pen.books.and.scalpel

“Madam, I won't be able to place you with that team. Maybe with some other team, please.” The office staff was pleading with the newly joined female surgeon.  She appears to be a fresher and is willing to join the team that manages patients of her interest. A surgical team is generally divided into teams or units which work on a specific schedule each day through the week on a rotation basis. I understand that this fellow young surgeon, like me, is interested in a particular area of interest.  I did not involve in their little conversation because I had to carry on with some other work, but their discussion sparked something inside me. Maybe, I was just eager to know why she was being denied and forced to work with another team.  A couple of days later, I happened to meet her in person while at lunch, and both of us were on our own. Leaving aside my social anxiety, I decided to sit with her and have a little chat about the event that happened the other day. Initially, she...

“ What size glove, Madam?” Asked my surgical technician assistant.   "A 7.5 and a 7," I replied. He smirked and picked them up for me. He looked very eager to spit out something to me.   An operating theatre is always full of people at any given time. It's a large team that manages an operation theatre. There is the surgical team with the primary surgeon and the assistant surgeons; the nursing team, who assists the surgeons; the anaesthetist team; the technicians and the housekeeping team. And every now and then, medical and nursing students flood the OT and stand curiously to watch the surgery.   It's not like those shown in the daily soaps where you can enter the theatre and demand to treat your husband yourself. It's a highly sterile zone and is prohibited for anyone except the patient and the OT team.   "Mam, your gloves." The technician said, holding out the pair for me. The doubt in his eyes was still evident. We don't have a name for him yet. ...