My day in surgery

Today I was back in surgery again. I observed a Total Hip Replacement. First of all, I was totally shocked that the lady only had a spinal & conscious sedation. Seriously? Knock me out! I can see having conscious sedation during....say, an EGD, or a colonoscopy (normal- & I have had those done), or a cyst removed, or something of the such. But a hip replacement? Give me the big stuff! I mean, there is sawing, and hammering, and drilling. It's a pretty gruesome surgery. At the end of the surgery, they were transferring the patient onto her hospital bed from the OR table. I looked down on the floor and there was the lady's femoral head. Just. Lying. There. I said "is that the head of her femur?" They all started chanting for me to pick it up. I declined, as I did not have any gloves on. The circulating nurse bent down & picked it up and threw it in the trashcan.

After our time in the OR & PACU, we went to postconference. I told my instructor about the femoral head. She told me I was lucky, they usually throw the femoral head at the student. I guess I lucked out, because there was a med student in the room today, too. Couldn't hit two of us with it, so they just let it lie on the floor.