ENT: Day 1

My first day of shadowing started off strong with a cochlear implant surgery in the morning! It is a very important surgery that requires tremendous precision since the structures in the ear are some of the smallest structures found in the body. In fact, the ear ossicles are the smallest bones in humans. 

By the time I arrived in the operating theater (OT), the patient had already been put under general anesthesia by the anesthesiologist who would be staying in the OT the entire surgery. This was to ensure that the patient's vitals remained stable.  

Then, Dr. Rayudu, the ENT administered local anesthesia to the patient's ear area/mastoid region. After removing the obstructing layers of tissue, he began to drill through the mastoid bone with drill bits of decreasing size. This helped him narrow down on the correct position for the implant.

After threading the electrode of the implant through the cochlea, the Dr. Rayudu ensured that the patient would be able to hear sound waves by getting conformation from an audiologist. The audiologist hooked up the transmitter of the implant to his computer to create an audiogram. 

The audiogram ended up looking like that of a regularly hearing person, so Dr. Rayudu finished off his part of the surgery by suturing all the previous layers of tissue he made incisions in. 

Finally, the anesthesiologist brought the patient back to consciousness.

*The anesthesiologist helping the patient emerge from anesthesia.

*Dr. Rayudu placing the cochlear implant.

Next, I observed the regular outpatient portion of Dr. Rayudu's day. This was when patients would come in, list their chief complaint, get quickly treated/diagnosed, and leave. Unlike outpatient clinics I have seen in the USA, the patients moved in and out pretty quickly. Since there is a significantly greater number of people here, it is impossible to spend more than 15 minutes on each person.

Finally, I saw an inpatient visit of a patient after their operation. Dr. Rayudu took me to a different corporate hospital in which he had a few cases. 

My first day was pretty fast-paced and packed with all of the different areas a doctor needs to cover!