I'm a little squeamish, but...

I was watching Grey's Anatomy last night and I thought I was going to be sick when Meredith Grey stuck a safety pin in Derrick Shepard's arm in order to keep the skin together. When they cut opened Mark Sloan's chest with what looked like a small razor blade and inserted a lotion pump, I was sure I had enough.

                                THIS was inserted into someone's heart to drain pooling blood.                                   

But I kept watching. My eyes were glued to the TV.

The thing is, while I am a little squeamish regarding the unconventional methods of surgery, I am also excited by the innovation. Surgeons have to be quick on their feet and fast with their hands. Anything can go wrong, even in an OR. Surgeons have to be prepared for whatever surprise comes their way.

Hopefully the surprise is not a plane crash and having to operate on your colleagues with a razor. Perhaps trauma is not the place I want to be. But surgery, definitely. Can you imagine anything more exciting or rewarding?

Of course, TV shows are fiction and dramatized to the point of being unrealistic (How can THAT many unfortunate things happen to one hospital in only a few years?). But when my dad tells stories of his practicing days - he was a neurosurgeon - I sense the same excitement that I see on TV. I can see by the way he talks about the decisions that he made that the greatest moments of his career were in the operating room. When I grow old, I want to look back on my career with the same sense of accomplishment.