I'm finally wrapping up my first medicine rotation at KMC. We are in our last week and I think I've finally gotten a grasp of what is going on. In the beginning, it was a cluster of confusion and ineptitude, but now I think I'm starting to get it. I have an interesting team, but it has been good so far. My chief is good for the most part, but gets easily frazzled and tends to dump her frustrations on the med students. I've learned to grow a tough skin, so it doesn't get to me, but it does bother me when I know the source of the bitterness did not actually originate with my actions. Thankfully, I know both other med students from school, so working with them has been pretty reasonable. The intern is a cool cat, who is helpful wherever he can be and doesn't make unreasonable requests of the students. The other intern is kind of lazy, but still pretty nice for the most part. She gets her work done, but tends to take time off whenever she can. Based on her personal situation (rich husband, newborn at home), I suppose I can understand her reasoning.
So as far as frazzled moments, we tend to have about one a day. Usually it involves being scolded for not being active in something, although we've never been asked to before. For instance, we were recently told we need to present more during rounds, which is odd since we are usually silenced when the chief talks about patients. One can assume that she was told by the attendings to let the students present more, and her way of letting us know this, was to blame us for it. There was also the other time where I stood around playing errand boy for 5 hours while we tried to put in a femoral CVC, which was found by another resident within 10 minutes because he decided to use the ultrasound to actually improve his chances. If we had followed protocol, we would not have been standing there for so long. We went through 3 kits, tons of anti-septic, gloves, and gowns. I feel bad for the patient who had to sit there the whole time. I also resent being told about sterile fields while those in it continued to break it over and over.
So that's about it after three weeks. I'm looking forward to clinic, although many people say it is hell. We'll have to see about that, but in my experience, I appreciate the time and pace of outpatient work.
I also was around for my first Code Blue today. We followed the overhead page into the ICU. There we saw the code team taking care of the patient. We stood around for a bit, but figured they wouldn't need compression help, so headed back. In reality, we were probably too scared to jump in. Also, the patient was under airborne precautions (and I don't want TB), so I figured staying out of the isolation room was better for me. It was an interesting blend of organization and chaos.
