The strangeness of intimacy

A week or two ago, in the operating room, I startled myself.

At this point in career and training, there aren't too many surprises left.

But at one time, everything was new.

Every medical student remembers their time in the anatomy lab, some more fondly than others. You really discover that the human body is a mystical place. There is definitely a feeling of disgust and embarrassment, and then the feeling of sacrilege - wondering, what right do I have to do this? Then there is the feeling of privilege - thinking, what an incredibly generous gift and how lucky I am to learn. And then, well, you just settle in. Just another day in the anatomy lab.

You go through the same process with surgery. You're filled with awe and fear for your first real, live operation. I am looking inside someone's body! I am touching someone's liver! I am putting someone's pieces back together! But the magic and mystery wear off, as you grow short on sleep, can't remember the last decent meal you had sitting down, and struggle to recall if you've showered recently.

I remember one of the first cases I scrubbed in on, as a fresh third year medical student. The medical details are somewhat fuzzy, now going on eight years ago, but I remember the intimidating chief resident . He was well known for his "pimping", which meant that he enjoyed torturing medical students with endless questions about relevant clinical topics and esoteric surgical trivia. I had been steadily ignored through the hours-long case, probably after dodging a few softball questions. As I was trying to sleep upright, hands clamped in a death grip on a retractor holding something large and vital out of the pertinent surgical field, I heard an authoritative voice sharply calling my name. The chief resident! Was talking to me! He asked, Do you know how to sail? I was oddly flattered that he wanted to know something about my personal life, but no, I didn't know how to sail. He said, Let me teach you. He grabbed the retractor out of my hand, saying, Like this. Hang on and lean back. And that was the end of our conversation.

Since then, as a participant in the surgical world, not only are you putting hands on and in ordinary (and not-so-ordinary) people, but you are in closer physical proximity to colleagues, people who are supervising you, and people whom you are supervising, than you could have ever imagined. All in a way that would be absolutely socially unacceptable in any other situation. Your hip here, his arm there, her hand reaching in between. And all that separates you, making it okay, making it routine, making it just part of work, is a sterile glove, a thin surgical gown.

Thousands of cases later, the odd mystique of surgery - with its intimate access to secrets of the human body, hardly anything separating you from them - has faded into the background of work.

At least until that moment, when I was startled. Startled by the warmth of another person, another life, felt through my gloved hand.