OB/GYN. Week 2. Kill me now.
Terrible is a brief enough adjective to describe my experience in OB thus far. I am on an elective week block right now where we tour various fields of the profession. However, since the instruction and directions are patchy at best my colleague and I have no idea what we’re expected to do. To add to this confusion the residents and attendings don’t know either. To further add to this farce is the fact that this is the end of the year. This is not a new bolt thrown in to jam up the works. So why doesn’t anyone know what the fuck to do with us? Yesterday, before rounding with the Gyn/Onc team we were suddenly asked to get a patient presentation ready in 15 minutes. Not fun and pretty much worthless.
My schedule, despite not being part of the labor and delivery team, requires me to arrive at the hospital by 5:30am every morning (except weekends – the one blessed thing about this hell) to round on completely non-English speaking patients. Thankfully I know enough Spanish to get a quick SOAP note and avoid continuously asking the only medical student who speaks fluent Spanish how I would ask: “Do you have blood in you vagina?”
After morning rounds have completed my day varies. I have no idea what to expect nor can I schedule anything around my day. It’s chaos. Absolute chaos. Then, once everything is finalized with whatever I’m imprisoned with that specific day (ironically one day a week we do go the prison) I have to re-round on patients in the afternoon and get all their discharge paperwork ready for the morning (if they need it).
Gyn surgeries are interesting, but when I’m trying to help close I don’t enjoy being told that everything I learned on surgery was wrong. Yesterday I told the resident he was upsetting me after his constant castigations caused me to lose the needle in subcutaneous fat. He proceeded to tell me that grabbing the needle with pickups is incorrect and he was teaching me the correct way. Fine. Your way caused me to lose the damn needle, but whatever. Just get me the fuck outta here.
14-hour days are the norm. Depsite this norm I often find myself standing around with nothing to do yet mandated to remain. Something will come up if we wait long enough.
My wife hates me right now. She’s a single mother again trying to get both kids ready, get them to school, and get to work before 6:15 am every morning. She then has to pick them up, get them fed, bathed, homework done, and in to bed all by herself. I rarely get home before 8pm. I come home stressed and all hell breaks loose because I'm not "helping out". I hate this rotation and the worst is still to come. This is the “easy” portion.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Oh man, that sounds really crappy....esp if you're pretty sure that's not what you want to do after med school.
But it is good to have you back. (have you been composing that post in your head since you left?!?!) :)
Your wife should start a blog. :) It's good stress relief... Nice to have you back!
I'm sorry things are acrimonious between you and your wife right now. I hope she understands that there's not much you can do about it. She's probably just tired and stressed out herself.
You know you have my sympathies... OB/Gyn is hell. I hate it too.
About doing the things in the OR - once somebody told me that in the third year I will learn how to do things wrong in a dozen different ways. In reality if it safe for you and the patient and it gets the results - it is right. These things are all personal preferences and traditions. In short - BS. Now when somebody tells me that I do something wrong and I am sure that it makes no god damn difference, I just say: "hmm, Dr X told me that this was the most efficient way to do it". From then on two things can happen - he will shut up because Dr X is well known surgeon in the field or he is going to be a real ass and insist (in which case I just do whatever told because it just not worth it, man). By the way, the reason we use pick ups is so that we do not poke our fingers, so you are right... but you already knew that... Good on you for telling him that he is upsetting you.
Your wife sounds stressed. Give her a hug.
OB/GYN blows huge nasty clots.
Your wife should call me, and we could be single moms together. My husband isn't a doctor, but he travels/works a lot and is almost never home. The scenario you described with the fighting stuff is way too common in our house. When I am feeling particularly sane (not often) I remind both of us that we are angry at the situation not each other and then we crack ourselves up by yelling at the house or whatever since the "situation" isn't tangible for us to yell at.
I know it sounds trite to say that there's a light at the end of this particularly long tunnel, but that's exactly what my doc friends tell me. It blows stale Twinkie cream while you're doing it, but the rewards of practice is very sweet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you and your wife!
Gosh, there is really much worthwhile data here!
free lost love spells | magic wand | here
Post a Comment