Minor Surgery

I have now had my biggest adventure in Finland to date, and it was an experience.  A good one.  I had surgery yesterday on my elbow.  I was skeptical of the term "surgery" when I was told by the surgeon to book a surgery appointment for a half hour, and that the procedure would take place in office.  Remember all the doors I talked about earlier?  Yes, behind one of those tiny room doors is a "surgery room".

Anyway, it had been a concern of mine when we were considering working/living overseas that I may require surgery or other significant medical attention.  As a good American I was of the mind that all things medical outside the US are inferior.  There, I've admitted it.  How wrong can one be?  Quite.  The medical field in Finland is nothing short of impressive.  I think the US could adopt a policy or two and be much further ahead.  That's my two cents.

Back to the surgery.  My good friend Lisa was nice enough to go with me since I didn't know what to expect.  I wasn't given any pre-surgery instructions (like don't eat/drink) and only knew that the procedure was to be an out-patient, in-office, half hour procedure that would cost x euros.  (the doctor gave me a number but I won't share that detail here).  So we had breakfast and went shopping and had lunch and went shopping and finally then to the doctor's office.  We had agood day.

The doctor came out of one door and called me into the room I was told to wait by.  In other words, he was seeing other patients prior to my operation and then walked in to the "operating room" with me.  There was a table and I was instructed to lay down on it.  I have been through a surgery or two (thirteen in all, but who's counting) so I knew to wear easy clothing to get on and off...I wore a tank top that left my arm fully exposed with a sweater over it.  I took off the sweater and started to remove my boots, but was told there was no need.  No change of clothing?  weird.  Anyway, the surgery commenced with a local anesthetic applied in the elbow and then the doctor did his thing and wah laaa, fifteen minutes or so later, I'm all stitched up and ready to go.  No fuss, no muss, and as far as I know the doctor went back to his office appointments.

Unbelievable.  In the States there would have been a huge production number associated with this procedure.  First of all the surgeon would have a specific day to do only surgery, then there would have been a pre-op visit the day before (or at least a phone call) to discuss the procedure and sign paperwork.  It would have been an out-patient deal, but there would have been a large room with several personnel involved (there was one nurse/tech here in Finland).  They would have had me change into a stupid looking gown and put in an IV and gone about the surgery from there;  there would have been a post op period and finally, tons of paperwork and probably tens of thousands of dollars charged.  Let's just say that the x amount of  euros I spent was less than one thousand to give you a comparrison. 

So there it is.  Minor surgery in Finland.  Logical, straight-forward and successful, without a bunch of unnecessary pomp and circumstance.  I think it was a beautiful thing and rather than spend hours in a post op, Lisa and I went to the champaign bar near-by and toasted the medical brilliance of the Finns.
How can you beat that?