How to Do a Liver Transplant Read Online Free Page B

to a group of six other students and each day we went to the hospital to poke and prod the public. We would wear stethoscopes around our necks and short white coats over our clothes, so we could be identified on sight as student doctors. Patients who were ‘in the know’ would run a mile when they saw us coming before they could be subjected to our stupid questions about how they were feeling and heavy-handed examinations. Just as many others would welcome us with open arms, happy to regale us with intricate stories about their bowel movements in order to break the monotony of their long hospital stays. We learned to examine patients from top to toe, practising over and over. Andrew became my very understanding practice dummy: he had his heart listened to, his abdomen pushed on, bright lights shone in his eyes and his eyelids everted. In someplaces this might be called torture but Andrew never complained. He did, however, draw the line at undergoing a rectal examination. Even he had his limits.

Girls shouldn’t do surgery
    M y passion for general surgery began almost as soon as they let me into the hospital. The moment I first got to see an operation, I was hooked. I loved the precise nature of it all – the smooth, organised way that things got done. The confidence of the surgeons was intoxicating as they worked away for hours, heads bowed in concentration, calling out the names of exotic-sounding instruments. I wanted to be just like them, strutting around in crisp surgical scrubs, barking orders and having people follow them. Surgeons appeared to be respected by everyone and they did thingsthat no one else could. But the ultimate thing was that good surgery meant someone who might otherwise be in pain, or might even die, could be made well enough to return to a normal life, or at least a better quality one. I felt there was a real payoff that would make all the hard work and training worthwhile.
    My parents were very keen to foster my newfound interest in surgery. Every afternoon a doctor called Allan Smith would come into their newsagency to buy the Melbourne Sun newspaper. A football fanatic, Dr Smith would buy the paper so he could read the latest gossip about his favourite team, the Brisbane Lions. My Dad was a fellow sports fan and the two quickly became friends. As luck would have it, Dr Smith was also a general surgeon at Nambour Hospital. Dad mentioned that his daughter was a medical student who was interested in being a surgeon, so Dr Smith kindly arranged for me to spend some time during my vacation watching him in the operating theatre. This one event was to have a profound effect on the course of my life, and with that simple gesture, my surgical career was born.
    Dr Smith took me into the operating theatre and introduced me to all the masked faces. Using what I quickly found out was irony, he announced, ‘This is Kellee Slater, she is a medical student who wants to be a surgeon. Does anyone think that a girl should do surgery?’ I was already pretty anxious and now I was a little embarrassed to be thecentre of attention in such an intimidating place. I tried to calm my nervous stomach with a few hard swallows. Obviously used to these sorts of tongue in cheek comments, the nurses and anaesthetist nodded a brief and indifferent hello in my direction before turning back to their work. Dr Smith asked one of the nurses to teach me how to ‘scrub up’. He was going to be removing a gallbladder via keyhole surgery that day and it seemed that I was going to be allowed to stand at the operating table and assist with the surgery. I was not expecting this on my first day and it brought about another wave of nervous butterflies. I thought I would be sitting in the corner, not actually taking part in the operation. I had never scrubbed before, let alone touched a live person while a cut was being made in their flesh. I stood excitedly at the scrub sink feeling more than a little important as