The operating room....explained.

I have been keeping up with my Wednesday and Friday afternoon observational visits ("kengaku") in the hospital OR (it is wayyyy to exciting to not go). So far, I have been fortunate enough to have a front row seat during unbelievable surgeries from open heart aortic valve replacements, to knee replacements, to skin grafting, eye lens replacement and liver tumor removal. And I can't get enough. I've been able to make myself at home there, poking in and out of different rooms to catch the most exciting bits, and I'm quite familiar with most of the staff. Now, I go directly to the supply room, which has access to 9 of the 13 operating rooms and small observation windows into each room. I walk around and check out what's going on and pick an operation I'd like to sit in on, often moving between rooms. Now that I've been observing twice a week for about 4 months, I know what to expect in each room...

#1 - Orthopedics. Usually upper/lower limb plate placement or laproscopic knee surgery.
#2 - ENT. Commonly thyroid tumor or nasal cartilage removal
#3 - Eyes. Cataract surgery, eye lens replacement (one of the coolest things I've seen in my life. Here's a link to the surgery on youtube if you're interested! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZNtquypg_M)
#4 - There is no room #4. 4 in Japanese is "shi" which also means "death". Reasonable then that rooms hospital-wide aren't associated with "shi".
#5 - Orthopedics. Usually knee replacement surgery, hip replacement or re-aligning broken clavicles and humerus....es. Humeri?
#6 - Gynecology. Often laparoscopic hysterectomy or ovariectomy or ovarian cyst removal.
#7 and #8 - the variety rooms. Lots of different cases in these rooms. Often emergency cases or less invasive surgeries.
#9 - Internal organs. Pancreas, Liver, Colon, Intestines and Kidneys.
#10 - Brain. Shunt placements, hemorrhage draining and tumor removal etc.
#11 - Heart. Valve replacements, coronary artery bypass surgeries and even total aortic replacements.
#12 - Usually laparoscopic; lungs and gallbladders, or endoscopic; esophagus and duodenal surgery.
#13 - Variety.
#14 - doesn't exist. Also, there are no rooms that end in the number 4.
#15 - Variety.

I definitely surprised Ogata san, the OR head nurse, when I knew what was going on in each room despite not being able to read any of the Kanji. :)

I'd sleep in the OR if I could. That way I'd never have to leave.