3 weeks in

The more I do this, the more I fall in love. I really don't understand why a medical student would want to do anything else? Every shift is so full of spontaneity, diverse cases, newly acquired procedural knowledge, and of course, lots of blood. I am enjoying everything about this rotation, the residents and faculty are wonderful and never to busy to teach, the staff and nurses are hilarious and also are always willing to help. The patient population is so wide and they are the sickest people I have ever seen. This week we had a male with AIDS that had a CD4 count of 8. That same shift I saw a man high on heroin and amphetamines that had his penis tattooed, stapled a huge scalp laceration, helped relocated several bone fractures, diagnosed a stroke.... i could go on forever.

I walk away from each 12 hour shift in a whirlwind. Not remember everything that happened because so much went on, exhausted yet awake on adrenaline. I get in my car. Take a deep breath. and smile like a lil kid in a candy store. Such a great feeling.

Shadower to Shadowee?

Today as we started our shift, a young guy introduced himself to the senior resident and said he would be shadowing him if that was OK. The resident welcomed him aboard and I introduced myself also. I was working in the same pod as this resident so I told him he could hang out with me.


What turned out was this medical student, between his 1st and 2nd year, shadowed me through our 7pm to 7am night shift.  A student...shadowing me. Just a trip. Time is flying, I feel so cliche when I say it feels like just yesterday when I was writing about shadowing other 4th year medical students.

Ultrasound ROCKS

The hospital got 3 new ultrasound machines which are amazing. Image quality and diagnostic accuracy are incredible. We use them in a large variety of ways, some examples: we use them in traumas to search for internal bleeding, in clinical workups to look for gallstones, and during central line procedures to locate deep veins. 

Each machine is worth more than a brand new car. And apparently the County got them by using money from speeding ticket fines. To many ironies to point out...