This week I was finally feeling really good about local medicine. I was getting good cases, knowing some answers, and just all in all feeling like I knew what was going on. Dr. Senter complimented me on having everything done quickly for the client. I did a dental on one of the blood donor greyhounds. I really like doing dentals. They are so rewarding. But I don't know if I would like one on a complicated case. Anyway, I was still feeling as if I wasn't doing enough. My cases tended to be straight forward. Was it just a matter of the cases I chose or because that's just how they were? I was worried that I wouldn't be found to be extending myself. My grade might suffer. And then Friday came. Friday was a slow day but I got one of the few actually scheduled cases. A simple wellness exam on a cat. I picked up the murmur that the cat was supposed to have but had been missed in previous years. Then we thought we'd draw blood. And I couldn't do it. And more I tried, the more freaked out I got. I literally had to walk away and was terribly thrown off by the whole thing. Then I had to talk to the client which normally would of been fine but one of the interns was in there and she made me terribly nervous added into the whole blood thing. It just wasn't good and my confidence was blown.
Today was my ICU shift. I was greeted by a beeping machine from someplace and a tech essentially saying to me 'Don't worry, I'll get that, its not like I have anything else to do.' They were busy all night and there were lots of patients. Then the realization of the tech that the two people (myself and another girl from local) had never worked in the ICU before. All of the students there were like, 'Don't worry, this is what you do. And then be sure you do this for my patient.' Eventually, the tech stopped being mad at us and realized that it wasn't our fault for scheduling or for not knowing anything. She stayed like an extra three hours to show us pretty much everything. Quite honestly, I can only think of one or two things that she didn't try to show me. I wanted to hug her by the end of her instructions. She then realized that us being there was part of our grade and not some voluntary punishment. I expressed my desire to never touch an animal that sick, that I wanted to be a cow vet and why in the world would I volunteer for small animal ICU?
Anyway, we eventually got into a nice groove. Things were looking up. Things were getting done. I catheritized a male dog for the first time ever without instructions-someone had shown me an hour earlier and I did it right as far as I can tell. Hourly treatments and checks were made within the correct hour. Nothing was dead or on death's doorstep anymore than before. And then one patient decided that ripping out its arterial line and bleeding everywhere was a good idea. And that while they were at it they would rip off the E-collar and rip out out the jugular catheter as well. AHH! That set us back about an hour. And then I called in the back up student at the suggestion of another student. He came and was super nice about it but then I was mildly scolded by the clinician for it. Whatever. We finally got caught up and then the afternoon tech came and proceeded to slow us down but there were also like a thousand things that suddenly had to be done as well. I felt bad because we were consistantly an hour to two behind. But nothing died. I left feeling tired. I hate scrubs still and smell like that faint medicine, sterile, sanitizer, bandage, urine smell that hospitals all have.
After ICU, I had to take care of the blood donor cats. My partner in crime left a little earlier than me and got them all fed, watered and fresh litter pans. I came in time to brush like ten sets of cat teeth, give vitamins and lysine.
OH WHAT A DAY!
[EDIT-Originally published to Blogger-11/2/11]
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