Nicole's Thursday in the OR

On my second to last day of work, I was lucky enough to be in the OR shadowing Dr. Gong again. My ability to color coordinate my outfit is pretty amazing. 

Throughout the day, I got to see Dr. Gong release a tied tongue, remove tonsils, conduct a tracheotomy, remove nasal polyps, and inject fluid into a patient's inner ear. 

Dr. Gong is very good about explaining everything he is doing and letting me see the operation site thoughout the procedure.

So far, I think the anesthesia and ENT equipment is the most similar to the machines in the hospitals I've seen in the U.S. 

Another thing that is really different here is how involved the surgeon is in moving the patient to and from the operating room and making sure they are comfortable. Dr. Gong always helps with the patient's pillows and taping their eyes to protect them during surgery. 

There is always music videos playing in the OR and between patients, the nurses were having dance parties while cleaning up and setting back up. The nurses are so friendly and would hug me or pat my arm every time they talked to me.

The nurses and I also tried to have conversations over google translate. I thought it was working really well until five minutes in, the question was "what haunted house do you live in?". I guess this is why language teachers tell us not to use online translators. 

After work, we went to dinner with P'Job, Tam, and Stop, since our host dad works late on Thursdays. We had a delicious meal and two huge deserts with toast and ice cream. Brooke and I are so sad this is our last family dinner here!

When we got home, we gave our host family our thank you present consisting of coins, an Arizona plate, caramel candy, and bracelets for our little sisters. Stop tried to read our thank you note out loud and it was really cute. We are going to miss this family so much, they have taken such good care of us and truly gave us a second home. Hopefully, they'll come visit us in America!