Ok, I know I haven't written a post in ages but today I just had to post a funny incident. About a month ago I did a routine simple surgery of placing tubes in a child's ears. Usually, at the preoperative visit I counsel the parents that some of the children will be hearing well for the first time in a while and they might complain about loud noise. They should be careful the first few days especially to avoid shouting.
Anthony had a long history of attention deficit and autism symptoms and when he saw me he had complaints of poor attention and poor hearing. His symptoms were present for years but it was unclear whether his ears were part of the source of his troubles. We did an audiogram and found that he had about a 30% decrease in hearing as well as poor eardrum motion. We tried some medication to clear the ears without success and so a month ago I placed tubes in his ears.
Today he came in for his recheck and he told me he was hearing a lot better. I asked mom how he did after the surgery and she said it was very easy. She did remark "When we got in to my car he complained how loud it was." I nodded and smiled because this was not surprising until she said to me, "I thought that was pretty interesting because I drive a Prius!"
I have to admit that made me laugh pretty hard. After they took off I thought about when I decided to do Otolaryngology. When I was in medical school and trying to decide which area of medicine to specialize I knew I wanted to have the ability to make a significant impact on people's lives. When I was introduced to my specialty of Otolaryngology (ENT) I was excited by the opportunity to restore the sense of hearing.
When I did my residency we first learned the easier and more common surgeries such as placing tubes in children's ears and tonsillectomy but soon the training shifted to more exciting and dramatic procedures on all areas of the head and neck including removing tumors, reconstructing eardrums, and inserting tiny artificial bones to restore hearing and soon those original procedures seemed very mundane.
I recall talking to one of the Fellows in Pediatric ENT on a day we did surgery on about 20 children who needed tubes put in their ears or removal of tonsils. I asked him if he found it boring in comparison to the more involved surgeries. He looked at me surprised and said he loved it all and wouldn't give up any of it. After that conversation I made sure that regardless of how mundane or repetitive things were I was going to try to enjoy it.
My experience with Anthony and his hearing the Prius is one way of making sure my work doesn't become boring or mundane. I feel fortunate that I am able to experience this level of satisfaction as I know it is a rare occurrence for most people . I find that it is incredible that a relatively easy task can have such a large impact. Sometimes the easiest things have the most fantastic and dramatic results.
I hope I made you smile today and I'll try to bring the next story to you a little quicker.
