Today I shadowed Dr. Summers at Wake Orthopedics to see what a day in the life of an orthopedic doctor was (at least when they’re doing clinical work). Before I came to shadow, Dr. Summers told me to review the muscle groups of the general areas he sees the most, shoulder and knee, and sure enough, 90% if not more of the patients today were for the shoulder and knee.
The morning was mostly smooth sailing except for one difficult patient who was requesting some things the doctor just could not give her and feel medically ok with doing. I know that sounds vague, but for obvious reasons, I can’t really explain further. I must say though, the most informative part of my day was actually learning how to read an MRI scan. I had always seen them on the computer screens in those medical tv shows, but it just looked like a bunch of black and grey blobs everywhere. By the end of the day I was able to spot some of the tears in ligaments in the knee on the MRI scan without Dr. Summers having to specifically point it out, which was a major accomplishment in my opinion. Because I got to work in Cary today, I was actually super close to my mom’s workplace and got to drive over there for their potluck lunch and visit Hannah! It was great getting to see a friendly face after so much time working and so little time to hang out with people. We had an amazing lunch and then it was back to the races.
The reason I named this post “Catch 22” is because that was a phrase that can sum up a lot of the patients’ stories. For many of them, their problem was caused by a lifestyle choice, and by fixing their lifestyle choice they could fix the problem. The catch 22 though, is that the problem often inhibits them from being able to make that lifestyle change, therefore leaving them between a rock and a hard place.
I did very much appreciate by time in orthopedics, although brief. It sparked a new interest I never really knew I had!