This week was a hard lesson in you have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.
Although it didn’t start out that way.
Finishing up my month on clinic, I was kinda of given a lot of freedom in terms of seeing patients on my own from start to finish. Nothing was too complicated but I really felt like I was managing well. I still of course had to present to the attendings but I was going from start to finish without a lot of observation which was cool. It made it feel a lot more real.
But when you get to do it on your own you have to take the bad with the good. I got my first real problem parent in the form of very delayed responses and letting her kids literally do whatever they wanted. I literally had to chase both of her kids down the hall, pick them up and bring them back all while she waited in the entry way to the patient room, going “ohhh no”. She watched me do this and did not help. She also waited until the last possible second to tell us about a problem with her kid’s vision screening after I had asked her about 3-4 times. Right before they were leaving. I get being forgetful or being overwhelmed at a visit but I seriously do not want to be the person who is soft about things like that. You have concerns, write them down. We all have places to be, people to see so please don’t act like your time is more important than mine. Just saying.
Despite a hiccup here and there, I apparently did alright overall because I was brought cookies! One of the nurses made me cookie-brownie things that were amazing for a rotation well survived. I asked, and most residents get them, but I still like to think I did a good enough job to earn them.
The universe will remind you it is in control, as Saturday was my first 24 on the floor…and in the nursery…in the hospital at all. Which meant I didn’t know how anything worked. Sure, seeing patients is what we’ve learned to do but using the EMR, putting in order, navigating the nursery system…suffice to say I was heavily overwhelmed. I refused to cry or be useless and leave a stupid amount of work just to the floor senior so I trucked along. The first half of the daytime was probably the worst. We got called all over the place, and I didn’t have the right answers for patient care questions, and once the nursery resident was gone after lunch I was constantly running back and forth between the floors and nursery.
I got called to a meconium birth, got yelled at by peds cardiology (which I later rectified and the the cardiologist told me I had done a good job), and did as many admissions as I was allowed on my own. It got better as the night went, but my lack of experience caught up to me when it was time to finally sit down and do notes…and I ended up not sleeping. Over 24 hours.
It was rough.
But I’m happy I, and everyone else, survived the day.
Next week starts nursery all on its own and fresh babies…well that’s a challenge.
Medicine With Sass 
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