Baby Steps

So my dogged determination at turning this rotation around may have started to pay off.

It has not been easy.

I've had to spend double the time required of me at the hospital, attend many mind-numbingly boring meetings, present patients to consultants I'm not even working for, nod and smile a lot during 4h ward rounds, and agree with everything Nibbs says--but it has started to work.

Today during a tea break Nibbs' senior registrar informed me that he had commented that I was 'quite good' and 'well directed' with a very 'applicable background'!!

Cue: angels getting wings, fireworks, rocket ships taking off, the end of Beethoven's 5th symphony, and a flock of doves flying away.

I. Am. Haggard.

It is exhausting having to plaster an enthusiastic look on your face all the time when you just feel like slinking into the chapel to hide for the next 43 days.

But at least things seem to be turning, so very slowly, a corner.

Ohhh...HARSH!

So this morning His Nibbs turns to me and says, "How long were you a nurse for?" [This being the first time he's ever actually directed any specific question at me regarding my life or previous existence...actually, it was one of probably only 5 occasions in the past 3 weeks where he actually addressed me directly with a question that required an answer.]

"Five years".

"Hmmph..."

A couple hours later on the ward round he then inquires, "What type of nursing did you do? Regular nursing I suppose...."

"I was an A & E nurse and also worked casually on acute adult psyche".

"A & E nurse??? You were an A & E nurse? Well I would have never guessed that."

"Well....er...[not sure how to respond or where he was going with that]...er...chronic diseases aren't really my area...more acute on chronic or acute presentations, I suppose..."

"No, well I mean, you must be sitting on a mountain of knowledge then, with your background...an absolute mountain...you'd never know it...I mean, I've been around you two weeks and I would have never known you had that knowledge!"

Oh. Of course. That was where he was going with that. Nice.

FML.

Unexpected Excitement

This morning when I woke up I certainly did not expect to

a) cut out my first gangrenous appendix (nasty, but FUN!)

b) watch a c-section (bloody and fast)

c) attend a vaginal delivery (beautiful baby girl)

before lunch.

But such is the way that the universe works sometimes I suppose! So, yes I am technically on my medicine rotation right now, but the weekends are my own time. I told M.C to text me over the weekend if anything surgical came in. Sure enough, just after 0900h I got the "it's an appy" text so I raced in to the hospital. While I was scrubbed in the gynecologist poked his head in to see when we were going to be finishing up. I took the fortuitous encounter as my chance to ask him about some observing in obs/gyne.

See the thing is, I will have to apply for my residency spot in the fall of next year, which will be months before I actually get to rotate through obs/gyne. What if I discover my life's ambition is to be an obstetrician 6 months after I apply to every general surgery or emergency medicine program in the country?!

So my hope was to have some time this year, on weekends and holidays, in the gyne world. The consultant gynecologist seemed more than happy to have me kicking around and let me stay on for the c-section and then took me down to the labour ward to meet the impending deliveries.

And so, two hours after being handed the scalpel to cut out my first appendix I was watching a perfect baby girl come into the world to a very happy and healthy mommy.

Ah sure, looks like my weekend injections of inspiration and excitement will help get me through the next 7 weeks.

 

That Horrible Feeling

You know that horrible feeling when your alarm clock goes off and you just dread having to get up to face the day?

I had actually forgotten what that was like. My alarm during surgery would go off at 0615h and I never hit 'snooze' once. I was always so excited to see what the day would bring.

Yeah...not so much these days. Hit snooze about 6 times today, couldn't get my act together fast enough to pack a lunch, was almost late so I had to park in the PAY parkade (12 Euro!), and race up to the ward with non-ironed pants and no breakfast.

Aaaaannnnnnnnnd my consultant was 30 mins late for ward rounds.


Perfect.

Can't Win for Losin'

Last week His Nibbs* tells me that he doesn't come in for rounds on Tuesday, and encourages me to take this time to "go to the gym, or do some extra reading...take time for myself". Ok. Great!

Last night I get a text from one of the other students telling me that there is a radiology meeting at 0815h today. He thinks we should go despite the fact that Tuesdays are our day "off" because we've already been marked as the most "uninterested, unenthusiastic medical students [Loafers] has ever come across". I agree (not with the fact that we're unenthusiastic, with the fact that we should show up).

So we arrive to much confusion by the other consultants as to which room the meeting is in, who is presenting, if it is happening or not, etc. We shuffle around the hospital trying to find the cluster of medical teams to no avail. So like kids who are lost in the grocery store we (another consultant and handful of meddies) decide to stay put in the hopes that the important people will find us. 


His Nibbs shows up, walks by us without a "good morning" or an "oh you're here on your day off for the radiology meeting, well done!"

Nope. He spins on his heel and says to Other Med Student and I, "it is YOUR fault that the team isn't here...where are they? It is YOUR job to organize them and let them know where and when things are occurring!"

OMS replies, "um...we didn't actually even know about this meeting until last night...and the rest of the team wouldn't be coming in for an hour and a half anyway..."

But Nibbs was already walking away (he does that---gives out to you while walking into a patient room, or before talking to a nurse, or stepping into the elevator, so that no actual discussion can occur. Just his hissy fit then, FIN.)

I am still trying to figure out how or why we were at fault. But we were.

So I clung on to the rest of the team for the morning...went to the endoscopy department to work on my research project and ended up chatting with my surgical consultant (M.C) about the issue, trying to get some advice on how to not become a shell of the woman I once was survive the next 8 weeks.

In an effort to cheer me up, he did what any former consultant preceptor would do: invited me to go to the afternoon surgical outreach clinic. YEAH! So I did. And it was great. Got to see loads of patients, a few of them even follow-ups from surgeries that I got to assist in last month. It was exactly what I needed because it reminded me of why I do love medicine, that I am not incompetent or unenthusiastic. And the drive along the Irish countryside had some therapeutic effects as well, I am sure.

Tomorrow I am going to stay late, clerk emergency patients that are being referred to medicine, go in early on Thursday to see who was newly admitted, and I am going to DAZZLE His Nibbs with my excitement for All Things Medicine. Look out a.fib / COPD / stroke! I am coming to get 'cha!!

*"His Nibbs" is my new boss. For now.

The Blog Squints at the Light

Hello again, old friend...Ohtanninbound!

It has indeed been ages since I last made a post on this blog. As I mentioned on Asystole, my name is going to be connected to the blog on CBC radio as of this weekend so I think I'll start making more of my personal posts over here, once again.

I also realized that it's hard not being able to vent and receive support from folks when things are a bit rough. I feel a little more exposed now, especially knowing that some of my classmates (and quite possibly faculty) read Asystole.

Things are not roses in my new rotation and I am just trying to come to grips with how challenging the next 8 weeks might prove to be.

Here's to hoping that I don't become an overly emotional, insomniac, shell of a woman I once was...like I did in nursing school when I encountered a similarly evil clinical instructor.

Sigh.

For now though, I can't even think about it. I am looking for the bright and shiny bits in each day, which do present themselves. Usually in the form of a lovely patient or a commiserating medical student.