discerning "yah" & the rule of 2's

Today was my first day to operate with the regular surgeon at the hospital.  I had been assisting Dr. Hammill, a visiting surgeon from San Diego, who was here for 3 weeks.  He was an incredible teacher, a genuinely kind person... he will definitely be missed here.  He was stepping in for Dr. Eckehart Wolff, the "orthopedic/trauma/whatever comes my way that needs an operation" surgeon, who's been here for 18 years.  Dr. Wolff is quick, and in the words of the Ecuadorian interns, is "very German".  I learned within the first few minutes that "Yah" meant cut, release, hold this retractor, move your hand, watch what I'm doing, and we'll have this operation wrapped up in no time.  The hard part was figuring out which one he meant.  

We started at 8am and had 6 surgeries done by 3:30!  Whew.  And they weren't simple either.  (A resection of a congenital pseudoarthrosis-- I'll post more about this later, a hysterectomy/oopherectomy, a giant incisional hernia, an inguinal hernia, and an osteomyelitis case, then after all of that, an emergency ruptured appendix turned generalized peritonitis with an incidental Meckel's diverticulum resection!)  It was a fun day.