Not sure how I made it through without posting about my surgery experience. Maybe it was the emotional trauma of residents with short fuses, maybe it was the daily 12-14 hour days, maybe it was all the time in the OR just cringing at the possibility that I might be yelled at for just about any offense.
I guess it was not all bad. It had its moments, mind you, but I did survive. 8 weeks of general surgery and 4 weeks of trauma have been enough for me. We'll start with the beginning. I had been fresh out of Psych (thank God!) and was green going into surgery. My only medicine had been my IM rotation (which was rather useless, looking back on it) and I barely knew how to present a patient. There was a lot of learning on the job, but I had a good resident and I was able to pick up a lot from her. So kudos to you, Dr. W, for making surgery reasonable.
Next up was trauma surgery. First day, a fellow student and I get called out for wearing fleeces instead of white coats. I guess it was unprofessional and disrespectful (ironic, since I did not see a single attending wear one in my 3 months there, including the physician scolding us). So not a good tart. But again, I lucked out with a good chief resident and interns. Granted, we got scutted out a lot to follow radiology readings (which made us the ire of the rad department), but I guess that is your job when you rank slightly above the portable urinals in the hospital. Scrambling to see patients and have top-notch presentations in the morning was always nerve-racking. Somehow, we managed.
The final month was a nice little dress-down. Basically called out and told off by the chief resident, and of course, not my fault. Not a planned start. Luckily, the census stayed short and we made it out alive. I hated clinic because I never knew which version of my resident I was going to get.
So there you have it, surgery is done!
Now, it's Step 2 CK studying until June 29th. Wish me luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment