Time to pull a Trent

Our list had 8 people on it Friday night, and we've gotten it down to one by this afternoon. Our attendings are not on ER call tonight, so we won't get an admit unless one of their clinic patients shows up in the ER. Our last patient on the list is in the inpatient rehab, and is going home in the morning.

I maybe, just might, be able to pull a trent Shelton tomorrow and have a clean slate list. Wish me luck.

In other news, we went fishing tonight for FHE. It was fun, but we didn't catch anything. The 8 year old girl next to us on the pier caught one though. Nothing beats getting shown up by a small child.

You want some of this?

This is Maggie. Someone wanted a copy of this when it was taken. I don't remember who it was. If you want me to email it to you, let me know. If you changed your mind then, oh well.

Maggie

So much animosity!!

Ah, yes, the infamous 450 lb Mr. Rectal Bleed himself coming to the ED. He's a cousin of Harry Bunn, isn't he, Caywood? We in the ED know him well and can smell him a mile away. Yes, Dave, it's something that takes some fine tuning to get, but once you've got it, you quickly learn how to pass him off to some poor unsuspecting intern. Suddenly Sue Damonas in the next room needs her arm wound re-examined. Of course, Ralph Salot and Ben Dover are other favorites to pass off.

Sorry no one's having an absolute blast in the ED. I guess I can't say for sure how awesome the ED is here in Toledo (I don't actually get a month there until next February), but lots of interns are considering applying to the program after their month in the ED. We've got a PM&R guy thinking about changing over, and I believe there's an anesthesiologist--gasp--also thinking of switching. Me? I'm looking forward to a month of delivering babies. Gotta catch 12. That's it. 12 an' I'm out. Residency requirements. Sounds like we haven't been very busy lately, so I hope I can get them all early.

DO Scam!!

So my wife has talking to her old boss this afternoon and catching him up on the latest news of our family including where I will be doing residency. When she told him I was going to mayo he repeatedly asked if I had taken "the test all DO's have to take to get into a MD residency." My wife, knowing there was no such test, nicely tried to explain to this man that he was an idiot and to stop with his ignorance. This guy then went on for about a half hour or so about how he is 100% positive I have to take a test that will "prove to them that I am up to par with MD's" and that"I really know what it takes to be a doctor". He then went on to explain to her that until I take that test, eventhough I am already matched, I will not be able to start residency there. He pleaded with my wife that I look into this and "find out how it really works", so I don't mess up my residency spot there. If any of you have any ideas where I can go and take this test to prove I really am a real doctor please let me know ASAP!!!! I also am leaving this post to help all of you other fake doctors that have matched into a MD program know how it really works. I am so glad my wife ran into him today!!!! I knew I couldn't trust ERAS.

Rectal Bleeding

I hate rectal bleeding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am currently doing my ER month and when the pt. list with presenting problem comes up on the computer and it says RECTAL BLEEDING it is a race to be as busy as possible so you do not have to see that patient. The other senior ER residents are scary good at this. By the time I see it on the screen, it is like a ghost town and I am the lone rectal bleeding checker. Of course the patient is a 450 lb black man with an amputed left leg, due to his uncontrolled diabetes.
When you go into to question the guy and ask if he has hemorroids he does not know what that means and wants to know what kind of surgery it requires to fix. At this point I want to tell him we will remove his rectum so he can never return with the symptom of rectal bleeding and that he will have a colostomy bag which will catch all of his crap for the rest of his life and he will be required to change it himself. How do you like that because how you are feeling right now is about the same way I am with the knowledge that I have to check your RECTUM.
Anesthesia HERE I COME!!!!!!!

