It was really hard to get back into my groove after 2 weeks of Christmas vacation. It didn’t help that I bought like 5 Blu-Ray movies and started watching them this week. I bought Transformers, The Incredible Hulk, Patriot Games, and The Sum of all Fears. I was content with my slow transition back into school until the Dean of Academic Affairs (who teaches us Pathophysiology) started talking to us about Step 1. He scared me enough that I started to get on the ball by Wednesday. Its so crazy to think that I’ll be taking that crazy test in about 6 months. There is so much more to learn and study and really so little time.
I had a really interesting experience this week. In the picture you see a $100,000 mannequin. He is one of the many mannequins that LLU has in their simulation lab. In my pharmacology lab this week, they broke us into small groups of four, took my group in a room and read us our case. In my case the patient/mannequin was a 58 year old man presenting with crushing mid-sternal chest pain that woke him out of his sleep. Now this $100,000 mannequin simulates a lot of the real life presentations of a patient; if you palpated his heart you would know it was fast, you could also hear lung sounds and see all of his vital signs on the monitor. He even reponds if we shock him with a defibrillator. So yeah our ptaient had a BP of 178/110, and a heart rate of like 210 bpm. The doctor there basically told us to save the patient using what we knew already in terms of drugs and interentions. It is really amazing how hard it is to think straight when the pressure is on like that. We had learned the drugs to give to someone with supraventricular tachycardia (what the patient had after we looked at his ECG) in class, but it was so hard to actually bring that stuff up in our minds and apply it to the situation. Eventually we managed to save the patient and stabilize his vitals but the lab made me realize how crazy the actual hospital experience could be. I could just imagine being a 3rd year medical student with a patient who presented like our pharm lab case, and being a little unsure of myself as to which drug to push and which procedure to do. I could imagine a nurse or resident pushing me out of the way and cussing me out as they saved the day. I know that all it takes is experience, but its scarey to think that in just 7 months, I won’t be dealing with expensive mannequins anymore but real people, with families and expectations. Well I’m glad I’m getting some practice in now.
Besides that, nothing else interesting happened this week. All of our classes right now are dealing with the respiratory system so I’m having to remember the respiratory physiology I learned last year. This Sabbath I’ll be singing on the praise team…I really like singing, and I hope that small joys like that don’t get pushed aside as I continue my medical training.
Leave a Reply