For surgery, my site is pretty flexible In that I can choose how many surgeries to go to during the day. I'm trying to figure out a good balance now between time spent in the OR vs studying at the hospital so I'm wondering how many hours or number of surgeries do you participate in daily without coming across like a slacker but still having sufficient time to study?
It depends on a lot of variables.
1.
What counts more? At my school, your grade was determined by your shelf. Yeah, there were evaluations from attendings, but it didn't matter what they said. Anybody with > 80 on the shelf got honors. Period. So, in that case, if I could CHOOSE not to be in the OR? I just wouldn't go.
2.
How many students are with you? If there are students who want to go into surgery, then you can easily give up your surgery spot to them. Make it known you're doing it because you know they want to go into surgery and they really want the experience. You want it to, so you'll go to a few, but you are willing to sacrifice such an awesome experience for someone else who wants it more than you. This makes you look like the good guy, even though you are thankful you are in the library rather than sweating it out standing in one spot for 8 hours during a Whipple.
Likewise, if there are multiple students, then there should always be a student in an OR. That's sort of expected. But if there's one OR and 5 of you, its easy to blend out.
3.
Learning. Personally, I didn't learn anything IN surgery, except maybe what a Pringle Maneuver is (once you pop, you cant stop). I did once save a woman's recurrent laryngeal nerve by asking "is the neural stimulator plugged in?" (neural stimulator is the thing the surgeon uses to test if that white thing is a nerve or not). It was not plugged in and they were just going to cut it. But as far as learning? None. Zippo. It was cool, sometimes, painfully boring at most. If you are interested in learning and not actually cutting, its best to spend most of your time out of the OR.
Now, before people unleash on me. By "learning" i mean medicine, not what's teh difference between a Kelly and a Fischer, nor the difference between a continuous or simple interrupted suture, nor the difference between 4.0 Vicryl and 3.0 Nylon. Those things are super surgery specific, and, since bowlofpeas isnt going into surgery, consitutes as "inane factoids"
