holyscalpel

that's a really good question - and especially pertinent when you do essentially a handful of basic operations on the same thing time and again. It's easy to feel like a mechanic, occasionally. However, that doesn't last long and you remember why you got 500,000$ in debt and spent 16 years training after high school.

And you know who snaps you out of it fastest? The little old ladies. They are so sweet and kind. And when they come back for a cancer check up in Fall and Winter - they bring pie. Oh, the PIE!

Seriously, burnout is huge among cancer doctors. I had a lady die from metastatic disease I couldn't fix on Sunday, and another lady will likely do the same today. it's depressing and every time it happens I have to call my wife and say "Someone died - I love you."

Also, I have become agnostic as time has gone on. i had a 32 year old girl develop advanced cancer that i can't fix - she will die and I can't save her. Makes you really mad at your deity of choice at times...

So - that's THE question, right? The main thing I use it for is facilitating what can be a very difficult dissection of the pelvis. Operating on cancer in the pelvis has two good analogies: 1) it's like playing Jenga where someone's life is at stake 2) it's like trying to get a redbull can out of a coke can without touching the sides. Yes, just like "operation" the board game.

if you touch the sides you can cause infection, urine leakage, infection, impotence, or even make the patient bleed to death.

Come to Louisville KY. A decent 2 bedroom house is about 125K. Cost of living is super cheap. We have the very best cheaters in all of college sports! Also, you could be a very big fish in a VERY small pond. It is the most perfect town in America. Don’t tell anyone.

Crap.

how about this: - what if you had to play Jenga by feel around a corner vs. seeing it and having minute control over your motion?

better? it's very hard for me to explain the actions of surgery to someone that hasn't done it before. it is very much unlike any other tactile experience you might have

think about try to trying to clean out a disposal in your sink by feel vs. with that endoscope thing good plumbers use

agree - but when you have seen people die, (and believe me after almost a decade of medical training, I have seen it more than I want to) it gets harder to believe we're not just some sort of cosmic meat accident as you watch the lights go out of people. The more people I work hard to save and they die anyway, the harder it is for me to believe in a GD that would let that happen?! There is no logic, celestial, earthly, or otherwise that would let that sweet 32 year old girl with a 1 year old daughter and loving family die. Especially when she is a devout Christian. I don't blame GD for these things, I guess, but I don't know if he/she/it is real either. If I get to go to heaven (BIG supposition) then the entity will have to do some MAJOR explaining....