Back At The VA

I may have ended the first year yesterday, but with the beginning of the second today, I have returned to the VA. There isn't a busier rotation.

It will have its upsides, though. During this block I will start operating on a regular basis. I will be starting with cataract surgery, though at the children's hospital others will be starting with different things. Don't get me wrong, there are cataract surgeries done on children on a regular basis; but, the residents don't generally do much of them.

We'll see how things go. Currently my first cataract case is on Thursday next week. It would have been Tuesday, but that one already cancelled. Don't even get me started on what will be that huge headache. There are a lot of ways to cancel a cataract surgery, particularly at the VA it seems. And anesthesiology folks are often the driving force behind them (though not in this particular case). It's almost as though they just don't want to have to sit around during our cataract surgeries. Why not? They require minimal effort by anesthesia at the start of the case; the rest of their time is spent on an iPhone or with a magazine. Not being mean here, just simply stating a fact. The job doesn't get much easier than being in a cataract case.

Anyway, I have bid farewell to eight straight months at JEI. And not that there was any one person to blame, but that was just too much.