As Shifts Continue

As we head off for Thanksgiving break I just wanted to check in and let you know where we are at with the internship. With how fast the year is going it's weird to think that the program is only going to last for another 5 months. We began last May and will finish up in April when classes finish. It takes up so much of my time these days and I can't even imagine what I will do with all my free time without it. Hopefully it will lead me to another program or research project that I can take advantage of for the following year.
Recently a few more projects have been added to our workload and it seems that the upcoming weeks  in the hospital will be a bit more busier than previously. This is a good thing because I want to learn more aspects of the hospital. One of the upcoming audits will have us look at the time it takes for the services outside of the ER to respond to a call and come up with a plan of action for the patient in the ER. This is an important and interesting aspect because it shows just how much the ER needs to be able to work well with all the other aspects of the hospital. The ER physicians can't do it all and when a patient has symptoms outside of their expertise it is important to call the physician with that specific expertise.
I am also excited to be able to shadow in the operating room which I will be taking advantage of over the Winter Break. Since surgery is my goal it will be nice to see how the surgeons work and hear about their previous schooling and experiences.

Fun Times with the Program

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic with school midterms as well as my shifts at the hospital. But the program definitely knows how to let us have a little bit of fun. Instead of class one week they took us all bowling as a bonding activity. It was nice to hang out and get to know more about everyone in a more causal scene.
Also this past week we learned about fractures and actually got to wrap ourselves up as if we were the patients. Having hands on activities such as these are a nice mix from the shift work that we all do each week. Especially because when we have our shifts we are usually alone and we don't get to really connect with the other students in the program other than at the beginning of the Friday classes.