Today i drew blood out of a patient for the first time! it went really smoothly and i got a 'flash' [flash of blood showing you are in the vein] on my first try. She didnt scream in pain at all so im gonna take this as a huge success! I found the vein initially and then when i actually went to put the needle in i couldnt find it again so i just kinda went in blindly and it worked :)
the rest of the day went just as well. morning started out with a representative from a diagnostic lab brining everyone a pumpkin spiced latte from starbucks [again, i have mixed feelings about this but they are just so good and i am just so poor/loaned out!]. After this i took a look at my own throat and my tonsils and pharynx didnt look too hot so i asked the MA [medical assistant] to do a rapid strep antigen test on my throat. we took a swab of the white stuff sittin in the back of my throat to make sure it wasnt strep. it came back negative so i now know i just have a lil virus that will go away with time. a very convenient thing to be able to do :)
We saw about 10 patients today. One patient i remember in particular because when i was reviewing her medical history i clicked on the 'medication' tab and saw a huuuuuge freakin list pop up. this lady had 30 prescriptions and was probably on around 20 of them everyday [the other 10 were PRN which means on an as needed basis]. This lady was on 4 different anti-depressants alone.... talk about medication management.
last patient of the day had scheduled her appointment in the early afternoon because she was sick for over a month and was starting to have chest pain. I went in and did a history and her physical exam was completely unremarkable. her lungs sounded fine. i went back and talked to the doctor and we both started to get worried about her heart. The pain might be from the previous virus she had because certain viruses can also attack your heart after you have been sick [pericarditis, myocarditis, cardiac tamponade can all be a problem]. we sent her upstairs to get a STAT CXR [chest x ray] which came back negative and then we did an EKG on her in the office which came back normal [though it was really badly done because the ekg machine wasnt working well so it wasnt very reassuring]. we sent her to get an echo [echocardiogram] at a cardiologist office tomorrow to make sure nothing serious was going on.
the more i work at this practice the more i love it. the doctor is great and the staff is so sweet. i am having a good time and learning a lot. im struggling with the fact that i really am starting to like family medicine because i just dont know how long i will be able to do it if i go into it...its great to know the patients well but i have to admit, i think i would get really bored, fast! good thing i have a couple more weeks to ponder over all of this!
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