I'll see you in the ICU!

That's more like it

OK--I just got back from my first clinical day. Since yesterday, the first day of school, there have been several stupid disorganization errors that made me a bit mad. I was in one of those moods yesterday, where I didn't want to talk to anyone, and even talking to George on the phone was tense because I had so much to do, and I was in a crappy mood, etc.

Yesterday, my first class, taught by possibly the worst professor in the Milky Way, was supposed to start at 8 am. So I arrived at 7:45, and sat around, no one came...I waited until about 15 after, and decided to leave. I went across the street to use the computer and see my courseworks schedule online--from what I could tell, I was in the right place, and the day and time were right, but since this is our five-by-five rotation semester, I thought I might have the wrong part of the semester (that possibly in a month or so when I change clinical sites, the class would accompany the change.) The next class was Pathophysiology at noon.

So I came back to my room, organized stuff, put things away, IMed a little--and when I got to pathophys I was able to piece together that Professor Dumbass had sent an email (although, not to ALL of us) telling us that class would start at 9 am.

This would have been great, if she knew what the hell she was doing, and had sent it to all of us. Instead, I got up at 6:30 to basically go sit in an empty room, and then come home and wait til patho.

This started my crappy day, and from there, it just seemed to get more ridiculous, disorganized, stupid and chaotic. I am counting the days until I can come home and hopefully apply to Samuel Merritt, or Kaiser's anesthesia program in Fullerton.

Today was better, however. I headed off for the Audubon Urgent Care clinic, and I guess my contact person had decided to take a vacation day, so she wasn't there. I called the dean of students to ask her what she recommended, and told her I had asked and they said they didn't mind me being around, if I wanted to stay--so I did.

(Apparently, I was supposed to contact my contact person, and no one told me--so I just showed up on my first day, as I was told, and she wasn't there--yippee! New York!)

So, I hung out with an experienced nurse, who's been doing this for 22 years, and I got the grand tour of the place.

Initially, I was watching the triage process, which at an urgent care clinic is mostly interviewing people about their maladies, what they're complaints were, etc.

Mostly, the men wanted a note from the doctor to say "3 days rest from work" and all but twoof the women were 1 to 2 months pregnant, and spotting and cramping--so we did a few urine tests, a couple of pelvic exams, standart tests for STIs and wrote referrals for them to go get checked out that the pregnancy wasn't ectopic.

The other two women had different complaints--one had a pulled muscle/nerve issue in the neck, radiating to the shoulders and back and up to her face, and the other had what looked like a possible break or sprain in her hand from "playing" with her son.

So, this is urgent care, eh?

The cool thing is that this is truely community health. I like this--there's a real sense of helping the common man. These folks are what we would consider the "working poor" folks with jobs, possibly living check to check, with no insurance. They are charged on a sliding scale, and no one is turned away.

I guess the idea behind urgent care is that here in NY there were so many people without insurance, that they waited until they were so sick they had to go to the ER where they knew they would be treated; the ERs became clogged with non-Emergency cases, so they opened up this satelite clinic to take care of those patients that were ambulatory, and maybe not as acute as someone needing the ER.

In all, these guys were awesome. There are two attending physicians, two nurses, and several other support staff--and me. They call each other by first name (quite different than last semester when I smiled and said "hello Betty" after being introduced to her, and she turned on her heel and dressed me down in front of everyone, not speaking directly at me, but to my preceptor--as if not speaking to the help--"oh no! Students can NOT call ME by my first name!! It's MS. DOLFEEN!")

I'll never forget her. Every time I saw her in the hospital, I would look at my watch, or stop to look for something in my fanny pack, or consult my PDA...I wasn't about to call her anything.

These guys went out of their way to make me feel welcome, spoke to me as if I were a human being like themselves, and showed me everything I could hope to know.

I go back there tomorrow, and I'm actually looking forward to it. Last semester I really dreaded my clinical day; but this semester it's the best part of my week--the class rooms are getting to me, and I'm quite ready to be done with this portion of the studies. So much BS (like community health courses--and teachers who don't show up, or test you on random esoterica that was in a referred article, some data point that you didn't commit to memory--arg!)

So, this semester will be fun. No more chaning bed linens, or any of that dirty stuff. These are all mostly well patients, with minor issues; not end-stage like last semester. That was tough.

But, as I was leaving, one of the nurses came back to talk to the other nurse, and said "I'm putting him in exam room 5" and the nurse I was talking to visibly changed expression, and after the patient was in the room, the first nurse came back and said--"fever for more than a week, maculopapular rash"

And the nurse I was talking to said "chicken pox"

With that, I was OUTTA there.

She told me that Exam room 5 was their negative pressure room, and they only use it for infectious people--that's why her face had changed. I love the secret code they speak in--too funny!

I hope you're all well--forgive me for being out of touch, but it's a necessity.
Love you all!
MUAH!

posted by sketchmonkey @ 11:39 AM