51 Surgeries Book Report

Living is a gift. Many people in the world are simply alive, but living is rare. There are people that are too sick to enjoy life, the disease that has manifested in the body slowly takes over the mind and rids the mind of joy and radiance. The glow of life slowly diminishes before our eyes and it is truly heart breaking. This person is not just a disease that happens to be hosted in a human. This is a human that happens to have a disease. This person is someone’s parent, someone’s child, someone’s sibling, and someone’s grandparent. This person has memories, hobbies, and loved ones. This person is your patient. Making a difference in just one person’s life is an incredible feat. Being a physician assistant would be making a difference in many

Five years ago, my mother had a brain aneurysm that she shouldn’t have survived. It was traumatic and damaging and to this day she still isn’t right. The point i’m trying to make is that no matter how much you want time to stay the same, it doesn’t. Many mistakes have been made since then, and a lot has been learned. I wouldn’t want to repeat the past if my life depended on it. After my mother had two major heart defects by the time the brain aneurysm occurred I wasn’t ready to give up my mom. We found out just a short time later that it could’ve been prevented if she would’ve made better choices in her life. My life five years ago was undeniably the worst part of my eighteen almost nineteen years on this earth. I stayed in a hospital waiting room for three months just looking for a sign she would wake back up. No one’s ever said why a waiting room is actually called a waiting room. It’s called this because you are waiting on the rest of your life to unfold, waiting to find out if you’ll ever speak to someone again, just waiting on an answer. It is horrifying to walk down a hallway squeezing your brother’s hand so hard he has to tell you to loosen up all to sit in a waiting room and wait on your fait. So my life was not at all glamorous but it got me where I am today, so really I can’t complain. What made me happy after that was watching my mother wake up and finally life started to get back

On May 11th 2013, my grandma passed away due to pancreatic cancer. A little later that year on September 25th, my mom received a call from my aunt in Guam that my dad had passed away in his sleep. Then on May 14th 2014, my grandpa passed from complications of an allergic reaction to a medication. So within a year, I was left to deal with three immediate family deaths, one right after another. Losing such important figures in one’s life could leave someone depressed and unmotivated to move on with their own life and to rise above those challenges is difficult, yet possible. During this time of hardship, I grew discouraged and saddened, but over time I became motivated to set aside these struggles and make a change.

In our story “Love Medicine” our author also paints an image of a broken family. Our character Lipsha comes from a dysfunctional background only to be cared for in what may seem to others as a dysfunctional situation as well. Starting out as a youth he was told his mother did not want him, only to be cared for by someone who never lets him forget he was rescued by her. Grandma Kashpaw would tell him “he was the biggest waste on the planet and she saved him from his mother who wanted to drown him. Lipsha felt there was not that many thank you left to be said” (Erdrich 376).

“Right this way,” the nurse ahead of me was prompting me to a brightly lit hall that was completely foreign to me. I couldn’t help but be terrified by the sights and sounds around me: people chattering, machines methodically beeping, gurneys rushing past. It was my first time in a hospital and my eyes frantically searched each room looking for any trace of my father. She stopped suddenly and I turned to the bed in front of me but I could not comprehend what I saw. At such a young age, I idolized my father; I had never seen him so vulnerable. Seeing him laying in a hospital bed unconscious, surrounded by wires and tubes was like witnessing Superman encounter kryptonite. My dad’s car accident not only made him a quadriplegic, but also crippled

It is a warm summer evening at Grady Hospital. It is my first day as an emergency room volunteer. I’m nervous and eager, hoping to see something exciting. However, it is surreally quiet. Suddenly, there is word of an ambulance en route. Minutes later the paramedics burst into the trauma slot pushing a man on a stretcher. His head and face are covered with gauze that is soaked through with dark blood. It is a flurry of well-orchestrated movement as the attendings and residents start to resuscitate him. They pull back the bandages to reveal a deep gash that is bleeding profusely. With much effort his vital signs are stabilized and he begins to regain consciousness. Later, after the excitement had passed, I learned what brought him here. He is diabetic and couldn’t afford to properly manage his condition. He had fainted due to hypoglycemia and hit his head. He had almost lost his life because of the unfortunate financial realities of modern healthcare. In that moment, I came to appreciate the very real cost of disease and the incredible role physicians have in ameliorating it. This formative experience was the beginning of my path to medicine.

