Yesterday I watched a laparoscopic cholecystectomy (in normal language: a surgery where they remove the gall bladder using the keyhole method (in norwegian: kikhulsoperasjon av galleblæren). 

So today, you’re all getting a little introduction to biology/medicine 🙂

I have been shadowing a doctor at the private hospital every day for about three weeks now from 9-12. He is a general practitioner and it has been very interesting to sit in on the consultations – I feel like I’ve learned a lot! In the hospital where he works there was a surgery yesterday, which he said I was allowed to watch!!

The goal of the surgery was to remove the patient’s gall bladder. Here’s a little background info on the gall baldder (woohoo – exciting!).

The gall bladder (9) stores something called bile, which is produced in the liver (10 + 11). After bile has been produced in the liver it goes through a ‘tube’ (4) to the gall bladder where it is stores before it is needed. Bile is a kind of liquid filled with substances that help break down fats in your small intestine (15 + 16). The bile then passes through another tube (5+6) to enter your small intestine.

The liver is the big brown structure, the gall bladder is the small green one, the small intestine is number 15+16, the stomach 14, and the pancreas is the large orange structure (17,18,19).

Sometimes, people get a stone that is stuck in tube 5 that prevent the bile from entering the small intestine. It’s not possible to remove gall bladder stones, so whoever has these stones have to have their gall bladder removed through a surgery called a cholecystectomy. It is a very common and a fairly simple procedure as it is done using a laparoscope, which is when you make four small incisions in the body, rather than a large cut. You then go in with a camera in one incision, and instruments in the other three.

This is what a laparoscopic surgery looks like from the outside

During the surgery I watched, there were some complications when they were trying to remove the gall bladder. The surgeon decided that they had to open up the patient with a large incision. This was great for me as I got to see even more! Once they opened up the patient they were able to remove the gall bladder (it just took 4 hours and my legs were tired…).

Want to have a look at what a cholecystectomy looks like? Have a look!!

The surgeons hard at work!   This is what the operating theatre looks like

After a pretty long surgery, my legs where aching, but it was of course extremely fascinating to watch. I’ve seen a couple of surgeries before, but this time the doctor was very good at explaining and showing me various organs.

A tired, but excited Anna! 

So that was your biology lesson for the day! Hope you learned something x