Doctors sleep in? Being a doctor comes with a lot of stress and long hours, but once a week Dr. Mangelsdorf starts her day later than usual. Today was that sleep in kind of day as work didn’t begin until 1pm! After a long day yesterday, it was nice for me to recharge and come back to Cary Dermatology ready to go– and today, I wasn’t the only person shadowing Dr. Mangelsdorf! Oyinlola joined me for our work experience today and together, we started working on online Dermatology modules meant for Medical students. This was a great way to pass the time when a patient preferred not to have one of us shadow their exam. Learning about the different kinds of acne/forms of skin cancer on these modules and then actually seeing them on Dr. Mangelsdorf’s patients was so interesting. I felt much more knowledgeable and was able to find a new appreciation for the routine skin checks, as I actually understood the terms that Dr. Mangelsdorf used! There are modules on so many different topics and I’m excited to get through as many as I can in the upcoming 2 weeks.
An exciting procedure done by Dr. Mangelsdorf today was when she removed skin abnormalities for biopsy. When Dr. Mangelsdorf found something on the skin that looked cancerous, she needed to send it to the lab to see what exactly the abnormality was. To do this, a needle was inserted into the abnormal spot and the area was numbed. To my surprise, the patient was numbed immediately after the syringe was inserted and no waiting was necessary before the patch of skin or mole was cut off! The actual removal was done with a flexible razor that was bent, placed on the skin, and then gently moved side to side to cut off the concerning patch. However, this is not where the procedure stopped. To ensure that the bleeding from the open wound would not continue throughout the day, Dr. Mangelsdorf used a machine that sent an electrical wave onto the wound–effectively cauterizing the wound and turning the surface a grey color. This was my favorite part of the procedure as it made a very cool electric sound when the current hit the skin and was not something I was expecting Dr. Mangelsdorf to do!
