How do you prep for these cases (not sure if you are in general surgery or subspecialty) ? Is there a textbook that you refer to? I rotated in a surgical subspeciality for an elective and could not find most of the procedures online or on youtube. I later realized I needed to get the books for that speciality to look up the procedures, but wondering how you do your prep.
I’m in a sub.
Let’s see in a nutshell:
1) read the patients chart. Understand their history, their disease, and why the heck you’re operating
2) review their scans. This is hard early on but you’ll get better with time and it’s nice to correlate with what you see in the OR. Ask a resident to help with this if you’re struggling to learn what to look for.
3) look on YouTube for a video of the procedure. Watch it.
4) review relevant anatomy. Then re watch the video above
5) find a specialty specific book or website that lays out steps of the operation. Review these. Watch video again.
6) talk to your senior resident or whoever is covering the case the day before. Do this after you’ve already prepared as above. As a resident- especially once you’re more senior - attendings will expect you to discuss cases with them well in advance so get used to that now.
7) review any other relevant reading. If it’s a cancer, understand the staging and general treatment paradigm. Understand the indications for doing what you’re doing.
I’ll stop here to add in my own pet peeve:
Look at the OR schedule ahead of time. I know all the cases on my service well in advance and have generally reviewed their charts and imaging the week prior. Yes even cases I’m not in. Now that’s a bit much for a student but it isn’t too much to expect you to see what’s coming and prepare for the cases you're going to be in. Ask your residents the week before to help you if you can’t find the case postings as some systems make this a pain to find. My biggest pet peeve is when students ask me after morning rounds “what should I do today?” I don’t know - whatever you’ve prepared for which is clearly nothing at all!
Sorry. Little rant there.
Basically you should be able to give a formal presentation on the patient you’re operating on. And you should know the steps and be familiar with the anatomy of what you’re about to do. Once you’re used to it the prep should take about an hour or so for a big case.