My First Day Redux

So, it's the end of the first day. I think the most surprising thing was the fact that I spent very little time with patients today. Don't get me wrong, they were on my mind almost all day. But, I spent very little time with them. As a medical student you are the one who spends 30 minutes talking to each patient, but spend absolutely no time worrying about their management. Today I fretted over the dose of pain meds, whether to discharge a patient or not, the state of their wounds, their mental capacity but I spent very little actually talking to them.

I always thought the residents I'd worked with in the past were callous for not spending time with their patients. I guess I'd never realized how much time they spent dwelling on their patients even when they weren't there. Right now as I sit here typing this I keep thinking back to the Polish man who woke up from surgery with a strange dry patch on his face, the woman whose endocrinology follow up I'd scheduled and all the other patients from today. Their faces and our brief conversations keep swimming on the periphery of my psyche.

But, I have to shut that all out. Because my alarm is going to go off at 4 am, I need to be in the hospital at 5 am and I go on call at 6 am . . . I'll get off again sometime after 6pm on Sunday. That's a 36 hours in the hospital. 24 of them responsible for all the burn, plastics, vascular and neurosurgery patients in the hospital and an additional 12 in charge of just the burn patients. It's my first call as a grown up a doctor. I really need my subconscious to settle down so I can get a few hours sleep.

My First Day

Some of you may know that the pilot episode of Scrubs was titled "My First Day." Some of you, with lives, probably don't know that. But I'm sure that most of you know what Scrubs is and that for doctors, it's the most realistic medical show on TV. Well, I recently got into a surgical residency and was supposed to start work on at the end of June. But because of a number of unfortunate delays getting my license I'm only just starting. Hopefully tomorrow.

So, I'll be about a month behind my co-interns. I'll be the only intern still getting lost, forgetting to sign out my pager and making people wonder why I was hired in the first place. I've been looking forward to starting my residency for years. I've studied, I've worked hard, I've spent sleepless nights in hospital trauma bays all leading up to this one moment. And suddenly, a terror is gripping me. I'm feeling it right now in the pit of my stomach. It's been growing slightly larger ever since I got the call saying my license had been issued. I've spent the past few weeks in a state of panic convinced that this moment would never come and now that it's here I'm wishing I'd done more to prepare myself.

I know it's totally irrational, and that every new intern feels the same way I do. But I also know that tomorrow marks the actual beginning of my career as a doctor and that today is the last day I can use the "I'm just a student" excuse. From now on I am the one that is responsible for ordering the 3 am labs, for writing admit orders and for making sure the prescriptions are renewed on time. I know all the things I am supposed to do. I even have an inkling of an idea as to how to go about doing them. And I also know that no one is expecting perfection on my first day. Except me, of course.

"Four years of pre-med, 4 years of med school and tons of unpaid loans had made me realize one thing . . . I don't know jack" - Dr. John "J.D." Dorian

"I'm not a serial killer, I swear"

You would think that being a surgery resident is as easy showing up at the hospital on July 1st and grabbing the nearest scalpel. Well, you would be wrong. Setting aside all the usual adminstrative nonsense of starting a new job there is still the hassle of the car, the computer, the phone, the apartment all of which have to be sorted out well before your first paycheck. A few days ago I tackled the furniture for my new apartment. Today I took a two and a half hour road trip from my hometown to the University town where I'll be doing my residency and looked at about 6 different apartment complexes.

Now, as a resident I need some place that takes less than 10 minutes to commute, including parking. Not to mention, it should be quiet, have a rent drop box and things that deliver and a number of other little variables that become necessities when you work the hours I'll be working. So, I had to explain to each property manager why I was asking seemingly irrelevant questions. Well, it seems I forgot to mention this to one lady. So, when she said that dividing my renter's insurance out over 12 months made it a nominal fee and I said that I don't need to do math because "I cut people open" I caused her a brief moment terror. In fact, she took a step back, the color drained from her face and she stared at me open-mouthed while I floundered for a rational explanation. The best I could come up with was "don't worry, I'm not a serial killer" and "I don't cut people up for fun, I swear." After a few more minutes of this I eventually got her to understand the whole surgeon thing.

I think living there for the next couple of years should prove entertaining.

Can I get some credit please?

So, today I bought furniture for the place I'm going to start renting in June. No, I have not been apartment hunting yet. Yes, I know that I'm going about this ass backwards. Anyways, I'm pretty excited about buying grown up furniture that doesn't come from a Swedish store, in flat boxes, that I have to assemble myself using diagrams of stick figures smiling while hammering piece A into piece C.

But, before I did this I went to the bank to see what kind of loan a brand new surgery resident can get. It turns out I can't. Not until I start getting pay checks, and even then the loan wouldn't be enough to bank roll a new apartment. So, I did the only thing a girl could do . . . I went to the store anyways. It was the last day of phenomenal sale that would get me a TV with any room of furniture I purchased. I left there with a fully furnished living room, two bedroom sets, and three TVs.

So, it turns that while the bank might not give an aspiring surgeon a loan I can get a massive line of credit and 36 months of no interest payments with nothing but a smile and a quick online credit check. Good to know.

Blog Virgin

Well this is my first blog as A "Girl Surgeon." You might think it's odd that I need to qualify my occupation with my sex. But, trust me, being a girl in this field makes things much more interesting. Like the time a demented patient ejaculated while I was doing a digital rectal exam or my psych patient who would fall to the floor every time I walked into a room and ask to be revived with the breath of life.

Of course there are times when it's tragic. Like the gun shot victim who was a registered sex offender. No female staff member was supposed to go in without police escort, but when he was coding what was I supposed to do? But the truly awful often comes with the hilarious. That same week I treated a 23 year old male who got beat up by a little old lady after yelling at her for dinging his car at a traffic light.

Of course, all of these things happened while I was still a med student. But, now I'm officially a surgeon. Technically I don't start till June 24th which means this girl surgeon is on vacation. I'll be treating my liver to a little steatosis for the next few weeks. But when that's done I'm sure I'll have plenty to tell you. Of course, before that will be the fun of licensing, background checks, finger printing, drug testing and intern boot camp. Not to mention buying a car, finding an apartment and moving (again). We'll see if any of that is blog worthy.