GC Alumnus Finds Calling in Trauma Surgery
Published: April 13, 2021
The delta trauma alert on a Friday night called about 40 people to the trauma bay. One of them was the Class of 2019s Alex Simmonds.
Hed spent the evening shadowing a third-year student on a trauma shift.
My M3 instructed me to don the full range of personal protective equipment: gloves, gown, face shield and mask as practice for the future, Simmonds wrote in afirst-person account posted to his medical class website. As just an M1 shadow, I wasnt expected to actually participate in the case, just watch.
Simmonds had worked as an EMT before coming to the VCU School of Medicine, but hed never been witness to a bedside thoracotomy.
This is a procedure done to open up the chest, often so that compressions can be done directly on the patients heart, which is much more effective than regular CPR.
To his surprise, he went from an observer to being recruited to perform cardiac massage.
Prepped with instruction from the attending surgeon, Simmonds inserted his hands into the patients opened chest cavity. He later wrote how Lots of things go through your mind while youre pumping someone elses heart for them. Am I doing this right?, Im actually holding a persons heart, and I wonder if we can actually save this person, just to name a few.
Susan R. DiGiovanni, M84, H89, interim senior associate dean for medical education and student affairs, says Simmonds experience is a testament of the type of things that can happen to a student on VCUs MCV Campus. You are involved in patient care.
At the beginning of the shift, Simmonds says, he was someone who was enthusiastic about science and healthcare. That Friday evening, he learned he loves decision-making under pressure, being part of a team effort and high intensity, make-or-break situations.
I learned that trauma surgery is where I belong in the world.
A classmate who enjoyed reading his accountDoes Everyone Here Realize that Im an M1?encouraged him to share it with Whitecoated, a website for medical students and residents where writers describe their experiences.
Simmonds had gotten a taste of trauma care during his undergraduate studies at Greenville College in Illinois when he earned his EMT-B license. Despite the pressure of working weekends and being on call most nights, it was the best thing I did to prepare for medical school. We were a hospital-based service, so I was able to pick up patients in the field and then bring them back to the hospital and continue to assist with their care.
I remember right before I left for medical school a particular ER doc I really look up to told me Someday, someone is going to throw you a pass. Make sure youre ready to catch it. That was certainly going through my mind when I was called up to the bedside. This is the day Dr. Bond warned you about was what I kept thinking.
Posted on February 11, 2016 3:10 PM on the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine website. Republished with persmission on February 29, 2016 |Permalink
