Coffee Talk

here's stuff I think about mainly while driving. Here's to blah-ging

Friday, July 25, 2003

resolution

the intern who I vent about practically every single day paged me tonight to thank me for helping him these past 4 weeks. I felt sort of guilty about getting frustrated with him, but I did try my best to not only show him the ropes for the maternity service, but to prepare him for the wards. he did ask the same questions over and over again so much that the other intern, who felt my frustration, would take it upon herself to answer the questions for me.



Tuesday, July 15, 2003

I'll see one of your patients if you see one of mine

One of my colleagues switched patients on me b/c his patient has a crush on him. I pictured a blue eye-shadowed histrionic type of some kind, but when I went into the room, I saw a rather heavy bespectacled african american 21 year old. Her Anglo fiance of 1 year sat across from her.

The visit was absolutely "normal." She wasn't weird or kooky. Besides having a lazy eye, the patient's fiance seemed fairly normal, even intelligent. After I saw the patient I asked my colleague if I was the right patient b/c she had a fiance. Apparently, he knew all about it , but still did not want to see her for some reason.

should I be . . .

annoyed?

I'm trying to be patient with one of my interns, but man, sometimes I get annoyed when i have to repeat the same things over and over again. And no, it's not about complex things that he forgets, cuz that's forgiveable. But he forgets simple things, like when I ask him " how's our other patient in labor?" He says, "Which patient?" Well, we have two that are in labor, so "the one in room 10."

"Who is she? What's her name?" HELLLLLLL OOOOOOOO. You just admitted her 2 hours ago. He then asks me what I want him to ask the laboring patient when he goes in there. "Ask her how she is . . . how her pain is. Ask the nurse how she is . . ."

Then I say in a nice way the other day, "you can do her physical exam." He says, "you can do it."

What I MEANT was, "you should do the physcial exam." But I just repeat the same thing with the "can" and he tells me do to it. Obviously he doesn't understand.

"You're the intern, dude, examine her!" I laugh as I'm saying this, but come on, he's the intern. I practically have to prompt him to do everything, otherwise he just SITS there.

I guess I am annoyed.

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

first day

so yesterday was the first day for interns everywhere and my first day as a 2nd year. i was post post call. Monday 7:30 pm marked my 37 hour of CALL. YES, 37h and i am legally not allowed to ever do that again. yippee.

well it was certainly THE FIRSTS of First days! I show up at 6am to the postpartum ward to find one intern. She, however, is useless to me b/c I find out that she has no provisonal license and hence can not see patients. She is there to just shadow (WHY DO TEXAS BOARDS DO THIS TO US???). I then look for the other intern. Since I was post call the night before and dead tired, i did not contact him ahead of time.

So then i have the other intern call him. Several times we page him and he never calls back. so I call the departmental secretary who pages him and leaves a voice mail on his answering machine. Meanwhile, i deliver a moaning woman who came in at 10 cm dilation cuz no else can legally do it and the private OB didnt' show up.

later, i find out that the "missing" intern decides he never wants to go to RESIDENCY ever.

WHA???????TTTT!!!

So i'm there, a 2nd year, intern less. and i thought 2nd year was supposed to be better. So then it is decided that we pull an intern currenlty doing an elective to take the "missing" intern's spot. This guy is frazzled and mentally unprepared. he thought he was going to be enjoying life, but no, welcome to RESIDENCY!!!

and that was my first day as a 2nd year.