Wake Med Surgery Open House

Last weekend we went to Wake Med hospital for a Surgery Open House. It was awesome. They set up 5 operating rooms, each for a different surgery. There was a neuro surgery OR set up for tumor removal. There was a heart surgery OR set up for a bypass surgery. There was a bone surgery OR set up for knee replacement (gruesome, I tell ya). And finally, there was an ENT OR set up for tonsillectomy.

Of course, everything was hands-on. We were welcome to touch pretty much everything, including some very expensive equipment. M got to play with the knobs on the heart and lungs machine and try pushing the button on the electric saw used to cut through the rib cage.

Wait, didn't I say there were 5 rooms? Yep, the last one was set up for robotic surgery. Which is not a surgery done on robots, but the one done by robots. And there was a real surgical robot in there. And the kids got to try their hand at controlling it!

Oh, and we were given a tour of the OR, including pre-op rooms. During the tour, kids got to make a little craft - they decorated breathing masks for anesthesia with stickers. M decorated his mask with smiley faces and said that these were germs. Back home, I heard him explaining about the mask to his favorite R2-D2 (yeah, he's got more than one): "See here, Artoo, I'm going to take you upstairs for the night and I'll put this mask on you and you'll fall asleep and won't be scared of anything and won't feel anything".