"When an athlete can compete again after knee surgery or a grandmother can walk in the park with her grandkids after a hip replacement, it feels really good. The satisfaction that comes from making a difference in a patient's life will never get old."
THUMB SURGERY ON A TODDLER
BY 7 A.M. ON SURGICAL rotation days, George is heading to the OR. This morning, he will assist ortho- paedic attending physician Prasad Gourineni, MD, in treating a 2-year- old girl whose thumb is stuck in a bent position as if pulling a trigger.
The condition—known as stenosing tenosynovitis, or trigger thumb—is one of the more common congenital abnormalities of the hand, affect- ing about 2 percent of children. The surgical team will make a small inci- sion and release the tendon to give
her thumb a full range of motion. After scrubbing in with a fel-
low resident (above, left to right), George's role includes assist- ing Gourineni during the surgical procedure, inspecting the patient's incision before bandaging her hand,
visiting the young patient in the recovery room and dictating the post-operative report. Afterward, he may have 15 or 20 minutes to grab a bite to eat or a cup of coffee before the next surgery, and the process begins all over again.
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