First Entry: A view from the practical side of the healthcare system

Three hours, twenty minutes and forty-two seconds, is what it took for the remarkable team of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and residents to transplant a kidney from a live altruistic donor into a middle-aged female recipient. Like the running of a well oiled engine, one which can only find a rival in a flawless orchestral performance, the kidney was removed via laparoscopic surgery then surgically sutured into the abdomen of the recipient, connecting artery, vein and ureter with remarkable dexterity. In fact, witnessing a life being saved at the direct hand of another human being neither anatomically nor metaphysically different from myself was not only eye-opening but also strangely addicting. I, for one, while observing from a few feet away of the operating table, got a new outlook on what it means to be a patient and a doctor. 

As a patient, there is something psychologically unsettling about having foreign objects and hands probe your body. It may have seemed normal for some of us when hearing about surgical procedures, but I can attest from experience that it would be preposterous to think that lying on an operating table would have no effect on someone who has never undergone a surgery before. For having undergone such a feat once, although asleep at the time, it made me somewhat aware of the origins of the unsettling sensations I had once was out of surgery a few months back. 

Additionally, there is a lot to applaud surgeons, nurses and anesthesiologists about. It takes ironclad focus, presence of mind, physical fitness and remarkable psychological strength to stand over a patient and perform a surgery.  While standing in the room and observing the surgeons, nurses and anesthesiologists perform their duties, I came upon the realization that while being employed in a medical profession may be a job to some, it is somewhat of a calling in which one shares whether directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, part of their soul with the patient walking in through the door. In a matter of hours, medical staffs shoulder expectations from the patient, their families and colleagues, becoming part of their lives, something it takes years or even a lifetime for those close to us to accomplish. 

Where some of us, observing doctors for the first time,  may have seen them treating us as a project or problem to be solved, I saw human beings trying to minimize emotional attachments which could bias diagnostics and negatively impact the standard of care provided. Nonetheless, there is part of being a doctor which we romanticize about that is actually true. Indeed, somewhere behind the facade is a human soul which invests as much care and sympathizes with the patient in front of him or her while shouldering the immense responsibility for another person's life. That's the person I want my research to help.

I found motivation and purpose in this experience which would hopefully inform my research work in a way that helps me contribute to the rewarding task doctors get to experience everyday: saving someone else's life.