As I entered my last rotation in PA school, general surgery at St. Francis Hospital, my goal was to learn and absorb as much I as could. Each evening before I left the hospital, I would look at the next day’s surgical schedule and plan the surgeries I would scrub into the next day. Each night I would review the pertinent anatomy for the next day’s surgeries. On average, I scrubbed into two-to-three surgeries a day. Additionally, I would follow my patients for the length of their post-op stay. This allowed me to have a comprehensive education on the complete management of surgical patients. In the beginning of the rotation, I often had difficulty forming a plan for my patients in the days after surgery. I was taught a very simple concept, the goal for surgical patients, or really any patient, is that they should be back to baseline, or close to it, prior to discharge; specifically, in regard to oral intake, bowel movements, voiding and ambulation. As the end of the rotation neared, I found that applying this information became more natural and I was able to better manage my patients. This is knowledge that can be applied to all facets of medicine. Throughout this rotation, there was one specific idea that stuck with me; that patients need to want to help themselves in order to facilitate recovery. I had a thirty-six- year old patient that underwent a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction for breast cancer. She was very depressed about her diagnosis and refused to ambulate in the days after her surgery. Although she did recover from the surgery, it took a lot longer than it should have for a healthy 36-year old. On the contrary, I had a 58-year old patient that underwent the same procedure. This patient had a long list of comorbidities and was morbidly obese. This second patient started ambulating and getting out of bed on post-op day one. Between the two patients, the 58-year old had a much better recovery process compared to the younger patient. This faster recovery was solely attributable to her willingness to help herself by ambulating and keeping her spirits up. Having identified the strong effect that motivation has on patients, I hope to help my future patients, not just medically, but by teaching them how to facilitate their own recovery.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.