Fighting that Eternal Itch

This is pretty much what surgery is all about. Once you are all scrubbed in and gowned up, the last thing you want to be is "that med-student" who breaks scrub. Itch on your ear? Don't touch. Glasses fogging up? Keep those hands down. Nose gettin tickled? Don't even think about it. After 4 weeks I have trained myself pretty well not to lift my nicely gloved hands from that nice bright blue sheet covering the patient. You all may be thinking it is easy, but it isn't. Especially for those of us who have skin that really likes to get all itchy. I have finished my 4 weeks at Bergan (1/2 way baby!) and continue on to vascular at CUMC. I am excited to really be learning a lot more and interacting with faculty even though I know it is going to be a lot more work than Bergan was. That is okay though.

Happy 23rd bday to my lil bro! Way to go big guy. Never thought you'd make it this far......I kid, I kid.

Today we had Dimensions. The morning involved alternative and complementary medicine - acupuncture, yoga, health foods, oils, etc etc. Now, I am much more of a Westernized medicine person obviously, but some of what I heard today did open my eyes. Only a little though. I thought the acupuncture was cool and would maybe suggest it to someone someday. Oils to heal things? Nah. Cupping? No thanks.

For Happy Hour today we went to the newly opened Rock Bottom Brewery. We had one of their cool tables that has a tap at it. Way cool. I had soft pretzels. They were awesome. I also saw an old old old Cataldo friend who recently moved to Omaha and works as a bartender there. It was great to see her. Man this is a small world. Okay, gotta sleep. Or something.

Foggy

For almost a weak now it has been super foggy. And wet. And yucky. I don't know if I could ever actually live on the west side of WA and truly enjoy it. Yeah, they may have some nice weeks in the summer, but I really don't like all the rain. I'm just being honest.

Surgery is going fine. It is picking up at Bergan, so we have had some longer days. Our resident is nice though and rarely makes us get there before 7am. Very awesome. Which means...I am getting up later than people on the minors. If I have explained this once before, bare with me. I did my "minors" first semester. Half of the class did. The other half did their "majors" first. And now we have flipped. I have 2 good friends who did majors first who kept saying to me, "Just wait til you are on the majors. You'll be tired all the time and have no time for fun." Uh...false. I am really not all that tired. And trauma call, in my opinion, is nothing compared to long call at Children's. That, my friend, was rough.

I was on trauma call last night. We had a grand total of ZERO calls. I never even saw a resident. I pretty much studied and slept. It was great. And since I don't have a team to round with at CUMC, I got to go home after class ended at 8am. Go me!

I really have not been up to much else. As I have been saying for 2.5 years....I swear I thought of good things to say. Alas, they have slipped away since I didn't write them down.

We are going to be making our 4th year schedules soon, which is a little scary. We have a meeting in a few weeks to go over the process and how it all works, so I will definitely inform/confuse you all then. I seems as if more and more of my classmates are thinking anesthesia. The thing is, I don't want those who are just thinking about it to take one of the primo months - July, August. Sigh. We will see how it all goes down.

2010!

Whoop! 10 days in, and it isn't too bad thus far. Other than the fricken bitter cold of the midwest. Thurs and Fri last week has highs in the negatives. Then with wind. Oh. My. Goodness. Talk about frozen ears. Surgery has been going well. The 4th year resident at Bergan is very nice and good at teaching. She is also patient when I am doing sutures, which, needless to say, takes a long time. Being that this is a community hospital, most procedures are smaller, out patient type things - removal of the gallbladder, hernia repair. This next week looks like it may have a little more variety though, which is good. What I like about Bergan is that there is only 1 resident working there. This means either I or my classmate Chris gets to scrub every surgery and be up in all that business. Being able to get close up makes the day go much faster than just sitting back and watching. I feel that I also get to do a little more in terms of participation - sutures, knots, driving the camera. For the 1st week, it wasn't quite the horror story people make it out to be. Granted, we have class that starts at 7am some mornings and then have afternoon/evening class as well. That may get a little old. Positive attitude though!

Took my first trauma call yesterday. Got there at 7am, and since I don't have a team at CUMC to round with, I just followed the blue "trauma" team during rounds. The day was pretty slow. 2 trauma calls for MVAs. I went to bed at about 11pm only to be woken up at 1. I was then on my feet until 7am when I went home. Gun shot wound with emergency exploratory surgery. Woooo. I wasn't scrubbed for it, but it was very neat to watch all the action. Students mostly just watch traumas, but it was a good experience.

Turns out my old hard drive is dead. DEAD. I am in the process of trying to build up my music collection now. Blah. It is a slow painful process. Note to self...back-up hard drive!