Minh Ba, medicine and the midwest

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Booyahkashah

Oops. It has been quite awhile since I have written anything, I hope people still check this blog. The last week or so has been busy to say the least. My days go something like this:
4:30 wake up
5:00 - 5:15 leave the house
5:30-6:00 arrive at the hospital and start pre-rounding on my patients on the surgery service
*basically pre-rounding consists of waking up the patient (which they love), asking them about their night, and then doing a quick, history and physical pertaining to why they are being seen by the surgery service. Then I have to fill out a progress note of my findings, any pertinent lab values/radiology reports, etc., and create a assessment and plan for the patient for the day (usually the assessment and plan is the same as the day before, unless something major has changed)
6:30-7:00 round with the attending surgeon
7:00-8:00 some days go to didactics (lectures) other days:
7:00-1:00 any surgeries scheduled I scrub in for if my attending has any at the hospital, sometimes the surgeries are at two other hospitals, if he has no surgeries, I hang out with the intern, who is a pretty crazy ass chick from Texas. She is doing her internship/residency in orthopedic surgery.
1:00-5:00 clinic, this is where we can evaluate patients for surgery or follow-up post op
Usually I am home by 6:00, I eat dinner and then go to the bookstore to study untill about 10:00
Then after I get my dose of TV, I go straight to bed by midnight.

I haven't been called in from home yet on my call nights, but last wednesday-->thursday, the night I had overnight call at the hospital, I was there for 36 hrs and slept for a total of 3. We had a kid come in late wednesday night with acute appendicitis, so we had to operate at midnight, I got to bed around 2:00 and the fire alarm went off at 5:00 in the morning.

Most of the cases I scrub in for are laproscopic cholecystectomies, herniarrhaphy, colectomies and appendectomies. My main tasks thus far are cutting the end of sutures when they tell me to, suctioning and retracting back skin/muscle/tissue (my favorite). Today was the highlight of it all, i had to retract back tissue with my left hand and in my right hand I had to hold a nutsack for about an hour. Good shit huh. It was for a repair of a bilateral inguinal hernia. Basically, this guy had a crap load of abdominal tissue hanging out in his balls for over 5 months. Hopefully by the end of the week, I will get a chance to suture and do some ties as well as put in IV lines and NG tubes. That is the goal for the week.

Right now, is the start of my MBA classes, which will occur every Tuesday night for the next two months. So...I will do my best to update, but I can't guarantee. I was at the hospital for over 85 hours last week, and I expect more of the same this week, so who knows how much time I will have to blog, besides Tuesday nights before class. The best part of it all is that for all this work...I am paying them to be their bitch. I'm glad all those years in the fraternity have prepared me for the professional world of hazing.

Hope everything is going well with all of you guys, wherever you are.
-Minh ba