Medicine really is an art. You don't know what will happen next; what you will find and we always expect the unexpected.
Yesterday, I operated on a patient who had a mass on the left arm as big as a ping-pong ball. I expected to find intraoperatively an ordinary LIPOMA - a bulk of fat. But lo and behold, it was a big whitish tumor attached to the nerve surrounding it actually ( ulnar nerve) and no matter how I infiltrate anesthesia on the surrounding areas, there was pain and I cannot proceed. It took me several minutes before I can free the tumor with a lot of pains to the patient ( usual for tissues around the nerve). I could only think of FIBROSARCOMA which is malignant or a NEUROMA - a tumor coming from the nerve itself.
If a surgeon is not well experienced in finding cases like this, he would surely close the wound without removing the tumor - an open-close case which always happened to young surgeons.
To me, medicine is the most exciting profession excluding the military life of course.
Yesterday, I operated on a patient who had a mass on the left arm as big as a ping-pong ball. I expected to find intraoperatively an ordinary LIPOMA - a bulk of fat. But lo and behold, it was a big whitish tumor attached to the nerve surrounding it actually ( ulnar nerve) and no matter how I infiltrate anesthesia on the surrounding areas, there was pain and I cannot proceed. It took me several minutes before I can free the tumor with a lot of pains to the patient ( usual for tissues around the nerve). I could only think of FIBROSARCOMA which is malignant or a NEUROMA - a tumor coming from the nerve itself.
If a surgeon is not well experienced in finding cases like this, he would surely close the wound without removing the tumor - an open-close case which always happened to young surgeons.
To me, medicine is the most exciting profession excluding the military life of course.
Buzzzz! Military life exciting? They mostly sit around and wait. You count your blessings your not in the AFP.
ReplyDelete