I'll see you in the ICU!

Is there a hump?

I wake up most mornings and think of the number of days that mark my return to San Francisco. Today was 39 and I thought "ooh, over the hump" then quickly edited myself "Is there a hump?"



I'm pretty well burned out this semester. I feel embittered about the fact that this program is bullshit, the lack of communication or miscommunication is astounding. I don't know how anything gets done.

Yesterday, we had a town meeting (as we do every Monday, but they're usually so stupid that no one goes.) Because only 6 of us out of the 160 remaining are anesthesia, they rarely have any info for us, or know the answers to our questions.

I had to ask a question about the mandatory leave of absence they make us take to work for a year in an ICU. They were addressing folks that elect to take a year off to work, and it's a good idea, but the school is really making it hard on them. Lots of scholarships will be lost, and if you don't file a mountain of paperwork and vague forms by even more vague deadlines, you lose your spot and have to reapply.

Then there is a pile of information down at the front of the class that everyone needed to get pertaining to their specialty--of course, except for ours. So we stood around and asked (the dean of the ETP students and the dean of the Nursing School) a few questions regarding licensure. There are two of us that are thinking of applying to schools in California, and not coming back, but would like to save our spots here just in case we don't get in anywhere else. We're trying to be sly about this, saying that we'll only work for the year there, and return, so we want to know about taking the NCLEX here in NY or in California. They almost said they will make it harder for us if we take it in California, becuase they we'd be on our own, that they don't know anything about how to get the California license registered in New York, and that we'd be on our own.

I said "and this would be different than anything else...how?"
(I guess they feel like they do something for you if you have a NY license, verify it or something.) I guess I didn't do a good job of hiding my frustration there.

I'm pretty rebelious, and don't really care what they think.



The thing is they hate us. We can't get any answers from the ANES deptartment because they don't like us either. We're like step children, each of us on our own, trying to figure stuff out, trying to make the program work, trying to gather info and inform ourselves and the rest of the group on what's going on, what's expected, and so on.

Columbia is a disaster. I've never seen such disorganization. The scary thing is that they go for acreditation in 2008. Another scary thing is that several really good nurses in the MSN ANES portion drop out...that scares me--what hopes do I have after being out there for only 1 year of passing this nutty program? and if I do, how prepared am I really going to be?

As far as my talk with B about transfering to his school, I've been so busy I haven't been able to do anything but find my resume on my hard drive and look at it, wondering how it changes for Nursing. And "nursing portfolio?" is that like my skills sheet they have me taking from preceptor to preceptor, so they can sign me off on the basic things I know how to do and demonstrate well?

How do I take years of architecture and retail management and turn it into beside care? I know the fellow I spoke to last month is wondering what happened to the email he's probably expecting. I will do it, I swear, next week when I start the new rotation. It's been crazy with tests, and this rotation is coming to an end, so I have two finals this week, two group presentations.

In all, I'm broken. Like the way you get after a while in a POW camp. I don't make eye contact, I don't talk to anyone unless spoken to first, I don't do anything for any enjoyment--I just wanna get the fuck outta here and come home, where everything is better. The weather, the people, the food, the lifestyle...everything. Most of my friends are still cool, but half (literally) of my clinical group has gotten really hostile and takes every opportunity to jump down my throat every time I say anything in clinical.

I guess that's what I get for going into a female dominated profession. I'm used to men, the way men communicate, the things you say are not taken personally, there's no passive-agressive phoney niceties to your face. If a dude doesn't like you but has to work with you, you get the job done, but you don't have any extra bullshit.

Women, however, will take every opportunity to nice you to death, and then hamstring you in front of your preceptor. This has backfired, on one person in particular, twice, now. My preceptor likes me, and this person just keeps digging herself in deeper and deeper. It's like highschool, or worse, the playground, all over again.



This is really sad for me, because she's also in the anes track and I would have liked to have kept her as a friend. I've always been complementary toward her and her work, always run to her side if she had a difficult patient, always there to lend a hand, but I can't forgive the way she's mounted a little army of haters against me, though, and she takes everything I do as a threat, and belittles it, or criticizes it, in order to make herself look better...in fact, I think my preceptor is getting a bit tired of it. (which is so cool)

39 days.

posted by sketchmonkey @ 6:11 AM