Help! Someone Stole His Uterus!

So I will be talking about my first operating room experience of sitting through a laparoscopic hysterectomy and oophorectomy (removal of the uterus and cervix). I got to sit through pre-op. Once we got to greet our first patient, I found he is a transgender patient. This made me want to cry because I was happy for him going through his final transformation.

Once pre-op was done, my mentor came and took me to the surgical floor and thats when they began surgery. They prepped the patient in a dorsal lithotomy position with his arms tucked on the side and had the OR table really low so the doctors can work on him (Einarsson & Suzuki 2009). 

Then a Rumi arch uterine manipulator was put up through the vaginal canal to hold the cervix and to guide where to cut the cervix off. After, they made four incisions in the lower abdomen and the belly button about 2-5 mm wide. They put a camera through one of the incisions to find the uterus. When she found the uterus, she made sure she wouldn't cut the connection between the kidneys and the uterine vessel that helps them pee. She also desiccated the parametrial veins that run between the ovaries and round ligament (Einarsson & Suzuki 2009) to prevent bleeding. When that was prepped she used a harmonic scalpel to begin cutting off the uterus.

Once they cut the uterus, they used the Rumi arch uterine manipulator (Einarsson & Suzuki 2009) to pull out the uterus through the vaginal canal. When the uterus was out, it was blue since there was no blood flowing in and out of the uterus anymore. The resident was in charge of suturing the insides while my mentor was guiding him. She used a lot of references to the posterior and anterior tissue walls in how to suture. When the doctors were done suturing, they checked to see if the patient was peeing neon yellow to show that they didn't cut that uterine vessel. When they found success in their procedure, they began prepping the patient to go back to his room. 

I thought this was an amazing experience to see my mentor perform surgery and teach her residents and gain more knowledge in the healthcare field. It made me realize that this is what I want to do in the future.

References:
Einarsson, J. I., & Suzuki, Y. (2009). Total laparoscopic hysterectomy: 10 steps toward a successful procedure. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2673000/.