They say the first day of surgery changes you.
I didn’t believe it until it happened to me.
It was early morning. I hadn’t eaten. My apron still had those old pen marks from Patho posting, and my ID card was hanging sideways. Classic med student chaos. I didn’t even know what surgery we were going to see. Just that it was “some open cholecystectomy.” I didn’t even know how to pronounce that right.
I stood outside the OT, shoe covers on, hairnet pulled way too tight, heart racing like it was a viva. I wasn’t nervous. I was scared. Everyone else seemed calm. Confident. Like they belonged there.
Me? I was just hoping I wouldn’t do something stupid.
Then we entered.
And I swear to God, that OT was colder than any lecture hall in January. The smell of povidone-iodine and spirit hit me like a wall. The lights were blinding, white, clinical. A patient was already draped on the table, and the atmosphere was… silent, intense. Sacred.
The surgeon walked in like a storm in scrubs. Everyone stood straighter. Someone whispered “he’s strict”. I didn’t dare breathe too loud.
Then came the first cut. I was watching, wide-eyed.
No screen. No laparoscopy. This was old-school. The skin, the layers beneath it, the oozing blood, the sounds of suction, the tension of pulling tissue.
My knees locked. My head started buzzing. For a second I thought, I’m going to faint. In front of everyone. But I didn’t. I held on. Watched every movement. Every suture. Every command the surgeon gave the intern. Every time he said “focus” in that low voice that felt scarier than shouting.
I wasn’t asked to assist. Of course not. Just observe.
But in those few hours, I saw more than I’d seen in the entire year.
I saw calm in chaos. Precision in pressure. And most of all, I saw… power.
The power of a blade in the right hands. The responsibility. The sheer weight of it.
Afterward, I sat alone on the bench outside the OT.
Not to text. Not to scroll. Just to breathe.
Hands in my pocket. Staring at the ground. Trying to make sense of what I just saw.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
Not because I was scared.
But because something inside me shifted.
Surgery isn’t just a posting. It’s a storm.
And you’re not ready for it.
But when it passes through you, you’re never the same again.