Friday, March 05, 2004

In the past 40 hours, I've slept 6 hours. I'm tired. I helped during a c-section to deliver a baby girl yesterday morning. It was fun! Kind of bizarre when only the head was poking out of the mom's body and then when it started to cry while in this position. Then there was a delivery I missed at 4 pm of an anencephalic (massive neural tube defect) fetus at 18 weeks gestational age though I don't think I would have been allowed to do much then. I did get to see the fetus though. The most disturbing thing is that they dress it and take a picture for the mom and then she gets a memory box of little hats and gowns that look like the ones they used to take the picture. I guess it's for closure. Then this morning we missed the delivery of another baby that happened at 4 am. The team dynamics have improved and we now have a system that seems to be working well and helps the interns with organization since we update daily the patient list and pending problems with each patients. Oh and I got my hair cut today.
~me~ at 8:39 PM

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Okay, so I came pretty close to getting pissed today. This morning, I pretty much did a quick and dirty medicine exam and then wrote notes as I did on medicine. Then the interns and residents arrive at 6 am and proceed to tell me and the others various things like
"You need to give BP ranges"
"You need to say where the fundus is."
"You need to list pre and post natal CBCs"
"You need to know everything that we didn't tell you until now and should have written it in your note before we even met you."
Oh and at no point did any of the interns or lower residents introduce themselves despite each of us introducing ourselves to them! The only person who did so was Reima and Dr. Dola, our attending. Dr Dola's words of assurance were "you're lucky because unlike your classmates, while you do get here early, you get work done by 8 am and get to go home by 6 pm." Um...Lucky?!? Ok Ok I was spoiled by neuro and psych. But otherwise, the rest of the day went fine. I got to come home for lunch and pick up stuff I forgot earlier that day.

~me~ at 9:51 PM

Monday, March 01, 2004

Great. I will have 3 patients tomorrow and will have to write 3 OB notes (which I have NEVER written before) by 6 am yet we can't see patients until 5 am all because the damn attending wants them done by 6 am. Will she be there you ask? NO of course not! Then the intern comes at 6 am and sees patients and writes notes. Hmmm...maybe then we'll learn what freaking exams one does for OB patients!!! A little ass backwards if you ask me and if they give us shit for it, I may have to be drugged to suppress my rage. Ugh! I just spoke with a classmate who apparently has yet to hear a good word about this dept. And apparently only 1 person honors each block and it's usually a female student who wants to go into OB. UGH!!!
~me~ at 9:19 PM

I think Amber summed up my feelings about OB/GYN best when she said "Great! It's only the first day and I'm already pissed off!" We had our orientation session today and for some bizarre reason, they had us dress professionally so we could sit and listen to all the rules of the rotation. I think the course director smiled once but for the rest, she had a hostile tone and was quite anal about everything she spoke about. I tuned her out so I could enter all the important dates into my PDA. I didn't miss anything by doing so. The intern told us to have notes done tomorrow by 6 am. Yeah right! We, the students, decided to get there by 5:30 and if notes are done, they're done, if not, then oh well. And we decided that we'll wear scrubs. We figure that if we stand together on decisions, then no one can fall victim to power hungry OB residents...at least that's how other students have described them. And if someone asks me to get coffee, I will refuse. I'm not here to get coffee, I'm here to learn dammit! My response will be, "Oh, does one of my patients need coffee and they just didn't tell me?" Or "I don't drink coffee so if you want it done right, you're safer getting it yourself." Or simply, "get your own damn coffee." Okay, I'll probably be thinking that last one instead of saying it outloud. McKay said, I should just get the coffee and not put up a fight. Wha?!? At least my 3 other teammates share my feelings. Maybe I do fight too much about little things but unless a task adds to my medical education, I ain't doin it! I'll keep you updated if such an incident occurs and how I deal with it. Will the fear of a crappy eval because of my unwillingness to be a waitress make me crumble? Stay tuned. Oh and I have 2 sundays of call where I get to chill at University Hospital from 6 am until midnight. Yes, MIDNIGHT!!! And there's crappy food near that hospital and no place for quiet studying. Good thing I have my in ear earbuds and my ipod so I can shut out the hideous world of university hospital and attempt to be productive.
~me~ at 12:16 PM

Sunday, February 29, 2004

Chris Doyle's Reasonably Clever.Com - Where our motto is "Hey! That's Reasonably Clever!"

You have to play with this! You can create a lego person to look like you...okay, close to what you feel you are but fun none the less!
~me~ at 5:02 PM

yawn! I'm tired. I got back today from being home in hawaii for a week. It was nice to relax and see family and friends. I got to meet my friend's new boyfriend...he seems nice and she's happy so that's great. I also found out that yet another high school friend is having a baby.
I need to do laundry and iron my shirts for this week. Blech. I have to get up early tomorrow morning.
~me~ at 4:28 PM