Last Day - (NHS WE Day 4)
Today was my last day at the NHS and despite not having seen any surgeries all week (except for two minor suturings), as students aren't allowed in operating theatres, i was able to see a live on screen surgery along with a quick and short overview of the NHS and what i learnt this week.
The day started with the surgery whereby all the work experience students sat in a lecture theatre and watched the operation as it happened, live. The particular surgery we watched was a kidney transplant and a surgeon came in to help explain the procedures the surgeons were going through. He went through the two types of donors; cadaveric (dead) or live (which presents an ethical dilemma as the live person does not need a surgery but has to go through one in order to donate an organ). Organ failure is a gradual process and occurs over a long period of time, with respect to kidney failure, it can occur due to diabetes or blood pressure. The unique point about kidneys is that a normal human can survive on only one kidney as at any one point no kidney is operating at 100% level. Even if kidney failure occurs, the patient can undergo dialysis that helps clean the blood and effectively does the job of a kidney, however kidney transplant can help reduce the patients dependance on a dialysis machine and can help increase their life expectancy (than if they were on dialysis).
A kidney transplant operation can run in one stage whereby a new kidney is inserted to the body and attached to blood vessels without the removal of the diseased kidneys, as this is safer for the patient. However sometimes it is necessary to remove a kidney before one can be placed in, as with our patient who had polycystic kidney disease, whereby the kidney needs to be removed as it has grown larger (occupying more space) due the presence of numerous fluid filled cysts.
Though we were able to watch the beginning of the surgery and the removal of the polycystic kidney, we were not able to see the new kidney being transplanted into the patient as the surgery took a long time. However, overall this week has been very interesting and informative helping me to realize the amount of work doctors do and the pressure they face each and every day, helping me to learn a little bit more about the career i want to pursue.
The day started with the surgery whereby all the work experience students sat in a lecture theatre and watched the operation as it happened, live. The particular surgery we watched was a kidney transplant and a surgeon came in to help explain the procedures the surgeons were going through. He went through the two types of donors; cadaveric (dead) or live (which presents an ethical dilemma as the live person does not need a surgery but has to go through one in order to donate an organ). Organ failure is a gradual process and occurs over a long period of time, with respect to kidney failure, it can occur due to diabetes or blood pressure. The unique point about kidneys is that a normal human can survive on only one kidney as at any one point no kidney is operating at 100% level. Even if kidney failure occurs, the patient can undergo dialysis that helps clean the blood and effectively does the job of a kidney, however kidney transplant can help reduce the patients dependance on a dialysis machine and can help increase their life expectancy (than if they were on dialysis).
A kidney transplant operation can run in one stage whereby a new kidney is inserted to the body and attached to blood vessels without the removal of the diseased kidneys, as this is safer for the patient. However sometimes it is necessary to remove a kidney before one can be placed in, as with our patient who had polycystic kidney disease, whereby the kidney needs to be removed as it has grown larger (occupying more space) due the presence of numerous fluid filled cysts.Though we were able to watch the beginning of the surgery and the removal of the polycystic kidney, we were not able to see the new kidney being transplanted into the patient as the surgery took a long time. However, overall this week has been very interesting and informative helping me to realize the amount of work doctors do and the pressure they face each and every day, helping me to learn a little bit more about the career i want to pursue.
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