The roar of the ambulance sirens flooded through the hospital. Doctors and nurses frantically  attempt to save as many lives as possible. However, never a look of distress upon their faces. The Emergency Room doors swung open revealing to me a whole new world. I rolled the gurney aggressively down the plain white halls to get my patient into emergency surgery. I felt a surge of energy as the excitement to operate for the first time pulsed through my bones. I quickly scrubbed my hands, put on a face mask, jerked on fresh gloves, took a deep breath and was then ready. Today was the day that my career would begin. After countless hours of studying and years of schooling, I was finally where I dreamed of being. I stared down at my patient hesitantly. The anesthesia had kicked in and the young, innocent lady lay upon my operating table, looking calm and lifeless.
My hands shook and a drip of sweat fell from my brow. “Pull it together, Haley.” I said to myself impatiently. I picked up the cold, metal scalpel and began to make an incision in my patients chest. This revealed a large, beating heart. I stared down  at the heart and it’s wonders in awe. Surgery made me feel alive and gave me an indescribable rush. Loud and frequent beeping interrupted my thoughts. I looked up at the rapidly beating monitor.
“There’s been a bleed” yelled a nurse.
“The heart rate is dropping. I can’t find a pulse” another chimed in nervously.
I took a deep breath and then took charge. “Gauze” I demanded. I began to pat the bleed with gauze and attempted a new type of stitch in order to make the gash hold. It worked. The bleed stopped and the heartbeat began to stabilize. A smile began to escape my lips. “She’s gonna live,” I said softly. After about an hour of stiching and trying to contain the bleeding, my patient was stable and the procedure was done. It was time to deliver the good news to the family that their daughter would be okay.
“Mr. and Mrs. Jensen, Carly will be just fine.” The woman jumped into my arms and the husband broke into tears. They thanked me numerous times and I blushed. This was why I belonged in the ER. Saving lives and healing families might just be the most rewarding feeling in the entire world. As I walked through the pediatric wing I found a young man, maybe in his late twenties, sitting bedside to his son who had just lost his fight to cancer. While rewarding, this was why being a doctor can also be the hardest job in the entire world at times.
It may have seemed like a hectic morning but this surgery was just a warmup. Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, was coming to my operating room for an ACL replacement. I can not even begin to explain my hesitation towards this procedure. I did not want to be the doctor responsible for a surgery gone wrong on Usain. However, this was a routine procedure and the odds of success were highly in my favor. Seconds, minutes, hours flew by and then it was time. I wheeled him carefully on the gurney from his room to the operating room. I tried making small talk, but he was an intimidating man, so I just smiled. I finally scrubbed in, and before I knew it, I had made my first incision. Everything was on the right track. The assistant nurses were all on their tiptoes hoping to get a better look. The operating room was full of tension and eagerness. Next I made two more larger incisions which took roughly two and a half hours. On the home stretch of the procedure my legs began to throb from standing and my fingers were growing stiff from the meticulous use of my hands. I sealed up the cuts and his ACL repair was complete and a success. “This is why I do this” I said to myself.
Usain was escorted to his hospital room for recovery. Minutes later I was alerted that something was wrong. He had acquired a blood clot in his left leg that needed to be treated immediately. I apologized before I stuck a large needle into his thigh, and he winced. He was receiving blood thinners through his vaccine and before I even knew it, he was fine. A day later he was discharged. The rest of the day was hectic. I performed two apendectomies, a minimally invasive spinal procedure that took four hours, and assisted in my favorite type of surgery, a heart transplant.
About a month later, it was a slow Sunday morning in the ER so I sat with my colleague Dr. Johnson in the break room. Work in the hospital was exhausting. Performing long surgeries, working shifts late into the night and always being on your feet did make you tired every once in while. I turned on the TV… “Usain Bolt crosses the finish line in first” screamed an ESPN announcer. Dr. Johnson and I quickly glanced at each other smirking. “It’s a beautiful day to save lives!” I chuckled.