WHATT?!?
I know, that’s what I thought. With no prior experience except a dozen observation opportunities, I scrubbed in reassured to know that the head nurse was standing next to me, and that the doctor was aware of my lack of credentials but was willing to guide me through the process.
All sterile and ready to go..
I hand the doctor the scalpel and watch him cut into the belly fat of the mother lying before me. If birth was not induced now through cesarean section, either the lives of the breeched twins or the life of the preeclamptic mother was on the line. As I stood there, handing over scalpels, forceps, and retractors, my nervousness and tension evaporated. Rather, my energy was focused on the doctor’s skillful hands as they cut into layers of tissue. As he told me to “hold here” and “pull-back there,” the mother transformed from a living, breathing human into a real-life anatomical map of all the systems and body parts I had been studying for so long in my physiology classes.
Before I knew it, a horizontal cut to the uterus revealed a fetal foot visible through a transparent placenta. Moments later, Dr. Michael McCarthy and I had successfully delivered a baby girl and her younger brother into their awaiting world, beginning at the hospital in the bustling, developing capital of Ghana.
Wow.
No comments:
Post a Comment