suboptimal

recently i did a submandibular gland excision. i always find them challenging. i think i know why though.

i was no longer a junior registrar but i still had a long way to go. i had just been rotated to kalafong and it was my first theater list, a list that had been booked by my predecessor and one i therefore did not know. my consultant knew me from a few years before when i had worked in his firm as a junior registrar. as much as he was able to actually have human feelings, i think he almost liked me.

i assisted the first case with the consultant operating. it annoyed me a bit but i assumed he hadn't worked with me for a while and wanted me to get my eye in before he entrusted the knife to me. when he once again took the prime position in the second operation i started wondering if i was to get any operating time in his firm. what could i do?

after the second operation my boss turned to me.
"just a mastectomy and a submandibular gland excision left. have you ever done a submandibular gland?"
"no." i answered truthfully.
"have you ever seen one done?"
"only once when i was a fifth year medical student, so it hardly counts."
"i'll give you a very good article describing the technique."
and with that he turned and left.

it was kalafong so he returned long before we got the mastectomy patient on the table. he handed me the article, which he had fetched from his study, told me i'd be fine, and left.

great. i had to somehow quickly read the article between the mastectomy and the submandibular gland and then do the operation with only theoretical backing. i tried to swallow hard, but, in sympathy with the patient's soon to be excised salivary gland, my own salivary glands had simply stopped working. my mouth was suddenly very dry.

so i did the only thing i could. i cut out the offending gland, more or less how the article suggested i should. but somehow to this day, whenever i am asked to do a submandibular gland, my adrenal glands tend to contract a little bit when i think back to my first one.