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Pretty tame surgery rotation so far, anything I'm missing out on? (minimal interest in surgery)


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I'm in the same boat as you, just finished my core surgery block. I averaged <40 hours per week in the hospital and had it much easier than I expected. I think a lot of staff are taking post-COVID vacations and so there's just a lot less going on than usual. I'm interested in non-surgical specialties as well so didn't mind the abridged surgery experience. I figure the most important things for a non-surgical generalist are things like the workup of a possible surgical presentation (e.g. selecting appropriate investigations), indications for surgery, prep for surgery, post-op complications, and minor technical skills like suturing, injections, etc.

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Count your blessings. And if you want, take advantage of the free time to do a bit more reading about common presentations and prep for your exam. You’ll have gaps regardless of how busy you are on any rotation - for important points, clerkship is just a first pass on things you’ll encounter many times in the future. Any gaps that matter you can fill during residency or self-study. 

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3 hours ago, pyridoxal-phosphate said:

family or internal or something diagnostic (radiology, pathology)

Do as much clinic as you can. If offered the option of OR or clinic do clinic. For family, try to ask about presentation of common surgical problems, learn referral criteria, post-operative follow-up, etc. For internal it's similar stuff, diagnostic criteria, when to consult surgery, long term sequelae from surgery, etc. Rads is obvious, try to review the imaging for every patient you see, for path review the path results of every patient you see.

Doing peds surgery while hating the OR, clinic was great because you learned about the common surgical peds presentations, and when to consult/refer, etc.

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