A fitting ending... (plus some glacier pics)

Today, my last real day working in Havre, was terrible. Of course.

I started out with the radiologist, a different one than last time. Wow, what a class A jerk. 20 minute into my being there, he dumps me off so obviously that one of the ultrasound techs turned to me and said, "so, you got dumped, huh?" The guy is just a lazy pile (the radiologist) - I saw him get himself coffee more times than not in the course of the 3 hours I spent there. Hanging out with his techs I found out they didn't respect him much more than I did.

Fortunately, I did actually see a couple interesting things. The first was an ultrasound to confirm a case of fetal demise. The woman was 11-13 weeks along, but at yesterday's appointment with her OB, no heartbeat was heard. I quietly observed the ultrasound from my place hugging the wall, and even as an idiot student, could see that the fetus was completely still....a bad sign. The tech turned on the sound, and there was nothing. I know it is odd, but I felt somewhat privileged to share this moment with the grieving couple and the all-too experienced tech. She knew the right things to say, and I tried to learn from her ways how to be graceful when delivering bad news. It was sobering, to say the least.

The next hour or so was spent with the CT tech watching a scan done for liver masses. The masses had been first detected last year, and were most likely benign hemangiomas (for the nerds). Today's scan was to check up on them and make sure they weren't changing (a bad sign). The CT tech was obviously passionate about what she did, and enjoyed explaining a lot of stuff to me (like how it was redundant to say "spiral" CT, and why it is now a CT scan, not a CAT scan). Anyway, after it was done I lied and said my meeting with the PR person was at 11am (not 1pm) so I could get the hell out of there. I shook the radiologist's hand before I left, silently hoping his schedule was packed and he'd have to stay late, just out of spite.

When I went back for my 1pm meeting with the PR person from the hospital, she wasn't there. She had forgotten about our meeting and I was informed that she wouldn't be back to the hospital for the rest of the day. Not the best public relations, in my opinion. A truly fitting ending.

Plans for when I get home:
-a picnic in the park with CJ and the dog
-pedicure
-visit my first clinic in Oakridge for lunch with preceptor and staff (I'm keeping my contacts -- I would still love a job offer there eventually)
-a trip up to Seattle
-catching up on 6 weeks worth of TIVO

Jen

PS: a couple pics from Glacier....


Honing my horsemanship on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation.

Stop looking at me, goat.

About 6 miles into an 8.5 mile hike that just about killed me.

It was the time of my life.
Jen