Start clinicals off with a bang

Despite my prior forecast that this week would be uneventful, it has turned out to be quite the opposite. School was pretty straightforward. We had two classes and one clinical. Wednesday I was on call for the co-op and didn't get called. But another doula asked if I could serve as her back up for a client who was being induced (the other doula had to go out of town.) My Thursday wasn't too full, so I agreed. I got to the hospital around 5p --- she delivered a healthy baby boy around 7:15a on Friday morning. I stayed the entire time in true doula fashion. But, I had to be at my clinical site at 9:00a. So I rushed home, changed, ate something quickly, and went to clinical. I was barely there on time but it was worth it. Who else could say they started off their clinicals with a beautiful birth?

The birth was pretty normal. I think that going to these births will allow me to introduce my face and name to the residents, doctors, etc. who practice all around. And they can be important allies (as well as formidable foes.) Last night's doctors were not the case. We were at Big Teaching Hospital, so mom had a head of dept, resident, and intern.

(On a side note, although I will never repeat this...I was totally hot for the OB resident. Hello -- she was the hottest doc I have ever seen. It almost made the 14 hr birth even more exciting because she was there the.entire.time!!)

Back to the birth, docs were very liberal (more liberal than what I saw in VA) for pushing. Mom pushed side-lying, squatting, pulling a towel, etc. all at the suggestion of the doc. I was fairly surprised because #1 I've never been at a birth where the doc hasn't "stepped in" at the very last moment to "catch" the baby #2 I've never been at a birth where the doctor was so liberal in pushing positions...mom was given options and choices, the docs moved around to accommodate mom and how she pushed best (of course, the way it *should* be!) Doc was there pretty much the entire time.

And even though I love being at births despite where they occur, every hospital birth I go to just reaffirms my desire to never ever have children in a hospital. Ever.

Which brings me to a new topic. There are no birth centers in the Atlanta metro area. None. Not even one. Even in VA, there was a birth center! So I want to get involved in starting one. Another (almost graduated) nurse-midwifery student was telling me that she wants to start a center because there's a growing need for it. I'd totally like to either join her (if she was serious) or start my own upon graduation.

Last night I went to the LGBT graduate student alliance house party. I met a few interesting people -- only 1 from my school. Apparently, there's a lot of queers in public health, law, and medicine but not nursing. *sigh* So I'm going to be a lot more active in their group. Hopefully we can do some good and create more queer visibility at the university.

My big toe is alright. It's not doing too well since I was on my feet for almost 2 days straight. I think I may lose the toenail cause it's starting to turn black. Gross. I've never lost a toenail before.

Clinicals went well. We're on an abdominal post-surgical floor so lots of interesting things to see. In spite of being exhausted, I was very on top of things. Rattling off names of medications, their indications, answering the instructor's questions, etc. So I am a smarty pants. The one in the group that everyone hates because I almost always know the answer.

Speaking of smarty pants, I got my Pharm test grade back -- not a solid B as I had predicted, but an A! :) So that's two A's so far. I'm 2 for 2. We have our first clinical exam on Monday which I really need to get to work on. Plus there's lots of readings for assessment. We're doing head, eyes, ears, neck, and throat on Monday & Wednesday. Not to mention getting our first real patient on Friday. I can't believe school is flying by so fast.