a little more than 5 years ago, i looked in awe at the interns and residents scrambling about in the hospital. here i was, a student who knew nothing, among a sea of doctors saving lives. five years seemed so far off. but now, my five years are almost up. what have i learned?
1. that you should *always* put the name of the phlebotomist, time, and date of blood extraction on the label of your bloodtyping/crossmatching sample. always.
2. that when you push the standard metal stretcher, the "rotating" wheels should always be in the back. (you eventually figure this out in ob or trauma, whichever come first)
3. that you can write "to follow" on the abg request form if your patient's cbc result isn't in yet (or if you're too lazy to check).
4. that a chest x-ray, 12L ecg, cbc, crea/na/k/cl, urinalysis are free, but bun is 40 bucks, calcium is 20, abg is 85 and pt&ptt is 180 if you're class d.
5. that you should never touch, or heaven forbid, get, a patient's chart at 6 am, 2 pm and 10 pm... unless you want to face the wrath of a postduty nurse.
6. that you can get the pulse and respiratory rate while getting the blood pressure all in less than 10 seconds. (hay, trauma...)
7. that you should put sterile os on the site after inserting a line in a CI patient.
8. that renal, ids, cl psych and caap referrals require special forms which you can find at the renal office (6th floor), ids ofice (2nd floor of er complex), psych callroom (ward 7, submit before 3pm!) and central block pharmacy, respectively.
9. that all the tiny things that i thought were meaningless saved my patient's lives. that despite the silliness of #s 1-8, they allowed my patients to go home.
10. that i will miss class 2010 (plus plus) when we finally go our separate ways. :(

we have six months left. i feel like my life is on fastforward. i'm excited about graduation. i just... don't want this to end yet.

given the chance, i'd go through all of it again.