What an experience! Today I started my day bright and early at 7 AM in the Surgery center of the Raleigh Orthopedic Clinic. I scrubbed in and was on my way to the first surgery! All of the nurses were so nice and helpful, showing me the ins and outs of the OR from how to put on your mask to what you can and can’t touch. Everything in the operating room is very sterile, so I had to make sure that I was far enough away from contaminating anything.
The first surgery was an accessory bone removal in the top of the foot. I expected to feel nauseous or queasy observing the surgery, but I surprised my self and felt fine! During this surgery, Dr. Logel walked me through the steps he was taking, including how he almost chipped away at the bone until it popped out. He had to make sure that he didn’t cut into or break any ligaments or veins, so he was very cautious of where he was working. It was cool to see the bone on the table after the surgery and to understand how such a small bone could be causing such tremendous pain.
The second surgery that I saw today was a patient who fell and broke her ankle. Dr. Logel showed me the x-rays and you could not only see the crack in the bone, but you could also see how the tendon in between the bones was moved and caused the tibia and fibula to be separated. During this surgery, Dr. Logel drilled plates and screws into the bone to fix the crack and then used what they call “tight rope” to pull the two bones together over the tendon. The tight rope was basically a very small, but strong string that was anchored into the sides of the bone and pulled very tightly together. The operating room uses a portable x-ray machine during the surgery which was very interesting to watch because Dr. Logel would use it to make sure his drill or screws were in the right spot of the bone where he couldn’t see.
The next surgery that we went to was a patient who had very bad arthritis in the 1-2 tarsal- metatarsal joints due to an injury a few years earlier. The procedure that Dr. Logel did on this patient was a joint fusion, which is where they fuse the two bones together, so there isn’t a joint anymore. This was on the top of the foot, so the skin was very thin and there were a lot of little veins that Dr. Logel had to work around. The procedure for this surgery was to clean out the joints of any excess cartilage and chip off any excess bone so they two bones could come together evenly. It was interesting to watch this part of the surgery because I didn’t know that bone was so easily chipped away with certain tools. After Dr. Logel cleaned out the joints, he put 5 screws into the top and sides of the foot to hold the bones together, so they could start growing together. This is what happens when a bone is broken; the bone realizes there’s a crack and starts to reform bone.
The last surgery of the day was by far my favorite surgery. This patient had ruptured his Achilles tendon and this surgery was to repair it. Before the surgery, Dr. Logel showed me how you can tell if the Achilles is torn by the alignment of the foot neutrally and if you press on the calf, if the toes move. It was interesting to see the difference between this patient’s normal and ruptured tendons. The procedure of this surgery was to take out the frayed and ruptured parts of the tendons, and then finding the other two sides of the tendon and connecting them together. This was done by putting many stiches into each side with thick string and then yanking on both sides of the tendon to pull them together. It was so fascinating to see how you can still use what is left of your tendon to fill in the missing spots. Dr. Logel then used disintegrating stiches to hold the new tendon together, allowing the tendon to grow and reform over the stiches. Shockingly, this was the fastest surgery and only took a few minutes to do the actual procedure.
Overall, I had a very busy but fascinating day in the operating room and it was crazy to see the life behind the clinic!
