Pop Quiz!

It's the first day of my second clinical rotation, and my first day IN the hospital. We're 1.5 hours into the day, if you came to find me, what do you think I'd be doing?

a. Giving a patient a bath.
b. Changing a patient's linens
c. Taking a tour of the unit I'll be working on
d. drawing a picture of a "healing space" with colored pencils.

It's hour 4 of my second clinical rotation, and we're just about to be dismissed to lunch. How much of the preceding time was spent going over how to do the actual paperwork/what will be expected of us?

A. 3 hours
B. 2.25 hours
C. 1 hour
D. 35 minutes

It's hour 8 of my second clinical rotation. How much direct patient contact have I had today?
A. 1 hour
B. 2 hours
C. 4 hours
D. Zero hours


Answer Key (with rationale):
1. D: because obviously, doing some froofy artsy granola bullshit is far more important than that other stuff.

2. D: because obviously doing some froofy artsy granola bullshit is far more important than knowing what the hell I'm supposed to do next week when I research my patient.

3. D: because obviously doing some froofy artsy granola bullshit is far more important than knowing how to actually do direct patient care.

Like I've said before. Artsy shit will not save your stupid ass in a code. Not once, has someone said: "This man has no pulse! Quick! Get a posterboard, STAT!" Even if someone shits themselves, will you hear "Oh my, George crapped himself again, better draw him a picture of the ideal healing space. That oughta right 'im."

This is what I hate. The spend eons on stupid shit that doesn't matter, and gloss over IMPORTANT things at the speed of light, and expect you to grasp it in a nanosecond. Assholes. Then they bitch at you when you don't teach it to yourself, when A. that's their job, and B. if they'd spend a little less time worrying about my fucking chakras, and a little more time about the foley catheters, maybe we'd be a little more technically sound...

Anyway. School's lovely, thanks for asking.

Win!

Who knew that Inderal shouldn't be taken at bedtime? Not this guy. Apparently its side effects are... (get this) drowsiness AND sleplessness.

So for the past couple of days I've taken it around midday, and have been able to sleep just fine. Who knows if I can keep it up, but I've been rather happy so far. (Oh, and the earplugs have helped.) My neighbor is safe so far.


Now I'm going to go study the 94 chapters on our nursing test for Monday. (OK, 16 chapters.)
P's making 4 cheese and mushroom lasagna and homemade focaccia, and I get to enjoy that tonight (yay!) and they were foolish enough to try to call me in to work tonight.

Don't get me wrong, I love the person who works the days I don't. She's sweet like a kitten. But she calls in ALL. The. Time. I feel bad for her, because I don't know if she's got issues, or she hates the job, or what. I'll come in when I can, but definitely not on a Saturday when I rarely get to see P as it is, and he's making me lasagna, and I have a test on Monday (and have no idea what to study for, other than "everything.") Sorry.

Off to figure out what the heck "everything" is.

Open Letters

To my upstairs neighbor,

It's an apartment, not the mall. If you want to speedwalk, do it at 5AM with the rest of the mallwalkers, otherwise, it is midnight, put your ass in bed. Some of us have clinicals at 7, and need the sleep. And shut up. Nobody important can be reached on a cell phone at 2AM. Which is the time I am still awake because you're still speedwalking upstairs and chatting on your phone.

Seriously, the apartment is not that big, and you're a DUDE. Whatever you need to find shouldn't take that many circuits around the effin' place. Sit down, shut up, and read a goddamn book.

Sincerely,
Five-thirty comes really damned early, and don't you have a class to get to too?


To the guy who vacuums up the leaves at the Baptist church EVERY MORNING at 7,

God put those leaves there, and maybe it was His intent for people to walk through them. Your vacuuming them up with that giant noisy thing is pissing Him off, and now He is going to smite you for ruining 2 of life's small pleasures. (1. the ability to sleep with the windows open in the fall, and 2. walking through leaves, for those who are counting.) Get a new hobby.

Smite away, Lord
Sauce.


Just once, I would like to sleep past 7, but between my bladder, my asshole upstairs neighbor (who, if he's not speedwalking between 11p-4a, is doing the same effing thing at 7.), and the guy outside vaccuming up every goddamn offensive leaf at the crack of dawn, it's physically impossible. I had high hopes for this morning- I put in my earplugs last night and everything... and they fell OUT by morning when the one-man version of STOMP started.

HATE.

Well. I haven't killed anyone yet.

Then again, they haven't let us play with drugs yet either.

Also: We haven't had our first group presentation, so murder or manslaughter could be imminent.


Seriously. If you get barred from clinical for something minor and easily rectified the class before a major project is due, wouldn't you oh... rectify it, so you could join the group and finish the project? Apparently not if you're the bimbette twins. If you're the bimbette twins, you take "You can't come back to clinicals till you finish your required computer training" really means "take the rest of the day off and go shopping."

Did I need to mention that their portion of the project was the weakest, and that one half of the bimbette twins was responsible for the flyer that should have gone out today advertising the project? Because... yeah.

This is totally why I hate working in groups.

Anyway. I'm not dead yet, and I'm feeling less like I hate this, and less overwhelmed. For a little while there, I was seriously regretting my career decision (and then hating myself for hating it and we're only what- 4 weeks in?) but I have hopes that once we're NOT on a community rotation things will be a little better. Better instructor, better opportunities to do something with the stuff we sorta get taught in the classroom (kinda) and we'll see what happens. Plus I wrote a careplan and my head didn't explode. (It was half wrong, but I didn't die.)

Yay.