Tuesday, March 25

    Today was my first day shadowing Dr. Chelius, an ENT, at Texas Children's Hospital. Today, I observed two surgeries in the operating room. The first surgery was a thyroid removal (thyroidectomy). It took two and a half hours and was very complex. First, the patient was put under anesthesia, and then an incision was made across the front of the neck. The doctors removed the thyroid, carefully avoiding the parathyroid glands and the recurrent laryngeal nerve. The parathyroid glands control calcium levels, and the recurrent laryngeal nerve controls the vocal cords. The doctors avoid the nerve with intraoperative nerve monitoring, a machine that beeps when a tool touches the nerve. Finally, the patient's neck was stitched shut. After the first surgery, Dr. Chelius met with a patient who had hard lumps in their neck. In the second surgery, the doctors removed a tumor from a patient's parotid gland (parotidectomy). The parotid glands are salivary glands in front of and below each ear. To remove the tumor, the doctors placed the patient under anesthesia and made an incision around the ear. Then, the doctors removed the parotid gland with the tumor, carefully avoiding the facial nerve. Finally, the doctors connected a tube under the patient's skin to drain fluids and stitched the incision shut.


I cannot include any photos due to HIPAA.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sunday, March 16

Image
     Today was our first day of work, so we got up extra early. Most of our group went to start construction on the church, but some of us, including me, set up a clinic for the community. Initially, we were going to have to set up our clinic outdoors, which would have been awful because of the heat and UV. However, one of the houses on the block was abandoned, and we got permission to set up in there. Our clinic was open, for free, to anyone who wanted/needed medical care. Our clinic had three sections: education, triage, and appointments. The education section comprised five booths, one for each system of the body and how to take care of it. In the triage section, we took each patient’s vitals, such as blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, blood glucose levels, heart rate, weight, and temperature. We also spoke to the patients (with the help of a translator) about what they needed to talk to the doctor about. Finally, the appointments section was where the patients got t...
Read more

Friday, March 21

Image
    T his morning, our group worked on construction. However, a few of us, including me, stayed back until lunch. At around 11 AM, we drove to the work site and joined the rest of the group. After lunch, we cleaned up the church for sabbath tomorrow. We washed the chairs, cleaned the trowels and mortar boards, took down the scaffolding and put it in the shed, swept the dust off the floor, and washed it. This process took two hours, but the church looked really polished when we finished. After we cleaned, we each wrote a note on a slip of paper and put it in a water bottle. Corbin, the group leader, gave me the honor of placing the bottle into a block and cementing it so that it would stay in the building we dedicated so much time and effort to. Next, we walked around the community to invite people to church and hand them medical information pamphlets. I was part of a group with five other people, including the pastor, who was very excited to share the new church with his ...
Read more

Wednesday, March 26

       Today, I shadowed two otolaryngologists (ear, nose, and throat specialists) in the clinic. All day, I observed appointments about various issues such as ear infections, earwax blockages, eustachian tube problems, sinus infections, deviated septums, congestion, tonsillitis, laryngitis, sleep apnea, thyroid nodules, Graves' Disease, tumors, facial deformities, and aplastic anemia. A lot of the appointments were to follow up after surgeries, so I got to see the aftermath of the surgeries I witnessed yesterday. The most interesting issue I saw today was aplastic anemia, which is a disorder that occurs when the bone marrow cannot produce enough blood cells. Aplastic anemia increases the patient's risk of getting cancer, so it requires biannual checkups. A common symptom of aplastic anemia and aplastic anemia medications is bleeding gums, so that was one of the things that the doctor checked for.       During lunch today, I sat in on a Zoom meeti...
Read more