Surgery...check.

Well, OK. I haven't OFFICIALLY completed my surgery rotation, but close enough. Yesterday was my last clinical day and the surgeons and residents were nice and let us go early so we could study!

This morning was the oral exams. Basically, we sit down with 2 surgeons who grill us for half an hour on 2 topics and then we switch rooms and do it again with 2 other surgeons. For my surgery rotation, I did 2 weeks of plastic surgery, 2 weeks of peds general surgery, and 4 weeks of adult general surgery. However, for this exam, we're required to know some basics from all the surgical disciplines: neurosurgery, ENT, thoracic surgery, urology, plastics, peds, radiation oncology, vascular, and cardiovascular surgery. For the oral exams, they try to make it so you get a general surgery station, plus at least one station from a rotation you did.

For instance, my stations consisted of cases from:
1)general surgery (rectal cancer and bowel obstruction cases)
2)plastics (tendon laceration, burn injury, and scalp avulsion cases)
3)vascular (abdominal aortic aneurysm, peripheral vascular disease, and DVT cases)
4)neurosurgery (subarachnoid hemorrhage, malignant headache, and spinal cord compression cases).

I think I did fine. Now I just have to write the 2.5 hr standardized exam tomorrow morning and then I'm done surgery!!! I'm taking it easy tonight and not studying. These standardized exams are a joke and don't really test your knowledge or your experience during the rotation. I've written a few; studied hard for a couple and barely studied at all for a couple. Got the same marks for both of them, so I figure it doesn't really matter if I study anyways. I might as well have a relaxing evening!

Tomorrow evening...I'm going houseboating for the weekend!!!!