Internet Medicine

Alright! I've had enough. I love my patients, I really do, I don't even mind the med students, they're fun, you get to mess with their head. But really people, do you think you can get all of your medical information from the internet???

Every day it seems we have pts convinced that they have some disease or another (mind you there in the ICU because of a stroke) and yet they don't listen to you when you tell them that they have diabetes. "Oh, I don't believe in that stuff." or the best "WebMD never said anything about that." It's great, you have to bat your college degree and the docs skill against the internet. It's a game of "How fast can you google??"

Part II, last week I caught a med student looking up a procedure on Wikipedia before he preformed it. Yep that's right folks, he was using Wikipedia as his source of medical knowledge. To say the least I pulled the equipment out of his hand. Not on my pt thank you!

Anyone scared yet??

Nicknames

So a pt recently gave me the nickname The Elf (I swear I'm not THAT short) and it got me thinking about the different nicknames that we earn and the people that give them to us. A lot of times it says something about their personality and your relationship. My sister calls me by a rather endearing nickname, but I would never let anyone else call me by it. Just doesn't fit into any other relationship.

Anybody else have insight on nicknames?? Or is this another dose of 2am madness?

The Night Beat

Wow, long time no posts. Well, I'm officially on the night shift, nothing screws up your mind more then seeing the sun just before you go to bed....it's quirky, I feel like I'm living in Alaska. Plus things get pretty quirky at night. Crazy stuff happens at 3am when no one is around ;-)

One of the most challenging things about nights (you'll probably laugh at me) is that at 6am the residents do their rounds. Now normally I really like rounds, I like giving my input and filling in the gaps. But at 6am when you've been up since 4 the day before you barely know what day/month it is, let alone what's been going on with your pt. The docs will ask "What feeding are they on? Rate? any respiratory problems last night?" Well, I can answer the respiratory with a big fat YES! Other then that, I have no idea, you can feel free to look at the pt/the feeding pump yourself. I'm always really proud of myself when I have answers at 6am, probably shouldn't be, but alas.

Anyway, over the past two weeks I feel like I've been getting the hang of things, I actually know where an a-line setup is in the Omnicell (a major accomplishment when the a-line dart is filed under internal catheter dart...and that is the one that makes the most sense..The Swan Gaunze is filed under Swandome...hmmm) and I can set up an EVD in less then 20 min (always good).


3 More days of orientation, then I'm all on my own, Hopefully I'll hold my own, I'm thinking I will