My father once explained to me the issues with taking up ENT/Ophthalmology as a field. He said "Son, there are two ears, two eyes, and if one of them is malfunctioning a person can still live on. Why not choose Cardiology or Neurosurgery?"
I did not immediately correct him then as I myself did not doubt what he was saying. I just knew I couldn't spend the rest of my youth learning a skill I wasn't interested in. So life went on and I did choose to become an ENT specialist/surgeon.
This is me scrubbing up for my first surgery as an ENT resident. I was only allowed to clean and drape the patient and hand out instruments to my senior who, in this picture is guiding me how to wear my gloves and gown properly.
Days went by and we evaluated more than 60-70 patients in our OPD's every Wednesday and Saturday and many more in total in between. We learnt things daily. We saw that the poor had no one to go other than us government hospital doctors. We heard stories about the illnesses and hardships people faced. We frequently evaluated people with so many ills that we unfortunately could not help them.
As a resident we always made errors, as would any trainee, some resulted in issues in the OR, and some just related to paperwork and lack of sleep affecting our faculties. But an important thing my senior told me which sticks with me till today is, "Only those who work make mistakes!". Resident life is thankless. But it provides a lot of self worth to an individual going through it.
As an Ear Nose Throat surgeon I learnt that we deal with all 5 senses. Sense of Sight, Sound, Taste, Smell and Touch. We also do deal with Speech and Swallowing.
When a patient presents to us it is always to do with illnesses of the organs pertaining to these senses. When we operate, our goal is to restore the function, remove the pathology, and rehabilitate the patient.
Gradually I started operating independently. patients would then follow up with me as I was the treating/operating surgeon and my juniors would bring new patients to me for my "expert" opinion.
It soon dawned upon me that everything I did, NOW had consequences. I was imparting knowledge to my juniors and also operating. People were trusting me with their lives.
It was now I started realising that even though I was a resident surgeon and learning my art, it still had consequences. Yes, there were people above me who could take over if I messed up. But that didn't give me the license to mess up. Yes, there were people who would congratulate me if I did well, but that lasted only till my next error.
On one occasion, it was the last case of the day, me and a few juniors were left in the OR with a senior stationed on call who would come to my rescue. It was a routine case of repairing the ear drum (myringoplasty). One opening the ear I found that the ear bones were eroded. A small 0.5mm defect between two bones which meant they were not connected and hence could not transmit sound adequately. It was not something I had not seen being repaired before. But I had not performed it myself. Knowing what was required I called my senior, who explained that she was stuck in another emergency procedure as well.
At that time I realised that there were two options. To repair the ear drum and leave the person with a hearing loss which would require another surgery later. Or do what I believed needed to be done to repair both defects. I went ahead and did what was required, and patient was fine the next day. A week later she was hearing well and was very appreciative. My senior couldn't have been happier with me.
At that time my fathers words came back to me, and I smiled to myself, with a self realisation that I should have said, "No dad, one out of two isn't good. It's bad!"
So to conclude, as ENT surgeons when we operate we should aim for a 100 percent result and give 110% effort, because for the patient having 4 out 5 senses just isn't good enough!!