How long did your first surgery take?

[ShyaRose]

Hi friends

I just completed my first ever neuter today. From open to close it took me about 60 minutes. This also includes time waiting for an instructor to come and watch me do a specific step as required by my school. I'm feeling a little self conscious about how long It took me so I'm interested in hearing about your first ever surgery!

What was it like? How long did it take? How did you feel?

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[MixedAnimals77]

Hi friends

I just completed my first ever neuter today. From open to close it took me about 60 minutes. This also includes time waiting for an instructor to come and watch me do a specific step as required by my school. I'm feeling a little self conscious about how long It took me so I'm interested in hearing about your first ever surgery!

What was it like? How long did it take? How did you feel?

Cat was my first and it was neuter took maybe 5-10 minutes using autoligation. First dog spay probably about 1hr from 1st cut to suture end. Really just practicing and being really familiar with the procedure and techniques within the procedure I think helps with speed and then of course as you get more under your belt you'll get faster. At this point I wouldn't really focus on speed more so than doing it correctly and making sure you have the procedure and skills down, speed will come with time. I spent alot of time practicing my skills in open lab to get proficient at the different skills and procedures on models so I'm not having to think through things as much thought before I did my first surgeries.

 

[finnickthedog]

First surgery was a dog neuter and took me about an hour cut to close.

First spay was a large dog and I never checked cut to close time but it was about 3.5 hours from scrub to finishing instrument washing.

I don't know exactly how long my classmates took for their surgeries (because I'm not that level of creepy) but just based on being in junior surgery with them I feel like our times were all fairly comparable so I wouldn't worry at all that it took 60 minutes for your first surgery. You'll get faster with time and experience.

 

[mmmdreamerz]

You should definitely not care about time at this point. Don’t even think about it. And honestly 60 mins isn’t bad. My first spay took me 2 hrs. I can do a spay in 20 mins now. Speed comes as a by-product of efficiency, not from trying to be fast.

 

[itsrocky]

Even in practice I don’t look at times. Efficiency comes with repetition but the biggest thing to nail down is doing the procedure correctly to minimize complications over emphasizing your time from skin to skin.

 

[DVMDream]

Don't remember. Time isn't important, accuracy is. Speed will come with practice.

Honestly, it would still take me a good 30-40 minutes to do a neuter even now, I'm not a surgeon. I hate surgery. Heck I might even take me an hour, I haven't done a surgery in over two years.

 

[CalliopeDVM]

I can't remember -- but it doesn't matter. Speed should be the last thing you're thinking about now.

I've been out over 20 years, and I still don't think about how long my surgeries take (I have a rough idea enough to know it's acceptable, but I don't time myself). Doing them safely and accurately is more important. The only people who might need to worry about fast surgeries are specialists who sometimes have compromised patients (who are an anesthetic risk). You will want to do them at an "acceptable" speed when you graduate, which means that the patient is safe and warm under anesthesia - beyond that, it's variable. Take as long as you need to in order to do it safely.

 

[Trilt]

I'm pretty sure over half of my first surgery time was waiting for an instructor to inspect something, lol. And then a huge portion spent closing the required huge incision in tiny ass simple interrupted sutures.

Don't stress about speed. With repetition comes speed. You'll only get better the more you do.

 

[Nigripes]

Hi,
I'm a current fourth year and we just had a discussion about this at school from a professor and an hour for a spay/neuter for a first surgery is normal. Everyone else is right too. With repetition you will become faster, but it will take awhile. Is it more important for you as a surgeon to be fast or to be thorough and safe?