My 24 Hour Workday...
Clever title, eh? Wonder if anyone gets the reference.
So...ever since becoming a surgical tech I have kinda been specialized. I pretty much only do Plastic/Neuro/ENT cases. On top of that, while I do my share of Neuro and ENT I have also kind of become the Plastics guy.
One Dr., knowing I'm new has kinda taken advantage of the fact and recruited me to do his cases, well...mostly one case in particular. His DIEP Flaps. This stands for Deep Interior Epigastric Perferators. This cases can take up to 12-16 hours because basically it's a bi-lateral Mastectomy followed by an incision in lower abdomen to located the vessels feeding the fat in the stomache area...we then take all that fat and move it to form the new breasts...connecting vessels in the chest to the vessels that we took from the abdomen. I'm crazy for doing all these cases but it's hella nice OT and the fact that most people have years before they have "their" Dr. that they work with all the time and wants them in the room and shit...I had "my" Dr. in 2 months...lol. I was told just not to say anything in the Hospital much about that cuz jealously and backstabbing runs rampant in the O.R. It's like fucking high school.
Anyway, on Friday this particular flap SUCKED. Nothing would go right with it. We had everything set and then we notice a problem in one of the breasts after it was closed so we had to go back in with the scope. This was at about 6:30am on Saturday. This case started at 7:30am Friday. I stay from start to finish for these DIEP flaps. I didn't even get a break from about 2:30PM til about 2AM. At about 8:30 I was just winded. Everyone was tired. The main attending surgeon had taken a bit of a nap at around 4AM...When they started to close again I just told him that I need to leave. He doesn't need me for the closing. Any tech can do that. The main plastic stuff is done and that's what he really needs me for anyway...and not to have much turnover because we usually have about 200 needles to keep track of and rotating people in and out of the room makes it difficult. he thanked me for staying as long as I did since no tech had ever stayed as long as I did....then again, this case has never gone over 24 hours either. We did one last Friday and were done at about 11:30PM. He going to China so we have no Flaps for at least a month.
However, I have about 30 hours of OT last week....At my pay it's gonna be a nice paycheck on Thursday. Maybe. I'll prolly be disappointed. Damn taxes.
So...ever since becoming a surgical tech I have kinda been specialized. I pretty much only do Plastic/Neuro/ENT cases. On top of that, while I do my share of Neuro and ENT I have also kind of become the Plastics guy.
One Dr., knowing I'm new has kinda taken advantage of the fact and recruited me to do his cases, well...mostly one case in particular. His DIEP Flaps. This stands for Deep Interior Epigastric Perferators. This cases can take up to 12-16 hours because basically it's a bi-lateral Mastectomy followed by an incision in lower abdomen to located the vessels feeding the fat in the stomache area...we then take all that fat and move it to form the new breasts...connecting vessels in the chest to the vessels that we took from the abdomen. I'm crazy for doing all these cases but it's hella nice OT and the fact that most people have years before they have "their" Dr. that they work with all the time and wants them in the room and shit...I had "my" Dr. in 2 months...lol. I was told just not to say anything in the Hospital much about that cuz jealously and backstabbing runs rampant in the O.R. It's like fucking high school.
Anyway, on Friday this particular flap SUCKED. Nothing would go right with it. We had everything set and then we notice a problem in one of the breasts after it was closed so we had to go back in with the scope. This was at about 6:30am on Saturday. This case started at 7:30am Friday. I stay from start to finish for these DIEP flaps. I didn't even get a break from about 2:30PM til about 2AM. At about 8:30 I was just winded. Everyone was tired. The main attending surgeon had taken a bit of a nap at around 4AM...When they started to close again I just told him that I need to leave. He doesn't need me for the closing. Any tech can do that. The main plastic stuff is done and that's what he really needs me for anyway...and not to have much turnover because we usually have about 200 needles to keep track of and rotating people in and out of the room makes it difficult. he thanked me for staying as long as I did since no tech had ever stayed as long as I did....then again, this case has never gone over 24 hours either. We did one last Friday and were done at about 11:30PM. He going to China so we have no Flaps for at least a month.
However, I have about 30 hours of OT last week....At my pay it's gonna be a nice paycheck on Thursday. Maybe. I'll prolly be disappointed. Damn taxes.