Hernia Repair / total hip replacement

Today, I was jumping around the O.R. from one surgery to another one and another one to the other one. Therefore, I saw a lot of surgeries. The first one was about hernia repair. This one happened in one man's inguinal ring. Doctors didn't know why this one happened. Again, I realized today that doctors do not pay attention too much on the cause but the result! Doctors were asking me where I was from and I said that I am from Korea. Everyone was surprised and excited about the fact that I am korean, which was interesting. They said that my English was better than their korean, which was funny. One female doctor was talking about how much she loves korean food and so on. It was exciting and the moment to realize that doctors are humans too.

The most awesome thing happened today was the fact that I found a korean female surgeon in the O.R.! I saw her last name on the board which shows the schedule of the surgeries with doctors' names right next to. I immediately realized that her name was korean common last name. I asked the nurse who was sitting at the desk and she said that she is korean. I was so excited and eager to meet her!

I had a chance to talk to her for quite a long time before she started operating. Surprisingly, she said that she was about to come to my school from other state. It was such a coincidence! I was so proud that she was a surgeon as a "korean" female in U.S. (even though she was born here). She was operating with microscopes in ears. Therefore, I did not have any chance to see that surgery.

She told me that I can stop by her anytime!


The second surgery that I saw from the outside of the O.R. was about total hip replacement. It was really violent because there were four doctors standing around the patient whose hip was widely open and one doctor was using a hammer to push something in. It was orthopedics world, which was amazing to observe. One nursing student asked me to come in and see after that one ends. Due to the danger of infection, doctors do not let people come in in the middle of the surgery especially students and observers like me.

I hope that I can observe some replacement surgery next time if there is any chance!

Laparoscopic inguinal Hernia

This surgery was the hardest one to understand because I was hardly able to tell what was going on. There were a lot of new doctors. The interesting thing for me was that the patient was asian. One young looking PA was nicely talking to me after the surgery ended. She said that I could ask her anything about the surgery and she understood if it was hard to understand the surgery because that surgery was actually hard one to understand for other doctors too. I asked her two questions about what exactly "Hernia" was and what were looking like spider webs. 

she answered thoroughly and nicely. 

Hernia is basically the one that is dislocated from the place where the part of the organ should be located.

According to the dictionary, hernia is a condition in which part of an organ is displaced and protrudes through the wall of the cavity containing it, which is pretty close to how I understood by listening to PA's explanation. 

The answer for the second question was a fascia which is s a layer of fibrous tissue.

They really do look like spider silky webs. (It took me forever to find this word because I didn't know how to spell this word but the sound.)

The second surgery that I could only see the beginning part because of time was about one grandmother who had to get rid of ovary and fallopian tube. She had to spread her legs on the operating table, which means I could see her virgina. I didn't find out the reason of her taking the surgery. It was scary but amazing when I saw her getting under anesthesia in 2 minutes after an anesthesiologist injected the anesthetic drugs.