Glover is out got to go check a few RECTUMS.

at war with the VA nurses

i don't know how many of you have VA hospitals at your program or what your va nurses are like but here they suck. the nurses on my floor will be so glad when this month is over because every day i have to get after them for not following my orders and for why none of the lab work i ordered is drawn yet or why the EKG's i ordered at 5 in the morning are not done yet. since everything is on computers including orders i always send the nurses condescending text orders with the order sets that i fill out to let them know i have ordered something and that they will have to stop checking their email and actually follow my orders and get it done by the time i have indicated it to be done by. only two more months during this year then i will be done with the va forever. i'm looking forward to the next 9 months when i will be at the university hospital where the nurses are pretty good. at the conclusion of this rant against va nurses i want to include for your pleasure that i had a patient named harry bunn. what parent in their right mind names a child that.

whoops

um, this was supposed to go to the girls blog. Sorry, don't know how that happened...at least there wasn't anything to "girly."

not much

Well, I am not one with great wisdom or words to comfort, but all I can say is that I feel for both you two, Rachel and Ann Marie. I have actually had a pretty good week but felt a little guilty as I keep looking at the clock and counting down the minutes til I can put the kids to bed. Terrible I know. Trent is on-call tomorrow night but if that doesn't stink already, the on-call guy tonight called and said he is out of town and trent has to cover him. Whatever!!!! Well, I'm ready for winter to hit, not just for the heat but I could deliver right now. Ann marie, what are you having anyway? Also, can everyone post their addresses/contact info? :) Karie

Ups and Downs

So, after bragging what a great life I have, I got slammed in the face. Friday I went to work at my usual 7:00 a.m.--watched a couple autopsies performed, starting chatting with a dude on toxicology, got paged. I was on "jeapordy call," a privilege 1st years have of picking up shifts when someone calls in sick. I ended up going in to the ED and working until 12:00. Then I had to get up at 3:30 to round on all of the 5 pages of neurosurgery patients before the attending got there at 6:00, then spent the day discharging patients from the neurosurgery list (the doctor didn't round on more than a couple of HIS pts, left the decision up to me if the rest were ready to go home. Me, a first year, no experience in neurosurgery, deciding when people whose brain/spinal cord were just operated on could go home. Scary). The rest of the day and night was filled with more consults like depressed skull fractures in kids, newly found spinal tumors, head bleeds, etc. I got to sleep at about 2:30 a.m. only to get awakened 15 minutes later for another consult--T7-T11 Fx with fragments in the canal. Didn't get any more sleep that night. Unlike others, I had every excuse to NOT go to church, except that I had to teach the lesson in Elder's Quorum. So, that was basically a 52 hour shift with a 4 hour break (11:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m.) and 20 minutes of sleep. The problem is that most people who hear this story don't have any sympathy for me when they hear I was getting about $1400 for Saturday's woes and long hours.

In other news, the weekend passed, I went to work for about an hour Monday morning, then I went to the zoo with the kids for a couple hours, then back in to work. Yesterday, grand rounds day, we had "EMS day," where we spent the time using "jaws of life" to rip the doors and roofs off a couple cars. Then we used the fire hoses to put out a couple mini-fires, then transferred patients from an ambulance to a helicopter with its rotors spinning (preparation for Life Flight next year), and a couple such things. Then the Toledo SWAT team came out and showed off their stuff and let us shoot a few of their guns--the rubber bullets, gas balls, foam bullets, etc.

Don't worry, it's not always this glorious. I have OB next, then trauma for 2 months. Trauma is one of those you-won't-get-any-sleep-at-all and definitely pushing 80+ hours a week kind of rotations. The dude on trauma the other night had at least 15 pts come in over night, often 3 or 4 at a time.

96.5 hours

so now I am pissed. I can't believe you are making 8k, Ken! I am definitely jealous, but at the same time happy for you. I just got off a 28 hour shift to cap off a 96.5hour week. I could feel the rage building inside me the last few calls from nurses asking for tylenol for a "fever" of 100.1! My typical day starts at 4:30-5:00 am and ends at around 6:00pm, but I had a couple late nights and just finished weekend call. But I have to admit, I really enjoy cuttin' and sewin'. (not as much cutting yet, only with the bovie, but lots of sewing.) At least next week won't be as bad hours wise. Not many people speak a foreign language around here either, Jason...one of my senior attendings goes to mexico alot and wants me to teach him spanish. our first lesson was the other day in the doctor's lounge...I asked how he was doing and he said "estoy muy caliente" translated as "I'm really horny" (he was trying to say he was really hot) remember kids...the word for "I'm hot" is "Tengo calor." (unless you just got off a 96.5h week...gotta go)
Rhett

Ortho Boys Reunited in Columbus

Kevin and I had a conference in Columbus this week. It was cool to get together and talk. Every month we have a conference for all of the ortho residents in Ohio so we'll be hanging out a bit. Kevin looked a bit tired after finishing Gen Surg cases at 2 AM the night before. But with the presentation about personality typing even I was snoring. Hopefully it will be better next time.

