A Day in the Life...

Let me start by saying that I am so thankful my intern year is over. It was a very busy, very exciting year and I am glad that it is behind me now! So far my second year in residency is turning out to be a little more low key, it won't stay that way all year but I thought I could take advantage of it right now and blog a little more. So many people ask me about my schedule...it changes monthly and sometimes daily! I thought that occasionally I could do a "day in the life" post and give a little glimpse into what goes on at the hospital.

Yesterday was the first day of the month, and in pediatrics, that means everyone starts in a new place, and I started Outpatient. In July I was on an elective month doing anesthesia...I was able to do several intubations, which is where you place a tube in the airway so a person can breathe while they are put to sleep for surgery. I learned a lot but I was lonely without all of my peds friends! Outpatient month is spent in the emergency room and the general pediatric clinic. I was in the ER yesterday. Here's how my day went, the short version!

6:45 AM arrived at the ER to get checkout from the person coming off of night shift, then started seeing patients. It is usually slow until about 10 or 11 AM when it gets steady, and then around supper time people start pouring in to the ER! We see so many kids each day. Some people keep count of how many kids they see but that's just one more thing to keep track of to me! Here are a few cases I saw yesterday:

Injured shoulder (football-glad it wasn't heat exhaustion-drink your water!!!)

Partially amputated finger (it was repaired in surgery)

Busted lip that needed stitches...these were the hardest stitches I have ever done...you have to line up the border of the lip so it looks even when it heals!!!

Possible malaria (travel outside of the country, we don't have malaria here)

At 6:45 PM my replacement came and I gave her checkout on a few patients so she could take over their care. By a little after 7:00PM my paperwork was complete and I headed home. There are no "breaks" in the ER. It's 12 hours, and if you're busy for that whole 12 hours, you probably won't sit down for any length of time. Usually in the mornings we get some down time. We always find time to squeeze in some lunch, but it might not be when you'd really like it to be! It's an exciting, busy place to be. The variety of patients we see keeps it very interesting.

Intern Orientation...

Just a quick post to update on what's been going on!

I started intern orientation last week. Here's what the schedule consisted of:

Sunday PM: Welcome dinner at Cozymel's. All 24 peds interns and the 5 med/peds interns plus significant others had dinner together, on the department of course! Several attendings were there and it was a great time of meeting people. They also gave out schedules for orientation and gave us our MedStudy books, a generous gift from ACH to help us study for boards!

Monday: ACH orientation, a great day. We were in the fancy-schmancy board room. We received our moving bonuses!, pagers, and our ipod touches already loaded with excellent medical apps that we'll need during residency.

Tuesday: UAMS orientation. Took pictures for badges, got shots, and listened to a lot of information about HIPAA (patient privacy), insurance, and more.

Wednesday: More UAMS orientation. Pretty boring. But Wednesday evening the Dept. of Pediatrics took everyone to the Travs game. We had a great time! Free food and it wasn't too hot. Great meeting some of the residents I didn't already know and catching up with others!

Thursday AM: ACH orientation again. We received our scrubs and learned about the ACH standards of care.

Thursday PM: Back to UAMS to turn in forms...now UAMS pays for my insurance!!!

Friday: Neonatal resuscitation training. We learned how to resuscitate babies who have just been born if they are having trouble breathing right after delivery. Very interesting!

Overall, a fairly good week. I've been trying to stay up later at night to get used to getting a little less sleep. Most of our days this week started around 7:30 AM.

And the overview for next week:

Monday and Tuesday: PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) training. This is what to do if a child codes (heart stops beating, they stop breathing, etc.). It's supposed to be pretty intense I think. Luckily we already had adult ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) and some parts are similar.

Wednesday: computer training

Thursday: THE REAL WORLD STARTS! This is the day we officially start working. I'll be starting on an inpatient team (Team 1). I'll be taking care of infants and toddlers with general pediatric problems that need to stay in the hospital for a few days. I've heard great things about this team and the people I'm working with already, so I'm very excited. Also, Thursday night is my first night on call, so that's scary! Luckily, it's short call so I don't have to sleep at the hospital.

I plan to try to update a little more often now that I'm working, when I get a little time. I hope I have some interesting stories to share! I'll try to do a post later this week that explains some more about what I'll be doing. And then I'll try to update Friday about my first day on the job!

Jordan's New Ride...

In December Jordan and I traded in his Honda and my Highlander so that I could get my new 2010 4Runner, which I love! It rocks! One reason we were able to do that is that Jordan had a van for the business that he wanted to have "wrapped" so it could be a driving billboard. It just got finished last week! What do you think? Isn't it fun? It makes me want to go to the beach!