By Dan Merritt, Advocate reporter
Battling bullet, knife, and other types of violent wounds to get victims stabilized and out of danger could be Tiffany Weidner’s full-time job someday.
“It’s exciting,” she said of surgical efforts in trauma operating rooms.
“It’s never the same operation over and over. Every operation is different because every knife or bullet enters in a little bit different spot (doing damage differently).
“That’s the thing that I love about it the most, is that it’s always something new.”
Though mortality can be close to half of the patients being worked with. “But, you’re doing what you can to try to save a life. You can’t always.”
That’s why trauma surgery has a high burn-out rate of those who do it, Weidner added. Plus, “it’s always bad hours and it’s hard work.
“But if that’s what you love, that’s what you have to do.”
Or heart transplant surgery could be her occupation, eventually. She’ll be deciding about surgical fellowships for further trauma or heart transplant training as the year 2020 approaches.
That will be when her general surgical residency is over at the Mayo Clinic Hospital of Scottsdale, Ariz. (One of three Mayo Clinic facilities in the nation, including the original in Rochester, Minn.)
Weidner goes there after graduating next month (May 16) as a medical doctor from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Ark.
Her pre-med undergrad years, majoring in psychology, took place at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion. She graduated from there in 2011.
She’s a 2007 Colome High School graduate; her parents, Fred and Deena Weidner, somewhat semi-retired now, ranch and farm in the Clearfield area.
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