Vascular Interns

Internship in the Vascular Surgery Division

Around ten to twelve interns join the vascular surgery division where they spend one month swapping with another month in the general surgery department having spent two months in surgery all in all.

Usually on the first day of the rotation, an orientation meeting is held, sometimes it is held a few days later. You will be provided with a booklet summarizing the different aspects of this rota, at the end of which you will be asked to provide feedback.

If you miss on the orientation meeting, please make it a point to meet staff members and specifically introduce yourself.

One month

Orientation meeting

Booklet

Feedback

Philosophy of dealing with interns:

Interns are the future practitioners, it is of paramount importance not to forget that the main purpose of them being around is to train. Yet a lot of times they still have to serve like we all do BUT

1. They are a cherished team member without whom we cannot function.

2. They are treated as junior residents.

3. We try as much as possible to provide them with the best possible. (training ; attitude and environment wise)

Whatever your aim, you can still grasp an excellent chance to train:

1. You may want to become a vascular surgeon.

2. You may want to become a surgeon of any other specialty.

Basic surgical skills are the same for all specialties and you may want to know a bit about vascular surgery for practice purposes and for exam purposes.

3. You may want to become a specialist in a non-surgical branch.

4. You may want to become a general practitioner.

5. You may want to answer general questions concerning vascular surgery commonly posed by people you know or the public in general.

The board of honor:

The board of honor is there to challenge you to do better, at the end of each month, interns

who performed best are chosen for the board; hurry up be one of them!!!

At the end of the internship year, a meeting is held for interns who were awarded a place on

the board of honor and they are granted a special certificate of excellence.

What are you requested to do:

I-Administrative:

Choose a coordinator

Sort out your on duty/ on call / training schedule

Write of list of your contact information (names, mobiles)

II-Research:

You may join one of our ongoing research topics.

III-Service:

This is done through your on duty / on call rota, during your duty, you will be requested to sort out inpatient issues like images, preoperative assessment, blood bank issues, dressing etc. etc. etc.

Things you do while you are on duty include:

Caring for inpatients.

Follow up of operated individuals who are transferred to the ward (same day).

Sorting out new admissions.

Helping people who come for admin purposes.

Assessing people who come for follow up as outpatients.

IV-Training:

This is the minimum; you can almost certainly do more. First things that are specific to vascular surgery:

Attend ward round.

Attend outpatient department (OPD).

Attend operating room (OR).

Attend endovascular room (angio suite).

Attend emergency room (ER).

Present one topic.

Cognitive skill of managing peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD).

Cognitive skill of managing deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

Cognitive skill of managing varicose veins (VV).

Use of the pocket Doppler (ABI , PSV , wave form).

Principles of the Seldinger technique.

Principles of inserting a central line.

Identify mediastinal CT anatomy.

Prescribe compression stocking.

Prescribe medications for diabetic neuropathy.

Prescribe medications for varicose veins.

Prescribe medications for claudication.

Prescribe medications for thromboprophylaxis.

Prescribe medications for deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

Identify Novel Anti-Coagulants (NOAC’s).

Care of AV fistula (vascular access).

You should also become familiar with pitfalls to avoid and new trends in vascular surgery

General Skills:

Scrub

Gown

Glove

Assist

Suture

Staple

Remove sutures

Remove staples

Remove a drain

Dress

Care of a drain

Postoperative assessment

Wound assessment

Because medical practice can never concentrate on the training without service, this service itself offers innumerable training opportunities, one major target is to know all admitted individuals. (in fact this is the main measure of your success as an intern)

You train through three main methods:

Attending dedicated courses.

On “the job training”.

Uncoupling training and service, so that you dedicate time for training.

You should train to be able to decide on:

Admit or not

Investigate or not

Interpret investigations

Operate or not

To do ward round

To acquire basic bedside skills

Discharge or not

You should be able to create your own plan of maximizing the use of your vascular internship, identify the gaps and put a plan to cover them.