All geek, no flare here, folks. The poet/English major has checked out for the evening.
Clinical Day Two: 1st official day with a patient. Assigned in teams of two to one pt each. Spent part of the morning studying, then forced myself to lay down for an hour before eating lunch and heading out the door - helped the nerves tremendously. We couldn't have asked for a nicer patient - very agreeable, understanding, kind, and cooperative. Waiting for the other shoe to drop next week. So far, so good. Instructor seems confident in me, and I had a few opportunities to help with other patients besides my own, giving me an introduction into contact precautions for C. diff (medicalspeak for "explosive diarrhea" and that's all you need to know). The textbook aspects of the fundamentals seem to be coming together just fine, and I warmed up to our patient very quickly - I just kept reminding myself to put on the waitress hat whenever I walked into the room. It's getting used to the environment and equipment that gets a little awkward at times. So I jumped at any chance that came up to help out with little things (and there were only about two chances - evening shift), just to get used to feeling like a moron, I guess. I could read the charts just fine and had no problem with the terminology, and then just as I'm about to pat myself on the back, the stupidest little thing - like where to dump a graduated cylinder full of urine (can I just dump it in the toilet? (yes) do I just rinse this out and leave it here? (yes again)...) - made me feel like a complete idiot. Someone asked for another glass of ice water. I asked the other student in the room, "Where's the ice?" She gave me a look that clearly said, "You have got to be kidding me." And it does seem ridiculous. I can conjure multi-syllabic medical terms by pasting together Latin roots - when I've never even taken fucking Latin - but can't seem to figure out where and when it's okay to dump the piss.
Live and learn.
Posted by stephanie at March 5, 2008 10:40 PM