Coming up on my final days shadowing at WakeOrtho! Today, I was able to shadow Dr. Luther at the Apex office who is a hand & elbow orthopedic surgeon. He works with all ages and has a passion for getting people with severe hand injuries back to doing daily activities again. Just this morning, we saw close to 20 patients all who had some type of pain with their hand. I saw him working with many kids who had broken fingers or fractured metacarpals. The most interesting patient I was able to see was a patient who had a GSW (gun shot wound) to the hand and had to have part of his middle finger amputated. He was cleaning his gun when he accidentally shot himself in the hand. The bones in his finger were so badly damaged that the best thing to do was cut off part of his finger to save the rest of it. Later on, Dr. Luther performed various types of small procedures and examinations such as steroid injections to relieve pain caused by arthritis. Looking forward to a great last day tomorrow!