I feel that I've had an opportunity to be a student of life. I've been lucky enough to hear stories from my patients about their trials and triumphs, their setbacks and how they've overcome them, and how to have a remarkable outlook on life in the bleakest of moments. I’ve dealt with patients who have stabbed themselves in an attempt to commit suicide. I’ve been in scenarios where my squad had been hit by indirect enemy fire and I was the only medic to deal with the situation. I’ve responded intelligently in an ambulance to emergencies numerous times. These experiences have molded me into the man I am today. I’m empathetic and nonjudgmental. I challenge myself to look at the

Atul Gawande is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a well-known writer in the New York Times, a public health innovator and most relevantly the author of Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. Being Mortal has many messages being conveyed to the readers with the most important being our story to tell at the end of life. Everyone’s life will end, some will go too soon and some will live a long life. No matter how long a life lasts, we all want to be able to say we’ve done something with our lives, a meaningful story to tell. In this book, Gawande describes one of the most challenging parts of his career in medicine.

One year is all CJ needs to get back on his feet and recover, and that year needs to start today. In order for us to provide a security blanket, CJ needs the costs of his medical insurance premiums, basic living costs, and upcoming treatments, the total of which could likely exceed $50,000.

As the ASC continued to grow in response to the increasing number of members, the procedures that were internalized not only increased, and were more complex. During that that time of expansion, I help strengthen the collaboration among ASC leadership and personnel to ensure that all surgical initiative is a success. In my role as perioperative educator, I spearheaded the development, implementation and evaluation of training and education via clinical simulation of procedures internalized in the ASC in 2015.

The scalpel cuts through the leg in a clean slice. It takes a bit of time but we finally get to

I think it is an exciting time to be part of a University that surrounds itself with a Christ like mindset. I believe that an experience such as an illness or even trying to pursue a career in business or becoming an entrepreneur is something that can lead me into greater things and enhance my academic skills here at the university. Ten years ago I had a triple bypass surgery. All my friends who had that procedure had passed away. I didn’t know the doctors and I didn’t want them touching me or my heart, but I had to overcome that fear otherwise it wouldn’t have been done and I may not have survived. It was a tremendous challenge that I overcame.

According to Gawande (2014), modern scientific capability has profoundly altered the course of human life. People live longer and better than at any other time in history. But scientific advances have turned the processes of aging and dying into medical experiences, matters to be managed by health care professionals. And we in the medical world have proved alarmingly unprepared for it. This reality has been largely hidden, as the final phases of life become less familiar to people.

Nowadays, giving back to the community, an act of true noble character, exemplifies the ideals of a selfless citizen. “Words can Heal”, a service project I initiated, where I collected, donated, and distributed over 600 novels in English and Spanish and 100 magazines to adult patients at Mt. Sinai hospital, had tremendous results. The belief revolved around words to help heal the physical and emotional challenges that young adults face, especially in a hospital. Delivering books was not my only goal. I wanted to make a difference and help the patients forget their problems for a time. Adventuring through the pages of a good book is excellent medicine! Indeed, to comfort these patients in need, open-mindedness, warmness, friendliness, and patience are your greatest allies.

I'm amazed by the clear majority of “successful” people who overcame adversity and hardship. How do we react to ours? Do we crumble like cookies under the thought of a challenge and avoid them.. or do we conquer challenges and own them? Well, I say, it's up to us. All this [stress] plays into a huge feedback loop that can determine health, happiness, and ultimately our "success". For better or for worse. Why did patients in our readings have such different personal narratives of illness from what seemed to be very similar and even in the same biomedical causes of illnesses? These questions highlight the view that there is a deeper transcending non-biomedical cause of illness, which then, effects outcomes of treatment and healing. I believe an attitude of resilience fostered through experience, plays a huge role in how people react to their illness which then affects how one responds to treatment/therapy. How is it that some people in life have suffered so much and at the end of the day, sometimes after years. not only remain intact mentally, but thrive in the world and carry on with their lives, despite their condition(s) and exposure to trauma. Against all the odds. Through personal experience and evidence presented in the readings. I will persuade you to understand why I feel humans may respond so differently; to treatment and the processes of healing. I don’t expect you to agree with everything I say, you are entitled to that. I only expect that you acknowledge that the