Saturday, October 27, 2007

Time flies

I can't believe it's the weekend again. My week has been so busy that I wonder where time went. I'm getting into a groove at school and in the hospital, so I'm not feeling overwhelmed at all. This week's clinical went very smoothly. My patient was pretty straightforward and getting discharged. I got to D/C a Foley and an INT. That was the highlight of my morning. Then we did flu shots in the hospital. We had a little cart and peddled flu shots to employees. Our small group of 6 did almost 50 flu shots! I got to give 8 or 9 (I lost count) IM shots. And nothing too terribly bad happened.

So the dreaded breast examination class wasn't bad at all. I think I'm getting more and more used to touching other people and having them touch me. Although I did my exam still wearing my bra, other students went totally topless (if they wanted to.) I'm not sure I could do that with people I'm not comfortable with. I don't have any of my regular friends in this class with me. The lab suddenly becomes a new form of picking teams for dodgeball because we have to pick partners before each exam. And people are summing you up -- you never want to be the last person without a partner. I told my lab instructor that this lab was like being back in high school, to which she replied "Oh yeah? So you got felt up a lot in high school?" HAHA. I was like, "No, I meant getting felt up with someone who has no idea what they're doing." I love my lab instructor. She's great. I (somehow) managed to have her for both my clinical and health assessment labs. She has taught us so much - I feel like our group is way ahead of the learning curve. Plus she has a very dry sense of humor that cracks me up.

The schedule for next semester has come out already. Hopefully I'll be in maternity/peds rotation. I signed up for (potentially) a Saturday clinical. All of our clinicals are now 12 hrs, either 2 6-hr shifts or 1 12-hr shift. The faculty adviser for the co-op teaches the maternity class. Also, I went to a presentation about maternal mortality in Bangladesh. It was pretty awesome. Emory has a center for research on maternal and fetal outcomes which has opened up fairly recently. The director of the program also spoke at the presentation and I really need to get to know this woman. The focus of her research is on traditional birth attendants. She seems to be right up my alley. The doctoral candidate who gave the presentation does a lot of work with EISNA and HealthStat (two organizations I do work with.)

Switching gears, I was in a car accident about a year ago. Some idiot rear-ended me on the interstate, going between 30-40 mph. My car and I both survived. But since starting clinicals, my neck has been *killing* me. And I really do not have the time to sit at home with a pain in my neck. Pain meds don't really help it at all. So I caved in and went to the doctor at EUSHS. (As part of tuition, we can see student health for free.) She referred me to the spine center citing that she wasn't sure if my neck had been properly diagnosed and addressed when I got into my accident. I will most likely make an appointment sometime next week. We've got a hellacious week coming up -- two exams (health assessment & pathophys/pharmacology), a friend from VA is coming for the weekend, and a football game (GaTech v. VaTech -- can you guess who I'm rooting for?)

I'm getting more and more excited as it gets closer to Thanksgiving. I miss my family something fierce. And my friends. I think it will be weird to be home, but very nice. I'm leaving Beloved and the pups for a few days, but they will be okay. I promised her to do a pre-Thanksgiving dinner with her before I leave because she has to work on the actual day. Her family isn't too big on Thanksgiving like mine.

The pups are doing well. Beloved and I bought them some chewies a night ago, they managed to find the bag, and tear into all the delicious dog chews while I was at school yesterday. I'm still trying to find an awesome vet for Emmie's spay surgery. I'm so picky about them. If I don't like a place over-the-phone, I'm not going to take my dogs there. They're like my children. So, anyone got good vet recommendations? I'm down to the wire and I don't want her to go into heat. We have white carpet.

4 comments:

Em said...

A Virginia Tech fan?? Boo. We are the only 2 Georgia Tech fans in Memphis, I am sure of it.

Student Nurse Midwife said...

Virginia Tech -- of course...tons of friends/family are Tech alumni. I'm from VA originally.

Style Police said...

I am STILL at a loss as to why you guys have to practise on each other! It's so alien to me.

Here in the UK we just use the women we are caring for. I don't actually want to get topless with any of my cohort - they are people I study with, not undress with. Does that make sense?

Em said...

Actually, I can't really badmouth VT (well, except for the Vick brothers). I spent most of my childhood Thanksgivings in Blacksburg (my great aunt is a retired VT professor), and they ALWAYS included either attending the VT-UVA game or watching it on TV if it was in Charlottesville.

I should point out that only my dad and I attended. My sister is not a big football fan, so my mom usually went shopping with her.

What part of VA are you from?