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A comment on This May Hurt a Bit: Harvard medical student's blog. Parent comment

Re:This May Hurt a Bit: Harvard medical student's blog by graeham on Friday April 18, 2014 @12:45PM (#7609920)
I'm a biomedical engineer and have been working with surgeons for a few years. I'm always impressed with their perspective given the situation of surgery. To the surgical team, its just another day in the office. To the person on the table, it is one of the most important days in the life.

I have been fortunate enough to be invited into the OR to observe a few surgeries. The first time, I was shocked at how casual the situation was to the people involved. The atmosphere is more like a workshop than you see on TV dramas involving surgeons (music playing, people chatting about what their kids and weekends, etc. like told in the article).

But after thinking about it some more, this is the atmosphere that's needed. Everyone is calm and collected, and not going to make a mistake from being stressed out. Being stressed out at work every day simply isn't sustainable. Some of these surgeries are tough jobs too, involving standing for hours in awkward positions (which can lead to long-term injuries). These men and women are true professionals - even on routine work they sacrifice their own comfort and well-being for the welfare of their patients.

Agree that it is good to make the perspectives of the original article more widely seen to appreciate what they do!

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Re:This May Hurt a Bit: Harvard medical student's blog by JeremyMorgan on Friday April 18, 2014 @01:12PM (#7610088)
You're absolutely right, that is what's needed. It's the same with the fire service, you'll notice most firefighters are pretty calm but fast. This is because of countless hours of training and building to make the men and women involved think in a very calm, procedural fashion. It doesn't reduce the gravitas of the situation but it's a situation where you know what you should do because you've trained and/or done it so many times. I imagine with a surgeon this is magnified many times over.

In Fire Academy they say "We want to train you so you there are so many things you'll do automatically and not even think about. That way you don't panic and also you can use the available thought power for the exceptions in the situation, not the basics"

Also they want you prepared. "You never see a garbage man pull into a neighborhood and say OH SH*T LOOK AT ALL THESE CANS!! HOW AM I GOING TO DO THIS? because they're prepared for it and have a plan".

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Re:This May Hurt a Bit: Harvard medical student's blog by FireBeyond on Friday April 18, 2014 @01:25PM (#7610155)
Nice to meet a fellow firefighter here.
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Re:This May Hurt a Bit: Harvard medical student's blog by JeremyMorgan on Friday April 18, 2014 @02:35PM (#7610561)
Nice! yeah it's a bit rare. Is it just me are there a lot of parallels between software and the fire service? haha.
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Re:This May Hurt a Bit: Harvard medical student's blog by cooperadymas on Friday April 18, 2014 @01:03PM (#7610028) 

    The first time, I was shocked at how casual the situation was to the people involved. The atmosphere is more like a workshop than you see on TV dramas involving surgeons (music playing, people chatting about what their kids and weekends, etc. like told in the article).
This is part of what made MASH so great. Many of the best scenes took place with the characters in the OR talking, teasing, and generally going about their routine.
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Re:This May Hurt a Bit: Harvard medical student's blog by willyt on Friday April 18, 2014 @01:10PM (#7610071)
I've sat in on two caesarians as a father. One 'emergency' and one EMERGENCY!!!. The way I could tell the difference was that the first was as you describe and the second was disturbingly like a TV hospital drama. Both ended well, but it still makes me upset thinking about it years later.
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