Last Day in the OR

 

Last Day in OR

It is just strange.  One minute it is a hot August day in 1971 and I’m sitting in a classroom in Kansas City and the next minute I just finished a career of 36 years in general surgery.  They say that the days are long but the years are short and that is so true.

My last day in surgery started like most before them on that 27th day of December of 2016.  I woke without an alarm and got ready and drove the short distance to Saint Teresa.  I was scheduled to assist my new associate with a robotic assisted laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication that Tuesday morning.  I had my usual cereal and coffee prior to leaving the house and arrived for the 7:30 case.  We actually didn’t begin the surgery till 8:30 which is not too unusual for anesthesia and set up times.  We had finished by 10:30 and after changing clothes and driving to Via Christi Saint Frances I parked and walked to the Endoscopy Suites to see my next patient.  I was scheduled to do an EGD with placement of a Bravo pH capsule.  That went well and only took 30-45 minutes so I was able to go to pre op holding in surgery to identify and mark my next patient by 1 o’clock.  Near 1:30 pm Simone and I started our surgery.  It involved doing a sentinel node biopsy on the left with a frozen section after lymphazurin injection.  We then proceeded with the left mastectomy followed by a right mastectomy.  The patient tolerated the procedure well and we finished by 3:30 after orders and notes were done on the computer.  We then made rounds and saw one new patient for consult and one established patient.  We kept running into docs and nurses, so a bunch of goodbyes were said. 

I jumped into the car and checked out to Simone for calls and drove straight to Winfield since it was my oldest grandson’s 10^th birthday.  The family was already there for the 5:30 dinner.  I arrived an hour late at 6:30 and they saved me food (as usual).  By 8 pm I was back in the car with my youngest daughter on the road back to Wichita with me but I got a call from KCU and spent over 20 minutes on the call.

I arrived home around 9 pm… just another day in the life of a surgeon.  It is just this was the last surgery day for me.  I had 2 more days in the office and some rounds but the OR days were done.

As I lay in bed that night there were no tears, I was just sad that it was time to move on.  It is just that I have never had to do this before.