Two weeks ago, I got the opportunity to participate in a really unique learning experience! Every 6 months, the Emergency Medicine residency program at Sparrow Hospital puts on a workshop for their residents to practice some skills that are rare in the emergency room. These procedures are done on anesthetized pigs and include Chest Tube Thoracotomies, Transvenous Pacemaker Insertions, Surgical Cricothryotomies, and Resuscitative Thoracotomies. For these workshops, 8 medical students are invited to come and participate. Because its such a small number of spots for the 200 first and second year medical students at CHM, the opportunity to sign up for a spot goes QUICK...as in, as fast as the Spice Girl's Reunion tour tickets selling out...as in seconds after the email goes out! So, although I really wanted to go, I knew that the chance would be slim. Miraculously, I got one of the 8 spots available during this semester! And...
IT. WAS. AWESOME.
Seriously. Such an amazing experience. For any CHMers that read my blog, you MUST try to go to the next workshop. It was really amazing working 1-on-1 with residents and learning how to conduct these procedures first hand. From lots and lots of suturing practice, to holding a live-beating heart in my hand, to putting my first chest tube in (and having my glove rip while my bare finger was inside the pig's thoracic cavity), it was truly an experience I will never forget!
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