Day One!

Yesterday was wildly successful.  The county hospital that I work at had a "furlough day", so the OR's were closed on Friday.  That meant that my 3rd and 5th year residents weren't in the OR and therefore they very slowly and patiently took my co-intern and myself through everything that we needed to know.  All of my team is incredibly smart, nice and helpful- which is exactly why I picked this program to begin with.

I did have a few classic intern moments.  I got really nervous about giving a patient Tylenol for a fever.  I resisted the urge to check liver labs before giving a simple over the counter medicine.  I was actually paranoid enough about sending the healthy young patient into liver failure that I checked back at the end of the day to make sure I hadn't killed them.  With Tylenol.

I also had to transport a semi-stable patient from the ICU to the CT scan (all ICU patients have to have an MD with them when they move).  I definitely re-lived some of the more dramatic scenes of Grey's Anatomy as the doors closed on me and my patient alone in an elevator.  The nurse had sent me with a small amount of vasopressers to start "if the patient craps out again".  What?! My current knowledge of vasopressers is that if someone needs them- they should be in the ICU, and far far away from an intern like me.  I was not excited about starting them alone in the elevator.  But everything was beyond fine, and it was probably good to get my heart rate above 120 for a few minutes.

I don't think that I really knew a lot about what it would like to be a doctor before medical school.  I never really shadowed anyone, or had any family members in medicine.  But even with that extreme ignorance, I think that I somehow picked a career path that fits me really really well.  It's awesome to be in a position where I can actually DO stuff for people who are in the hospital.  People are vulnerable and alone and scared when they are sick- and it is incredible to be able to relieve some of their anxieties and pains about their illness, and sometimes FIX them (yay surgery!).