So over the last few days, I started shadowing an ENT surgeon. At 8:30 AM (we got lost trying to find the Operating Theater) we met him in his operating room where he had already started the first surgery.

As an ENT surgeon, he was responsible for ear, nose and throat. However, he was more of a rhinolaryngologist- he focused on the nose and the larynx. His surgeries that day, back to back reflected that. He started by removing nasal polyps- an unsatisfying surgery he said since they often return. Almost all his procedures were done endoscopically with a great deal of precision and speed. He often finished a *(more minor) surgery within forty minutes or an hour. As time progressed, we saw him remove a tubercular abscess from the vocal cords, a very finnicky looking surgery which would likely completely repair a man’s voice. We also saw him help reconstruct an ear with a missing incus (middle ear bone) which he fashioned from a piece of cartilage harvested from an earlier patient as well as a damaged eardrum from the fascia of the temporalis muscle.

We observed him doing over six surgeries in a little over six hours. It was amazing to watch and I’m going back soon!