Gall bladder

I was doing non-cardiac cases the other day... thought I might have a straight forward day for the first time in a while. Things seemed in order looking at the patient's history for a cholecystectomy (Gall bladder removal). I said hi to the patient asked a few questions and then moved along to see my other patient that morning.

The resident came up to me a few minutes later and told me there was an "issue". The history has looked unremarkable and was wondering what I had missed.

Apparently the patient wanted to take her gallbladder home with her as was getting visibly upset when the surgery resident told her that wasn't the usual procedure.

Now I'm wondering why someone would want to take a nasty old gallbladder home...yuk.

I think the gallbladder usually gets sent to pathology after these surgeries. I can only guess what they're looking for but 1)they're checking that you actually took out a gallbladder and not something else 2)possibly looking for cancer in the gallbladder... i'm not sure but that seems reasonable to me.

"I think she's gonna walk" said the surgery resident after 10 minutes of talking to the patient "I need to talk to the attending surgeon"

Apparently the patient wanted to bury the gallbladder in the backyard as some sort of spiritual closure from having it removed from her body... not too unreasonable if that's what you believe in.

The attending surgeon came down and sorted it all out.... She was not going home with her gallbladder... and she wasn't walking out.