I enjoy passing gas

I started a new rotation this week where I get to pass gas. Yep, I'm working in anesthesiology. It's pretty dang amazing. I was able to intubate 6 people on my first day. Right after we give them a couple drugs to induce anesthesia, they completely stop breathing. I had to make sure the mask was on correctly and then give breaths for them while we hyper-oxygenate them prior to intubation. I was so concerned with doing everything I needed to do that I hadn't really realized what I was doing. I was solely responsible for keeping the patient alive. Had I stopped squeezing the bag the patient would have died. It hit me later how amazing a responsibility that was. After a few breaths on 100% O2, we stopped and I was able to put a tube down my patient's trachea. It's basically the same way they show on TV. You put a laryngyscope down the tongue and lift up the epiglottis. You then watch the tube go through the vocal cords. It's a damn good feeling to see the tube in the right place and see the patient's chest rise when you start ventilation again.

Yesterday I was able to see a couple of CABGs. That stands for coronary artery bypass graft, what we affectionately call a "cabbage". It's amazing to see how they harvest veins and arteries so they can bypass bad vessels in the heart. It's even more amazing when the cut open the pericardium - the sac around the heart - and you see the beating heart for the first time. I was thinking, damn, here is the man with his chest wide open and his beating heart right in front of me. It doesn't get much better than that. It was also the first time I had seen a patient go on bypass. That was a bit freaky from my new perspective as his vitals - blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate and sats - were essentially zero for quite a while. He came off bypass without too much difficulty and we were able to defibrillate his heart to a normal rhythm. They actually have an electrode that puts the heart into ventricular fibrillation which just keeps the heart quivering. They closed his chest up with steel wire and he was as good as new.

I honestly never cease to be amazed at what we can do with medicine. I feel exceedingly lucky that I am able to be a part of this profession.