Kevin wanted to see our house so we went by and checked it out after the conference. They have most of the plumbing in and they are starting on the electrical. It's moving along. Pretty soon we'll have sheet rock gonig in. Then no more of this two bedroom apartment!

Signing out.

Shyler

Greatest call night ever

I did not discharge all the patients on my service(Gooooo Trent!), but I still had a night for the ages.

My last page was at 9:30 pm, someone need colchicine because "the gout is comin' on". After that page: nothing. I went to bed at 11:00pm, woke up at 3:00am to make sure the pager was working (paged myself). Went back to sleep, woke up fresh as a daisy at 7:00am.

The only downside: since I slept so much, I don't have an excuse to skip church.

ForePay

By the time you finish reading this, some of you may wish you had done emergency here with me instead of your chosen specialties. We have Grand Rounds 1 time a week (Tuesday, for 6 hours). Last week was a particularly gruelling day of . . . golf. Anytime there's a 5th Tuesday in a month, the residency program pays for a fun activity such as golf, paint ball, etc, and that's the lecture series for the week. We got 18 holes, golf clubs, carts, etc, all covered. I hate to admit, it was my first time ever golfing, so you can guess how well I did, but by the end of the day, I actually hit a ball further than 20 yards.

Right now I'm on call for neurosurgery and neurology. Let me show you a picture of how things are going (taken with my new laptop that my program purchased for me):




Granted, last week was a little busier by this time--3 headbleeds (Subarachnoid, subdural, hemorrhagic midbrain), one T8-transsecting gunshot wound, and 2 stroke pts, but I still can't complain too much, especially after hearing some of your stories. So far, knock on wood, nothing today, though I am expecting a Cauda Equina in a few. Oh, yeah, did I mention that this is MOONLIGHTING for me? I'll make somewhere around $600 tonight--my second night of call ever--and hopefully I'll get to sleep for most of it. This Saturday is Shelly's birthday, but she gave me the go-ahead to pick up an extra moonlighting shift and then use some of that money for an even better gift. The Saturday shift, 24 hours, will bring in somehwere around $1400. Not too bad, eh? All told, I should bring in around $8000 this month. Oh, yeah, and my regular schedule is ultrasound for the month. I go in for a couple hours, do a few ultrasounds, then go home for lunch with the kids. After that, sometimes I go back in, sometimes I take the rest of the day off.

Well, that's about it. And "ForePay" (NOT ForePLay--I know you had to read it twice!), fore is for golf, pay is for moonlighting, but I'm sure you've all figured that out by now.

DID IT!

0 pt's for 8 hours. booya grandma.
Trent

banking with drew

is everybody else that used drew for their mortgage getting their statements on a postcard instead of the more traditional paper statement with an envelope to return their payment in? and as an aside i just realized today that i have never had a pt while here in georgia nor seen any other resident with a pt that did not speak english. i love georgia.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

July flew by, and I ended up having a good time on General Surgery. Now I'm on Internal Medicine. The attendings are really nice, but rounding for 5 hours... I could do without that. We have some crazy medical students too. One of them takes notes on whatever the interns say. Here I am, a glorified student, and some 3rd year transcribes my every word. Very amusing.

In other news, my program director resigned (or was actually fired, depending on who you talk to). We'll have more news that we can share in the coming months.

Records

So I'm going for a new record, it has never been done before by an intern. I'm on call this weekend and I am trying to get all my pt's discharged from my service. I'm down to two left and I'm trying to pawn them off to medicine. If I can do this I will be put in the intern hall of fame. GOOOOOOOOO Trent