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Published: March 17th 2007
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la gelateria
my other favorite place (besides David Bar) on Viale Piave. Their gelati was amazingly good. my last cone was caffe e nocciola (coffee and hazelnut)! Well, after a month living and working across the Atlantic... it's time for me to head back home.😊 Just when I thought I couldn't possibly see a case in the OR that was *any* cooler, I walked in this morning to see a patient awake and talking to the neurologist while her dura was being cut open! This was a 38 y/o WF who had a low-grade fronto-temporal astrocytoma on the L that was found to be (based on MRI, perfusion scans, and functional MRI) dangerously close to both Broca's and Weirnicke's areas and also the primary motor area. Therefore the used "awake anesthesia" (as the italians call it) and performed cortical mapping with an electrical brain stimulator. I was looking directly at the patient's cortex and also watching her respond to the neurologist's questions and move her limbs. pretty freakin cool. Of course it was the chairman doing the surgery and he took a huge chunk of cortex (the pole of the temporal lobe- didn't remove any of the tumor in the frontal lobe because it was very close to Broca's) out without any problems in about 1.5 hours! It was neat to see anesthesia, neuroradiologists, neurologists, and the
neurosurgeons all in the same room working together. To my surprise, the surgeon who was assisting in the case actually asked me, so, did you find out about the match? I've worked with him only once before, last week, and he actually remembered. When I mentioned that I did match, he seemed genuinely happy for me. He even told the chairman- then it was "Bravos" all around 😊
When I reminded the chairman that it was my last day at the end of the case, he literally said "oh NOOOOOOO!" rather loudly and dramatically (except he was being serious- no sarcasm) and everyone stopped their hustle-bustle around the OR to clean up and came over to me. Kisses, both cheeks, all around 😊 I then handed him my evaluation and he just kept saying things like "perfecto! perfecto! excellente! beautiful, good, great, etc etc etc" and he gave me all 10s. ha. the comment to justify the honors pass was "She is very smart. She is always present at all the cases and is very enthusiastic." 😊 Do you think McCloud will take it??! ha. After discectomy, I changed, took care of some things and went to his office.
the patient's awake!!
the neurologist is checking for movement and speech while the brain's being directly stimulated He wasn't there, but he WAS up on the 3rd floor in the break room with several other Dr's and nurses, most of whom were puffing away like no tomorrow. Good thing it says no smoking on the door! The nurse manager for the floor is a smoker, so there goes that rule. It was hilarious though b.c I was greeted with a large plume of smoke and the chairman jumping up and saying, "MAYleeeesa! Americana! ciao ciao!" and he pulled me in for the double kiss (cheeks of course, standard in italy).
Determined not to spend the rest of this gorgeous day shopping (which is SOOOOOO easy to do in this city... yup, had to buy another suitcase...), I strolled to Giardinni Pubblici and found by the fountain in the sunlight. I spent the next couple of hours reading my book (The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver... phenomenal!) and people-watching. The older woman sitting next to me had purple pants, a pink hat, sparkly sunglasses... perfect bench partner. There were two wedding parties that came out to take pictures. There were COUNTLESS kids less than 5 years old... I couldn't believe how many... some with parents, some with
nanny's... ALLLLL adorable.
I came back from the park and packed my three suitcases- getting to the airport tomorrow (via cab and train) should be fun!... listened to music, watched some sex and the city, and of course... enjoyed some italian wine.
Now, it's 1:04AM and I'm tired as hell... trying to stay up so that I can sleep the entire 10 hour flight home! I just came back to my room after spending the last 1.5hours having wine with my landlord and his girlfriend. We talked about socialized health care and also about how I sent him about 500 emails before I got here and he was wondering if I was some neurotic freak! ha- for the record, he said he was pleasantly surprised! shut up, he did! 😊 he also made sure to tell me "when you get home to your boyfriend, you better not show him any of those hundreds of pictures you took. There's something else you should do!" ... and what exactly would that be... (wink). Such a nice man... I think if I lived here I might even consider getting some "life-coaching" from him. 😊
Anyway, so there is is... my
popular place to be
anesthesia at the feet, neurology in the front, neurosurg at the head, and neuroradio in the back looking at the films... cool to see such collaboration month in Milan. Hope you enjoyed taking the journey with me through these travel blogs. I'll still be checking it, so keep posting comments. I'll be home in philly for one day and then it's off to bumble-F PA where I'll be doing Rural clinic medicine.
CIAO!!!
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