The last 2 weeks have just been pure craziness... all in a good way. My last day in my pathology program was about a week and a half ago. It all ended about as well as it could have. I was on "elective" for a few days and tried to get my stuff as wrapped up as possible. On my last day we had some cake, I turned in my keys, said goodbye to people, and left. It was sad in a way, but I also felt like a huge weight had been lifted.
Then we headed out of town for a few days to visit some of my medical school buddies who are getting through their residencies. Rabbit, Bender, and Delerium are doing well and it was great to see them and to change the scenery for a few days.
We got back and I had 48 hours before my orientation at my new program started. I had grand visions of all of the things I was going to get done before starting--home organizational projects, reading, brushing up on my Spanish, exercising. Suffice it to say, not all of that got done. Not even close.
I started orientation on Friday and I think this is going to be good. My gut reaction is that this is such a better fit for me than what I was doing before. Granted, it was just a day of standard hospital-admin lectures. But my new colleagues seem wonderful, and the senior residents are very cool and supportive. I have another 10 days of orientation before getting started in the NICU. Hopefully, it will help my brain get back into a bit of a clinical mindset before July 1.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
T-5 Days
Today was my last Thursday in pathology. It is hard to believe that this is about to end. This year has been very long, particularly since I knew fairly early on that I was leaving. But I have learned a lot, more than I could have expected in some ways. While reviewing some of my pediatrics books from medical school, I have realized that I have a lot of familiarity with a wide spectrum of diseases. Granted, I know next to nothing about management anymore, but hopefully this training I have gotten will be useful in some ways.
Last Friday was my last day of surgical pathology. It was my last day in the gross room and my last day venturing in to the ORs for frozens. I cannot say that I will miss either grossing or frozen sections very much at all. Lately, our pagers have not been working well, which has added another interesting dimension to the rather strained relationship that already seems to exist between pathology and the OR nurses and surgeons at this hospital. Let's just say when the callback after the first page begins with someone yelling, "we've been paging you for 30 minutes and you have ignored us," it does not bode well for the encounter.
Somehow, I had managed to make it through the entire year without having to gross in a leg. Maybe it was all of the Whipple specimens that I seemed to get without fail. Ironically, my colleagues who seemed to want Whipple specimens to get good at doing were spared. I digress. Anyway, we do get a lot of below-the-knee amputations, but often the PAs took care of them and I had never had to do one. Late afternoon on my last day my luck ran out. I was given a large leg covered with necrotic debris from chronic osteomyelitis. It was awful to look at, but it was pretty easy to gross since the disease, unfortunately for the patient, was so extreme.
At the end of the day there was no place to put the leg. It was too big to fit into a container and it could not stay in the gross room without formalin. I called the morgue attendant to come and fetch it, but it was the start of a long weekend so no one was there. Finally, the cytotech got wind of my predicament and tried to clean out some room in the already-very-full-of-chemicals cytology fridge. Meanwhile, another tech and I consolidated all of the trash into one can so that we could accumulate enough red biohazard bags to wrap the leg. I then spent my final few minutes of grossing duties attempting to stuff the leg into the crisper of the fridge. Yes, the crisper. It was a disgustingly appropriate end to my grossing experience.
Last Friday was my last day of surgical pathology. It was my last day in the gross room and my last day venturing in to the ORs for frozens. I cannot say that I will miss either grossing or frozen sections very much at all. Lately, our pagers have not been working well, which has added another interesting dimension to the rather strained relationship that already seems to exist between pathology and the OR nurses and surgeons at this hospital. Let's just say when the callback after the first page begins with someone yelling, "we've been paging you for 30 minutes and you have ignored us," it does not bode well for the encounter.
Somehow, I had managed to make it through the entire year without having to gross in a leg. Maybe it was all of the Whipple specimens that I seemed to get without fail. Ironically, my colleagues who seemed to want Whipple specimens to get good at doing were spared. I digress. Anyway, we do get a lot of below-the-knee amputations, but often the PAs took care of them and I had never had to do one. Late afternoon on my last day my luck ran out. I was given a large leg covered with necrotic debris from chronic osteomyelitis. It was awful to look at, but it was pretty easy to gross since the disease, unfortunately for the patient, was so extreme.
At the end of the day there was no place to put the leg. It was too big to fit into a container and it could not stay in the gross room without formalin. I called the morgue attendant to come and fetch it, but it was the start of a long weekend so no one was there. Finally, the cytotech got wind of my predicament and tried to clean out some room in the already-very-full-of-chemicals cytology fridge. Meanwhile, another tech and I consolidated all of the trash into one can so that we could accumulate enough red biohazard bags to wrap the leg. I then spent my final few minutes of grossing duties attempting to stuff the leg into the crisper of the fridge. Yes, the crisper. It was a disgustingly appropriate end to my grossing experience.
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