealing. Five hours of awkwardly peering over the surgery drape was ample time for lactic acid to permeate across my extremities and bestow its unwelcome gifts of an aching back and heavy limbs. However, my physical ailments paled in comparison to my mental state, where the manifold sensory experiences of the operating room had seized a fierce foothold on my sanity. The rhythmically incessant chimes of the vital signs monitor, the sickly orange film of Betadine slathered across the patient's body, the putrid smell of burning human flesh-each splintered away fragments of my psyche and drove me to the brink of desperation. Fortune smiled upon me, or maybe my mentor noticed the beads of sweat materializing on my neck, and I was asked, and graciously accepted, an offer to break for lunch.
While gathering my lasagna and mashed potatoes that smelled strangely of defeat, my thoughts remained in the OR, with the team of nurses and physicians still feverishly working. How could I, unable to merely observe, let alone perform, a single operation be able to toil amongst these indefatigable superhumans? These negative thoughts found a voice in a question I immediately deemed asinine yet somehow completely necessary- "Do they ever take breaks?" My mentor, a vascular surgeon himself, thankfully understood the inquiry as a manifestation of emotion rather than a clarification of whether the surgeons ever abandoned the patient on the table to grab some coffee. He related stories of his own journey through the medical field, of 36 hour shifts, of excessive schoolwork, of fainting upon viewing his first incision. Through these anecdotes I reformed my image of medical professions as actual humans, rather than industrious machines. My reverie was short-lived, however, as the abrupt staccato of my mentor's beeper signaled the end of my respite- another operation, and thus commenced my return to the OR.
The upcoming procedure would involve the drainage of an abdominal abscess. As I donned my scrubs and entered the operating room, I felt the familiar tug of apprehension when considering the abominable sights and smells that would certainly appear when the surgeons began tackling the pus-laden monster that lie before me. A medical student commenced by making the incision and followed with the haphazard insertion of a drainage tube. Haphazard being the key word, as upon insertion, the aforementioned monster proceeded to spew its ungodly contents past the misplaced drainage tube and onto the table and ground. While the surgical team scrambled to rectify the error, I reckoned with my own, internal, surprises. The emotional overload I expected to have after this decidedly disgusting event never came, and I searched for the true origins of my previous surgical episode, finding my thoughts once again drifting to the previous operating room, where the fateful bypass was still in progress. Mental images of the surgeon's coldly calculated procedure and the nurse's unceremonious removal of the patient's blood unleashed a revelation. My earlier meltdown was a product of the operating room environment, but not of sights or smells. Rather, it was the foreboding of having to one day match the unrealistic standards of perfection as a medical professional that sparked my initial panic. My conscience cleared as the nurses finished clearing the crime scene, and I optimistically walked out of the operating room, confident that I would soon return, not as a mere observer (or god forbid a patient), but as a physician.
This if for the Common App's prompt: Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?
As of right now, I'm not sure if I should scrap the whole thing entirely, as I don't think it shows enough about myself. I'm open to any comments/suggestion/criticism!
I was the only person in the room surprised when the man's chest cavity suddenly filled with blood. Apparently, such occurrences are routine in a coronary bypass surgery. As one of the nurses nonchalantly began to siphon away the offending fluids, I felt the seeds of uncertainty sown into my mind. Perhaps it would have been ideal to begin my foray into the medical field on an operation more vanilla than crimson. I had previously discounted my mentor's warning regarding fainting as mere precautions, but now, as my faculties were assailed by countless enemies, such a prospect was not completely unappealing. Five hours of awkwardly peering over the surgery drape was ample time for lactic acid to permeate across my extremities and bestow its unwelcome gifts of an aching back and heavy limbs. However, my physical ailments paled in comparison to my mental state, where the manifold sensory experiences of the operating room had seized a fierce foothold on my sanity. The rhythmically incessant chimes of the vital signs monitor, the sickly orange film of Betadine slathered across the patient's body, the putrid smell of burning human flesh-each splintered away fragments of my psyche and drove me to the brink of desperation. Fortune smiled upon me, or maybe my mentor noticed the beads of sweat materializing on my neck, and I was asked, and graciously accepted, an offer to break for lunch.
While gathering my lasagna and mashed potatoes that smelled strangely of defeat, my thoughts remained in the OR, with the team of nurses and physicians still feverishly working. How could I, unable to merely observe, let alone perform, a single operation be able to toil amongst these indefatigable superhumans? These negative thoughts found a voice in a question I immediately deemed asinine yet somehow completely necessary- "Do they ever take breaks?" My mentor, a vascular surgeon himself, thankfully understood the inquiry as a manifestation of emotion rather than a clarification of whether the surgeons ever abandoned the patient on the table to grab some coffee. He related stories of his own journey through the medical field, of 36 hour shifts, of excessive schoolwork, of fainting upon viewing his first incision. Through these anecdotes I reformed my image of medical professions as actual humans, rather than industrious machines. My reverie was short-lived, however, as the abrupt staccato of my mentor's beeper signaled the end of my respite- another operation, and thus commenced my return to the OR.
The upcoming procedure would involve the drainage of an abdominal abscess. As I donned my scrubs and entered the operating room, I felt the familiar tug of apprehension when considering the abominable sights and smells that would certainly appear when the surgeons began tackling the pus-laden monster that lie before me. A medical student commenced by making the incision and followed with the haphazard insertion of a drainage tube. Haphazard being the key word, as upon insertion, the aforementioned monster proceeded to spew its ungodly contents past the misplaced drainage tube and onto the table and ground. While the surgical team scrambled to rectify the error, I reckoned with my own, internal, surprises. The emotional overload I expected to have after this decidedly disgusting event never came, and I searched for the true origins of my previous surgical episode, finding my thoughts once again drifting to the previous operating room, where the fateful bypass was still in progress. Mental images of the surgeon's coldly calculated procedure and the nurse's unceremonious removal of the patient's blood unleashed a revelation. My earlier meltdown was a product of the operating room environment, but not of sights or smells. Rather, it was the foreboding of having to one day match the unrealistic standards of perfection as a medical professional that sparked my initial panic. My conscience cleared as the nurses finished clearing the crime scene, and I optimistically walked out of the operating room, confident that I would soon return, not as a mere observer (or god forbid a patient), but as a physician.