Another busy week! Well, the beginning of the week wasn't too bad, but yesterday and today were pretty busy clinic days. Clinic at this rotation is a little more intense than at my last rotation, because in-office procedures are way more common when you go to see a general surgeon. Today, for example, I saw a punch biopsy of a skin cancer, an incision & drainage of an abscess on someone's leg, and a breast biopsy, as well as removal of some venous catheters used for dialysis. Plus, we did another laparoscopic cholecystectomy this morning, and had a bunch of other regular clinic visits, like consults for surgery and follow-up visits from previous surgeries.

I've decided that I really like being sent down to the ER to take a history and do a physical before my preceptor gets down there to assess the situation herself. It's really cool to not know anything about a patient (except that a consult with my preceptor was requested) and just go into their room, talk to them, and figure out what's going on. Today, I saw a patient with an abscess, and even though they're pretty obvious to diagnose, it was still cool! Then, my preceptor came down and did the incision and drainage. Pretty cool!

I really like the surgery setting because you get to see a good mixture of things - clinic visits, ER consults, and actual time in the OR. Today I got a mixture of all three of those things in the same day! It would definitely keep things interesting as a career. However, I'm not really that crazy about all the gastrointestinal stuff and diseases... it's just not that interesting to me. I mean, I like it, but I'm not super excited about it like I think I was about women's health things. As of right now, if I had to choose between general surgery and OB/GYN, I think I would choose OB/GYN because you still get to see surgery, and the cases are more interesting (to me). But, this rotation is really great and I'm enjoying every day!