The Daily Schedule Of An Endocrine Surgeon

Endocrine surgeons consult with their post-operative patients on a daily schedule, and they will manage these patients until they are ready to be discharged home. An important aspect to monitor is to make sure that the patient's hormonal levels, regarding the endocrine gland that was operated on, are at normal and clinically appropriate levels before they are discharged.

Endocrine surgeons will have their offices located in the hospital as this offers faster access to their hospital patients and to consult with casualty department patients when needed. This specialist will provide on call services to the hospital they work at during after hours and weekend periods where they will be consulted by nursing staff, casualty doctors and primary healthcare workers.

Emergency cases that need to be managed by endocrine surgeons include surgically managing the causes of a patient's signs and symptoms. These are hypoglycaemia due to insulinomas, thyroid storm due to an overactive enlarged thyroid, catecholamine crisis caused by a pheochromocytoma on the adrenal glands and tetany caused by hyperparathyroidism.

Monday

Monday mornings are usually used to attend meetings with surgical representatives and hospital management and staff, but also to sort out the clinical and non-clinical administrative tasks of the office.

The endocrine surgeon will then start consulting with patients once all these aspects have been sorted. The patients that are seen during the day include first time patients referred by primary healthcare workers and endocrinologists and follow up patients who were previously operated on.

The specialist will consult these patients and send them for any necessary investigative procedures, such as blood tests, ultrasounds, CT scans and any nuclear studies on affected glands, and will either admit them to the ward for further investigations and management or schedule them for surgery on an elective date.

Tuesday

The endocrine surgeon will spend the entire Tuesday operating in theatre. Usually the more complex and time consuming procedures are performed in the morning and the less complex procedures are reserved for the afternoon.

The surgeon may decide to focus on the thyroid and adrenal glands on this day and reserve procedures on the other glands for another day in the week.

Wednesday

The endocrine surgeon will spend the morning in theatre and may decide to focus on operating on pathologies involving the pancreas.

The afternoon will be used to consult further with patients or perform other administrative tasks such as filling in motivation letters to medical aid companies, regarding authorization for surgeries, or performing research for their own academic purposes.

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Thursday

The specialist will perform surgery during the morning and will then focus on the surgical intervention of conditions affecting the parathyroid gland.

The afternoon will be used to train postgraduate general surgeon and endocrine fellows, as well as undergraduate medical students.

Friday

The endocrine surgeon will consult with and manage patients for the morning session, and deal with any unresolved administrative issues that need their attention in the early afternoon.

The work week can then conclude once all these duties have been completed and the surgeon has confirmed their surgical list for the following week.