It has now been one week of M4 year and also one week of my cardiovascular center ICU month. We take care of patients requiring an ICU stay after cardiac surgery, which usually involves valve replacements, LVAD (left ventricular assist device) placement, or other similar open chest surgeries. The patients are overall healthier than most ICU patients since they must be cleared for a surgery prior, but still in very acute situations. It has been a good week, and my schedule is pretty nice. All of my hours are condensed into two longs days (one ~10-11 hour day and one ~27-28 hour day) followed by a post-call day in which I mostly sleep and relax after my overnight call and then one glorious day off. Because I work a lot of hours at a time my time off is very nice because it isn't solely sleeping hours as it usually is. The long shift is tough, but made worth it (also I get a little sleep overnight in the call room which makes it tolerable). I am currently on a call shift right now, but since it is Sunday there are no surgeries, and therefore likely no new patients coming to the floor today, meaning we only have to worry about taking care of the patients already here, which is a nice change of pace. Hopefully everyone remains stable for their own sake! No one likes to see a patient doing poorly, at least I sure don't! It's no fun for them, that's for sure.
In my time off after my first call day I got a lot of rest, and mostly watched TV and relaxed. I wanted to hang out with Molly some before she left, but she was busy finishing projects that she turned in weeks ago as usual, so I didn't see her all that much. I had a dinner with one of the OBGYN docs who is in charge of the other subi I am doing later in the year, which was really fun. He had everyone doing the clerkship over to chat and talk about our goals, concerns, etc while eating a delicious home cooked meal and dessert! It was awesome and made me really excited for that month (which will either be in September or March for me). I also got my bridesmaid dress for Shea's wedding in Hawaii next month, and we are all getting very excited for that! It will be so nice to be relaxing in Hawaii, despite the fact that I will have to study some for Step 2 while I am there. Last night I drove Molly to the airport for her to go home for the summer. She was running a little behind as usual, but we got there just fine. I'm assuming she had a good flight, but I haven't talked to her since I dropped her off. After dropping her off I went to REI, where I used my dividend to get a new NorthFace I can wear at the hospital and a few other things (like a foam roller to roll out my still cramped hamstrings!), and then I went to Whole Foods for dinner, but it turned into a full fledged grocery shopping trip. I need to be more careful about those trips in the future or I wont have enough money to eat for the rest of the year! Anyways, now I am back on a long call shift and just hanging out, and tomorrow starts my days off again, yay!
