My time spent in surgery will be one of my most memorable experiences to date during my clinical year. I learned a lot during this time since I spent some of my 5 weeks in general surgery, neurosurgery and urology. Each of these specialties has provided me with different experiences that I will carry on as a future PA and will make me think twice when I pay attention to a patient’s surgical history. My primary preceptor was PA Shu and she guided me during this rotation providing me with valuable information on ways to improve on my soap note presentations and writing. She took some time during our weekly meetings to point out the strength and weakness of my soap notes and H&P. One thing that PA shu mentioned and stressed the importance of is that as a future PA, you need to be the patient’s advocate. This is evident at NYPQ-H since much of the patient population is of older Asian descent and many have language barriers and some have a poor understanding of the medical treatments that they are provided.

There were some challenging aspects of this rotation that I had to overcome during surgery. In each subspecialty, there is a vast amount of knowledge that is needed to comprehend some of the complex surgical procedures that I witnessed. This had ranged from knowing my specific anatomy of procedures, names of various types of surgical instruments, suturing and learning about video assisted robots (da Vinci). During this time, I felt that all of the surgeons, resident doctors in training, scrub techs and OR nurses all provided me with different aspects of my learning and were all very welcoming and kind. One of the challenging things that I encountered during this rotation that I still need to improve on includes perfecting a tailored treatment plan for surgical patients. I feel that I will need to continue practicing evidence based medicine using websites like UPTODATE and MDCALC that can further keep my treatment plans more concise and relevant.