Indexing Title: CLEYSONs Medical Anecdotal Report [06-01]

MAR Title: Just Believe
Date of Medical Observation:  December 2005

Narration: 

            It was a Friday; I was on duty when I received a call from a long time friend, an obstetrician-gynecologist. She told me that she was experiencing abdominal pain radiating towards the right lower quadrant. She believed that she was suffering from acute appendicitis, though she claimed to have dysuria as well. During our chat, she was babbling like a drunk. I got the impression that she was scared and in denial. So, I asked her to visit and to let me take a look at her; she decided to observe herself. She did not call me again after that, giving me the impression that the pain had fade away.   

            On Sunday evening, I was off duty and having a great time with my former seniors when I received a call from her. She was crying, and in between sobs, informed me that the pain had escalated to a point that it was affecting her breathing.  Now, this friend of mine who lives in Batangas, and I thought she was still there, so I advised her to seek consultation with a physician close to home. Apparently she was already in Manila. She wanted me to assess her and if it did turned out to be appendicitis, she wanted me to operate on her. I rushed to the hospital where she was confined in, she was indeed suffering from an acute appendicitis, I booked her for the operation. As I was waiting for her to be brought up to the operating room, I told her that I was a bit shaky to be operating on her. I also mentioned of some of the possible things that might happen while under the knife, and am totally uncomfortable in doing her case. But she doesn’t want anybody else to operate on her, she wanted me to be the surgeon, and told me that she have full confidence in my ability.           

             At the operating room, I was surprised to see another doctor friend of mine. She informed me that my patient had requested her to assist me – together with another female doctor. They were all OB-gynecologist. I said to myself “Oh boy! This will be a long night.” I was wracked with nerves; obsessive-compulsiveness consumed every single fiber of my body. Before I started, I did something that I’ve been failing to do for quite sometime – ask for guidance from the almighty GOD.  

Insights (Physical, Psychosocial, Ethical) (Discovery, Stimulus, Reinforcements)            

Appendectomy is one of the most common operations that any surgical resident at Ospital ng Maynila Medical Center could become quite skilled of. I did almost 300 appendectomies in the four years I was here at OMMC.  And our department protocol required us to do at least five appendectomies per year, for us not to forget the skills in performing this operation.

Despite this, my confidence was put into the test that night. In my mind, there were a lot of questions, second thoughts and pag-aalinlangan. She is like a sister to me; I did not want to operate on her, but how can I say no to a person that has her full confidence in you? Then I thought the wind whispered   “How can people believe in you, if you do not believe in yourself…… if you have no confidence in your own skills and knowledge?” That thought opened a door in me and I told my self “Tsabee, you can do this, lets go and look for a book and review how to do an appendectomy while we wait for her to be brought up to the operating room and lets pray before we start the operation!”

This incidence has made me appreciates our chairman’s objective when he proposed the protocol – since we seldom perform any appendectomies now that we are in our senior years. Our skills as a surgeon are akin to the blade of a knife, if we won’t use it, it will become rusty in time.