Orthopaedic Surgery Residency (and more pics...)

I realized that with all of the huge things going on in our lives right now, I haven't written anything about what brought us all the way out here to New Mexico, Orthopaedic Surgery Residency. First year of ortho residency is different from the other 4 years. We only do 10 weeks of dedicated ortho in the year and the rest is spent on other rotations, some requiring much less time than others. They gave me the easier ones first and since Caleb came, that's been awesome for us. I started out with anesthesiology for a month and now I'm doing radiology. I start rheumatology a week from Monday, but then I start my 2 weeks of paternity leave on Tuesday. Before we unionized last year, these 2 weeks were unheard of. That will be a great break to spend time with Caleb and Bri and go up to Utah to do Caleb's Baby Blessing and go to Lake Powell!


The first month was anesthesiology and it was ok to put IV's in and intubate people, but the best part was that I would choose ortho cases and then just stay and watch the surgery. Also learned some good anatomy when we would do regional blocks, but other than that, let's just say I'm glad I'm in ortho. Much more fun.


This second month I have been doing radiology and it is pretty low key. Luckily I'm only doing bone radiology so at least it is really applicable. It has been really good to do more MRI's since it is pretty intense when you get down to the really detailed things you can see on MRI like ligaments and evidence of fractures you can't see on plain xray films. However, it's also been great to have time to work on the house and the yard since I'm trying to get the big stuff done before I start my first intense, busy rotation: Burn and Trauma. All of the other residents say that it's the worst 10 weeks of intern year and I'm not looking forward to it. Luckily my paternity leave will cut into the first week, and then I have another planned week off later in the rotation.


UNM is an awesome place to do Orthopaedic Surgery training. Apart from being some of the nicest people I've ever met, they are also the most knowledgeable and are great teachers. We get a lot of good OR experience since the focus of the program is to train good residents. The attendings actually make a point to let the different ortho services (Hand, Joint, Trauma, Spine, Sports, etc) be run by the residents and they make sure the residents are central to the surgeries. That is not the case at all ortho residencies. Some of the best and mostwell known are actually the worst places to train since many patients request the attending do the surgery. Also, the famous places often do not have a high enough case load, so many times there will be many residents in a room just observing. Yes, they're observing a famous surgeon, but watching does not a surgeon make.


The program director, Dr. Quinn, and chair of the program here, Dr. Schenck, are amazing people. Not only are they amazing surgeons and great teachers, but they also value life outside of the hospital and focus on family and having hobbies. And I definitely have family (moreso now!) and hobbies.