180 degrees of difference

Well today was quite the opposite of yesterday.

Rounds this morning were a little less embarrassing, things went fairly well, and the other doctor who had pimped me so hard yesterday left me alone for the most part, save for showing me an EKG with ventricular tachycardia that I accurately identified after some stuttering.

We finally worked in the outpatient clinic and there wasn't even any shadowing - I was immediately given patients to do history and physicals on, which was a little intimidating but worked out very well. My preceptor seemed pleased which means I was pleased. Mostly it was simple stuff, but it amazing how different internal medicine is from a rural family practice. Almost every patient we see here gets sent for some sort of imaging (Xray, CT scan) or stress test or SOMETHING. Lots of labs to interpret, which is good as I need the practice. Almost no procedures (joint injections, etc) as that is just referred out to someone else.

I was absolutely exhausted by the time 5:30 came around and we were done. Today is my preceptor's on-call day so in between seeing patients at the clinic we were running over to the hospital to admit other patients. My doctor is a woman in her fifties who doesn't look particularly fit, but she runs on 110% all day long, and works at hyperspeed. I have no idea how she does it - I could barely keep up. All I know is I want some of whatever she is taking.

When I got home I immediately took a nap, which turned out to be a smart idea because at 8:15pm I got a call from the doc saying we had a patient who had come in with pneumonia and we needed to go back to the hospital and admit him. Well, when we got there at 9pm, there was a flood of other people who came in through the ER and needed to be admitted: DKA, hip dislocation, alcohol intoxication (a crazy lady whom the ER staff refers to as "bubbles").....we didn't end up getting out of there until 11:15pm. I'm getting good practice at writing admit orders though, which is priceless.

I think my preceptor sees that I am really making an effort, and she is doing the same with me by asking me lots of questions and giving me orders to write when we both know she would be much faster at them. I appreciate it a lot, and considering this is only day 2, I imagine that I will be learning quite a bit during my time here in Havre, MT.

So all in all, things are working out for the best as they always do. I was lucky enough today to be so busy that I didn't have time to be homesick, for the most part. Tomorrow is a regular day with no on call, but we need to be in earlier than usual because we have to check up on all the patients who were admitted tonight - so 7am or so it is....which is 7 hours from now, so bedtime it is.

Ok I lied, I'm still homesick....I miss you all, and thank you for the support and encouragement.

Jen