I woke up before anyone else this morning, so I actually have a chance to do some writing. Yesterday's OR went fine and I was home in time for The Soup...mmmm, mindless viewing. We had some glitches...I can't go into everything, but it involved one doctor giving another doctor a piece of his mind for a good 10 minutes while I held the phone(doc on the recieving end was scrubbed in). Both attendings. It was nice not to be the one yelled at for once, usually the TC bears the brunt of everyone's frustrations, but I felt for him.
My last 2 cases that I've gone out on have pretty much been to relieve a coordinator who'se already gotten consent and manage the patient until the OR and then do the OR. It's nice not to be emotionally involved sometimes, especially after this case. You don't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. So I guess I've been given a little break to recharge my mental batteries.
And I love going to the OR. I only worked there for a year-I just like clinical management too much to stay in the OR. I like being in the ICU with the patients and following them day to day. I hope to go back to school soon and get my nurse practitioner with maybe a first assist on the side. When my first daughter was little, I though long and hard about going to med school, but I didn't know if I wanted it enough to devote a decade of my life to it and all the sacrifices that'd go along with it. Once you're a doctor, you can't really turn around and say, "well, I have a million dollars in unpaid student loans, but I think I'd really rather be an artist." I think there's still a frustrated surgeon lurking inside me...it's so amazing to be inside a person, really seeing what anatomy looks like and cutting and sewing and fixing things. I'm still bitter that nurses don't get gross anatomy or even a look at a cadaver cut open once. (At least at my school.) But that's me-the happiest day of 5th grade was when I learned we'd be dissecting frogs.
Anyhoo, last weekend was really quiet and I'm due for an allnighter-we're already pretty busy this weekend, so I'm gearing up for anything.
2 comments:
I share your love for anatomy also. I earned my ADN at a small community college in southern Illinois. It was a small campus but we had one thing that some schools don't; connections! The A&P teacher is a doctor who came to America from India but was unable to practice because of her language barrier, so she became an A&P instructor at the local community college (I don't have a hard time understanding her). Through her connections as a doctor she is able to get our campus fresh cadavers for the nursing students to study. Other community colleges in the area had to make due with a shriveled 10 year old cadaver, which had come to look like beef jerky over time. The cadaver lab was actually required for nursing! These cadavers had to be dissected for the students to study so that became a class also! Surprisingly, she had a hard time finding students to dissect cadavers. Being in a small room alone with a cadaver at the back of the classroom does seem unappealing to some students. Other students could always tell that I had spent time dissecting the cadaver before class. I think it might have been the smell, lol. Regardless of the lingering smell and weird looks from other students, Human Cadaver Anatomy was my favorite class. It was on the student’s free time but 30 hours were required by the end of the semester. The student gets to choose which part they want to dissect and then they must label organs, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels for the A&P students to study. We were unable to completely disassemble the cadaver, such as in Gross Anatomy, but any experience was of tremendous benefit. We usually had an average of 3 cadavers in the fridge at any time. It was a great opportunity and experience. All of this, from a very small community college! I love to help patients, but being in the medical profession all comes back to my love and fascination with anatomy.
I stumbled across your web site today and found it very informative. I am an emergency room nurse who has also had some experience in the OR over the past several years. I recently applied for a position as a transplant coordinator, and have some questions...mainly about the lifestyle you live and if you are able to have a social life whatsoever!? I have not been offered the position yet, but would like some more insight before I get all excited about a job that I know very little about. I love critical care, OR...death and dying and dealing with families does not intimidate me. I am definite type A personality and love to have a lot of stuff going on at once...I thrive on it. If you could just fill me in a bit on the ins and outs of it, I would appreciate it.
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