What cases take the longest and shortest amounts of time in the OR? What's the average?

[Pre-Medguy1995]

Hey guys, med student here. I was just curious what the OR times generally looked like for Ortho vs other surgical specialties. As someone with a fair amount of knee and back injuries, I was wondering what to expect in terms of time on my feet continuously in the OR in the different specialties during rotations and later during residencies and such. Of course, I don't even know that I want to do surgery yet, but curious nonetheless.

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[numberwunn]

Hey guys, med student here. I was just curious what the OR times generally looked like for Ortho vs other surgical specialties. As someone with a fair amount of knee and back injuries, I was wondering what to expect in terms of time on my feet continuously in the OR in the different specialties during rotations and later during residencies and such. Of course, I don't even know that I want to do surgery yet, but curious nonetheless.

It varies widely. Hand surgeons don't tend to stand at all, they operate sitting. Some onc cases (or spine) can go all day. It also varies based on practice - are you an experienced surgeon with a good team and no trainees or an academic with me as your bumbling resident?

Overall though they're not too long, I'd guess on average a couple hours.

If you rotate on an ortho service you'll get a sense of it. It's definitely physical work though, I usually leave the or exhausted

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

Avg depends on subspecialty.

Shortest - percutaneous screw removal from ankle (5 minutes)
Longest - hemipelvectomy (16+ hours)


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