Madison Ranalli: A Day in the Life of Vascular Surgery
My alarm blared at 7am and I press snooze. I felt exhausted, but at the same time excited to see what the day holds. These past few days I hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep and my body was adjusting to waking up so early again. It had been a few weeks into my internship with Medex in tier 4 and I was finally going to get the clinical experience I had been wanting. Other days we would listen to lectures and learn how to prepare for medical school, but today I was going to Patewood in Greenville to shadow a vascular surgeon. Of course, I heard the word surgery I immediately thought of a patient going under anesthesia and a physician cutting them open, but it was nothing of the sorts.
I got dressed in comfortable, loose attire with proper shoes so I could stand for hours and rushed out without even grabbing breakfast. I drove about 15 minutes through Greenville and got there about 30 minutes early. I was anxious so I walked in and sat in the physician’s office until he got there. I distracted myself by looking at his family photos and his diploma from Wisconsin that declared him a physician and another one that declared him a vascular surgeon. I was automatically impressed at his dedication to being a surgeon no matter how much schooling it took. I was nervous to meet him because I wasn’t sure I could keep a conversation with him. I only saw myself as an undergraduate student at a tiny college that no one knows about, and I didn’t know how to interact with a physician as a shadow instead of as their patient.
Finally, he walked in, and he was nothing like the image I had built in my mind as a serious person that was obnoxious. He was less intimidating as I thought he would be. He had a kind composure and was soft-spoken. He introduced himself to me and started to ask me questions. Being a biology major in college the most common questions asked are
“What is your major?”
“What do you plan on doing with that major?”
“Where do you plan on going to medical school?”
After he learned about me, he gave me the opportunity to ask questions about him. The first question that popped into my mind was why he chose vascular surgery out of all the options available. He told me about his journey through medical school and residency and how he had tried a lot of specialties but found that this was something he enjoyed more than others, and the hours weren’t awful. I was surprised that there was no defining moment for him. Everyone would always ask me what specialty I was interested in, and I never knew what to say. There are so many specialties to choose from and half of them I don’t know much about. Not many people think about how loaded that question really is. That day, I realized that I am never going to know what I want until I get more experiences like this one. Until then I make all the guesses I want, but when I know what specialty I am going to choose you will be hearing me scream it from the rooftops.
After our conversation, I was able to see a lot of surgeries that day. Today he was instructing a student who was in residency, and I learned more about how that interaction works. The resident was able to perform all these surgeries independently and the surgeon either watched over and critiqued him or helped along the way. Even though I was only watching them, it was an exhausting process. I also finally understood the purpose of vascular surgery was, but I didn’t think most of them were too exciting. The most common problem he dealt with was varicose veins. To fix this he used a laser to constrict the vein and cut off blood circulation there causing the vein system to make a new path. To find this spot they used an ultrasound to navigate and put fluid around it, so other veins aren’t burned. As I stood there and watched I was intrigued, and he explained everything he was doing.
The most exciting surgery to me was the vein cutting. According to the physician it was actually a very common procedure, but I had never heard of it before. We walked in there and an ultrasound was used to find the vein, then they would tie it off at the top to drain the blood to other veins, and then mark the skin so they know where to cut. Then one by one they would pull out each vein. I learned that blood doesn’t bother me at all, and it gave me an adrenaline rush that I had never experienced before. With this feeling I knew that being a physician was right for me.
Being able to be a part of these surgeries was amazing. It was my first opportunity to see a surgery through the eyes of the physician and the steps of each surgery. I also learned more about what it takes to be not only a physician, but how to be a surgeon. Each patient had different questions and concerns about the procedures they were going to have. When he addressed all their concerns with not only patience and confidence, but he made sure they understood what he was saying. I now know that patience is not only involved with patients, but also the procedures that must be done and your coworkers around you.
Being able to be in the field and shadow a physician like him has showed me the things that I do well and what I can improve on to not only get into medical school, but to be the best physician. Personally, being able to address my concerns to someone that has already been through everything makes me more confident in my decisions about what I need to do to get into medical school. Most importantly though, I got to learn more about myself. I learned that day that maybe vascular surgery isn’t in my path, but surgery could be. The adrenaline rush it gave me is something I long for when it comes to my career and this experience helped me on my path to find it.
Madison Ranalli is a biology major with a chemistry minor, expecting to graduate in May 2022. She interned at Medex Academy at USC School of Medicine in Greenville during the summer of 2021. She is preparing to apply to medical school in the fall of 2022.