Shadowing Reflective Report

For the first few weeks of shadowing in an operating room I took notes quietly in the background with little engagement with the OR team. I watched as nurses shuttled medications around the room, as the doctor performed relatively simple procedures, such as nerve blocks and radiofrequency lesionings. After three weeks of such passive shadowing I realized that I needed to be the same active learner in the OR as I am in my classes, to better understand the procedures.
So the following week when the procedures got more complex I started asking lots of questions. For example, during a stimulator surgery, I asked the doctor, “What is the purpose of the different medications the patient is being given?” and “How will the implanted device help with the patient’s chronic pain?” My questions didn’t take away focus from the procedure, but merely added an educational value to it.
My questions transformed the operating room into an interactive learning environment. As I continued to engage with the doctor the nurses began to formulate their own questions. For instance, when I asked the doctor why he was using a certain pain medication than another type, the nurses followed up by asking about differences between other pain medications for other surgical procedures. Similarly, when I asked the doctor about the wire leads implanted in the patient's
This was because the nurses were also students working towards specialized certifications. For example, when one of the nurses had an upcoming exam she asked the doctor why their textbook called for a certain medication for a particular procedure, when in practice they go about it differently. The complicated questions that the nurses continued to ask about real-word application versus classroom information helped me realize how complex medicine