Friday, April 14, 2006

One week of school left!


Yesterday I met my friend Amanda at the ER at school. We'd agreed to work together yesterday for one of our required shifts (that really isn't required since we haven't seen any other students there). There weren't any new patient to see for a long time and right about the time I started planning my departure, a new chart showed up so I grabbed it. Fortunately, it was in the fast track ER, so the patient's complaint most likely wasn't going to be complicated or serious.

As it turned out, she had a never ending period that has lasted 6 weeks (not something I would go to the ER for, but oh well). Well, she automatically gets a pelvic exam for that, which was no big deal, but when I went in to do it, I realized the foot of the bed doesn't come apart to make the exam easier. I'm sure I had this hilariously panicked look on my face when I stepped out into the hall and met my attending doc at the door. "I've never done a pelvic exam on a normal bed before!". Anyway, it worked out okay. I prefer to use the other kind of beds though.

Then, my doc asked if I wanted to do a spinal tap on an elderly lady that needed one. I was all into that. So I go to her room and start prepping the lady's back with betadine and getting the lidocaine ready. I was fully expecting the doc to glove up just in case I needed help, but he didn't. He just sat in the room and watched. Well, that jinxed me because I couldn't get the spinal needle in all the way. I just kept hitting something hard no matter which direction I went, and I couldn't even tell if it was bone or ligament. I finally had to stop. No point in torturing the poor lady any further. So the ER doc had to glove up after all. I felt so much better after he struggled to get the needle in as well. He finally had to go up to the next vertebra and use that one. I got to collect the fluid and finish the procedure, but I wish I had been able to do the whole thing by myself.

Tonight I'm going to go restock the anesthesia stuff for the OB anesthesia resident on call tonight, then I'm going to head over to my boyfriend's house.

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