Day before your surgery - Surgeon’s POV

Undergoing surgery can be a difficult and stressful situation. Patients often mention how they have been stressed and anxious about it to the point that they can’t eat or sleep and some start smoking more often just to help them hold their nerves. 

Ever wondered what your surgeon does before he/she operates on you?

I often hear patients say that their surgeons seem indifferent since they have done this a thousand times, you are just one more number for them. 

A case. 

The reality couldn’t be far from it. 

Before we reach to the point of discussing the surgical plan with you and consenting you, the surgeons involved in your care have spent significant amount of time and brain cells reviewing your case, imaging, co-morbidities, expectations, various permutations and combinations of procedures to finally find the one (or few) which might be a best fit. 

As a surgeon treating Breast Cancer, one day prior to operating I review the imaging and surgical plan, discus it with colleagues if required, do mental rehearsals of the procedure no matter how many times I have done it before.

It also trickles into my lifestyle: 

• no alcohol day before or after surgeries ( in case I’m called in for a complication)
• make sure I am in bed early to get good sleep to be mentally alert. No parties, no family gatherings, no midnight chit-chat
• meditation and deep breathing to centre the mind and soul
• blocking all social media to avoid any mental agitation for the time leading to surgery 
• strength training to keep my fitness to be able to stand and operate for hours etc etc

Surgeons are humans, we have sickness in the family, issues with friends and spouses, mortgages, troubled teenagers, workplace issues but the moment I walk into the hospital to see you pre-operatively none of that matters. 

It’s just you and me against the disease. 

We are team. You are what matters to me the most. I feel that’s the purest form of affection. 

For me, operating is like meditation. It’s one of the blessings I’m grateful for everyday. While the anaesthetist puts you to sleep, I scrub my skin away to protect you from infection. (I literally have developed a soap and latex sensitivity due to this. And the hydrating lotions for that are pretty much eating a major chunk of my pay-check). 

The time I scrub, is the time I pray. I pray to the one where my faith lies to guide me and be with me to be able to heal you and take your disease and pain away. At the same time I also  marvel on how beautifully and intricately the human body is designed.

Everytime I operate I am humbled by the artistic expression and engineering of a bigger power. It’s just so perfect. 

I thank him for giving me the opportunity to make amends to his beautiful creation. 

Every effort is made to make you comfortable, so that you don’t have pain. While your family and loved ones await anxiously while you are in the operation-theatre; my anxiety starts once you leave for home away from my watch until I see you again.

Are you okay? Are you in pain? How is the wound? Hope the scar heals well and fades so that you are not constantly reminded of this experience. Is the disease gone? What else can I do?

I wait with you in anticipation till I see you again and give you the results. I am happy with you and sad with you. 

You might not see it but we win as team and fight as team till we get it right. 

Then I see you recover and move on. And I start again, going over the entire cycle with another one of you. 

And that’s my everyday just like yours.