Surgery Clerkship

I just finished my surgery clerkship, and wow! I loved being able to finally do some procedures (inserted chest tubes, started central lines, etc.). It actually feels like you are a doctor during your surgery clerkship.

To my surprise, the surgical residents are, for the most part, incredibly nice. From horror stories, I was half expecting all surgical residents to be royal jerks. They weren't. The people were overall very nice to talk to and seemed genuinely kind.

One downside I found in surgery, was the lack of teaching. When the residents did take time to teach, they were very good at it. However, it appeared like the residents were worked so hard that finding time to teach was rather difficult. Teaching is partly student-run however. As medical students, if you want to learn about something, you need to ask about it. Therefore, I think some of my teammates learned a lot more than others.

To be honest, the reason I disliked surgery the most was gowning up in the OR. I'm an athletic male that has the potential to sweat profusely, and putting on a gown, gloves, facemask, etc. is not my idea of a fun time. Having a change of scrubs is essential, and I would bring shower materials on call days. That said, I loved every other aspect of the OR. Ok....maybe I could do without a few of the smells, but it was worth it.

For the NBME exam, I definitely recommend NMS Casebook. I read Kaplan, NMS casebook, some CaseFiles, FA Surgery, and A&L Q&A. Yeah, I went a little overboard. NMS Casebook was definitely most helpful for the NBME exam. I haven't gotten my grades back, but I think I did pretty well.

Will I do surgery for a residency? Possibly. I liked the residents, material, and procedures. What is holding me back? I consider myself more of a family-oriented person, and I fear that surgery is one of the most time-consuming residencies/lives of all physicians. So we'll just have to see how the other clerkships pan out first.