Fun Times with the Plastic Surgeon

For my "Patient-Centered Medicine" class, I have to do some physician shadowing. We had to rank our preferences.

Choices:

1. ER

2. Primary Care

3. Specialty

4. Clinic

So CLEARLY I ranked ER #1. I guess that would have been cheating, so karma bit me and gave me my #2: Specialty... and I was assigned to a plastic surgeon. What??? Yeah. 

So I thought: ok, maybe he's the nice kind who does reconstructions on kids with cleft-lips and burn victims! Nope. He's the cosmetic kind. He's very nice and a great doctor - I just don't particularly like the field. 

Anywho, my first day I saw a Botox injection on someone who was also post-op for breast augmentation. The "after" pictures were taken... which I really did not need to see, haha. The next patient was a guy who wanted a nose job and said he'd only get it done by this doctor because he listens to his radio show all the time (yeah, he has a radio show, 2 books, a line of skin creams, and is appearing on Oprah). Consults have been really cool because he takes pictures of the people and then manipulates them on the computer to show you what you'd look like after the operation. I like photo-editing, so this is the only part of his practice that is up my alley. 

My second visit was not so pleasant. There was another post-op breast patient getting stitches removed. ...So I have this problem when I see stitches:

- nausea

- sweating

- turn pale

- see spots

- feel faint.

This has gone on since summer 2006 when I did my ER internship. And I work in an ER, and it still happens. But I thought watching them come out would be fine... I was wrong. I tried to tough it out, but I thought better of it and excused myself to go lay down. I explained my on-going problem and the doctor suggested I see a psychiatrist/hypnotist to get over it since repeated exposure hasn't been working. 

On my third visit, the nurse greeted me with, "Kim the fainter is here!", which I did not appreciate at all. 1. I did not faint. 2. That's just inconsiderate. The doctor was much nicer about it - he even called a shrink he knows to ask about what I can do. So I got a name... she's a PhD on staff at my school, as it turns out... but he recommended going to the Student Wellness/Mental Health office first. This feels so weird - there's definitely a stigma attached to going there, but I need it. 

I'm not scheduled to visit this office again until January, so hopefully I'll fix this problem by then...