Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Somebodys trash is

You should have seen my class when we got our pagers during 3rd year orientation. It was like little kids on Christmas. Everybody was asking for your number and paging you and playing with the different ringers during our lectures. One might think medical students should have some professionalism, but this was a big day. People were going to need to get ahold of us, we had become an integral part of patient care.

Looking back is laughable. The big hospitals need 3rd years like you need another hole in your head. And still, even months in we all would get excited about actually getting a page. The residents will tell you that you hate your pager when it starts going off all the time. They're wrong, you hate it once you realize the person on the other end actually needs you. No, not needs you to save a life, needs you because, despite being physically capable of doing everything they want and need to, you as the doc need to check a box on a computer or write down what to do and how to do it. The best is when they need you to scribble your name next to something they already did and claimed you told them to.

I'm still not to that point yet. But being the only person except the attending means I get to write the notes, the orders, see the patients before the doc at 0 dark 30, I just need an extra signature and a scribble for coding and legal purposes. Also, being a student and not a nurse or scrub tech means that as long as the doc is there I can cut and suture and all kinds of shit. He'll, there's things I can do without a doc around, like tear out an NG tube (though nurses can do that too). Though I'm not needed, I'm a lot less dead weight than at my larger institution, which means if my doc is needed, I'm at least expected to be there

So what does all this jibber jabber mean? It means for the first time, after a 13 hour shift I went to sit down and the overhead sounds "Dr. Schmo please call xyz" and I wasn't all twitterpated with excitement. I hope you caught the Bambi reference for it's two disc blu ray release coming up.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Bummer

So my school likes to send students away to work with doctors in more rural settings one on one and usually you wind up living at th hospital or a nearby hotel. It's better for really getting some experience as to what living life in that specialty might be like some day. The first two weeks I spent doing one of these rotations in surgery I forgot my running shoes and was rather bummed at my lack of workout prospects. This week I almost did it again but I turned around 15 minutes into my drive to get them. It also turns out this week is the busiest yet, with two back to back 12 hour days and 6 cases scheduled for tomorrow on top of 3 nights of call. I'm starting to see why some docs find it so hard to practice what we preach...

BTW the pizza I had to pickup because the cafeteria was closed is fantastic

Time for some quick anatomy lessons

Ms. Rep was in today to make sure nothing went wrong with her company's mesh if we used it during an esophageal repair...

Ms. Rep, looking at the laparoscopy screen: What is that big vessel there running down by the esophagus?

Attending: You mean the aorta?

Ms. Rep: Oh...