How about a December meme?

[dear_tiger]

Because all the cool kids are doing it and because it was so much fun last year to read everyone's responses, I'm going to give it a shot this year. Here we go: pick a date and give me something to yack about in a post and I will try and make it interesting or at least funny. Medicine, food, Velociraptor Island, books/TV/movies, writing, fic, WWII

Comments

[ephermeralk]

4th: detail the importance of boot shining, for all the unknowing Americans out there.

16th: tentacle porn or j2 transformational animal porn??

also: KEEP WRITING, YOU. I'm not sure about visiting catfish, but friend catfish are delicious.

side note: I've become overwhelmed with the desire to get a ECG sinus rhythm tattooed on my ribs. Like this:

[dear_tiger]

Hehehehehe! I was just thinking about boot shining today :D Will do

[ephermeralk]

I'm not really a cardio person (obviously).

Will you find me a pretty correct one??

[dear_tiger]

But you shouldn't feel bad about it or anything. I've never met anyone who didn't work in cardio who knew EKGs. That includes doctors who aren't in cardiology/intensive care/emergency med.

I really like this one, too, but man, it's got third degree block.

[ephermeralk]

lol, its like almost everything in medicine. Everything is SO unit/specialty specific. It's like "Oh they need cardiac monitoring" --ship them off to the cardio unit!

--and I've never worked on a cardio unit!

I know lots about other things, and I am 100% fine with that :D

I think it might be my Christmas present to myself.

[dear_tiger]

So true, seriously! I love my cardio ♥ But watch me run crying to you when I hit a psych rotation in a few months and don't know what to do with anything.

Tattoo is the best Christmas present :D I approve! Wait, we talked about this once. You don't have one yet, do you? Have fun. They are so awesome and so pretty :D

[ephermeralk]

well, there is a high correlation between psychiatric disorders and cardiovascular disease, so just keep that in mind when you're there. Those very well could be your future patients. Plus, Oh yeah. I think psych is absolutely essential for *everyone* to go through it. Plus, multiple lifetime prevalence studies (years apart) have shown that 50% of Americans have at least one lifetime-mental illness disorder (from the DSM IV, since the DSM V just came out not applicable there yet). This has held steady over decades.

Whether you're in psych or not, it will affect every healthcare provider.

You're welcome to come running to me. Even if it's just to tear out your hair in frustration :)

Nope. Not yet. BUT SOON. I'll probably still bring in the first one I showed you, just because it's so pretty. But them show them the actual rhythm strip and say I want it more realistic.

[dear_tiger]

Oh I can believe that - about the prevalence of mental illness and the correlation with cardiovascular disease. And I agree, it's a super important rotation. You know, apparently a lot of medical students take this position that "I'm not interested in X specialty, therefore, I'm gonna do nothing". We keep hearing over and over again not to do this, and apparently students do it all the time. What morons. So maybe I don't want to be a psychiatrist - does this mean it's a useless specialty and I shouldn't study it?

Eeeee, I'm so excited for you! And yes, that tattoo is pretty, just with a real healthy strip. But I love the bright red color and black ink, simple but very effective. By the way, my tattoo is brown, like dark henna, and I highly recommend that color for the EKG, for instance. Looks sooo pretty.

[ephermeralk]

ughhhh. what morons indeed. Nursing people are the same way. "I'm going into L and D so I'm not going to care about psych or public health"

*bangs her head against the wall*

At one point I remember nicely stating in my bitchiest voice that no matter what the field, the principles of nursing were still the same and that no matter WHAT rotation, they needed to study it, and work on making patient's lives better, and providing a high standard of care--and if they were only in a healing field for "what they wanted to do" they needed to consider their internal motivations, and think about WHY they needed nursing to be about them, and to examine their biases if they did not think that a population was worthy of their care.

So. You know. You can spit something like that out the next time it comes up. :D

[dear_tiger]

It never stops being amazing to me how people will make it all the way into clinicals of medical/nursing school and still have some ridiculous idea that patient care is all about what they like and what they want to do, and that patients will nicely present with one specific disease and no complications from it. Like you don't need to know about mental health for L&D.

[cassiopeia7]

Dang, woman, tell us what you REALLY think! XD

*got this icon because of you*

[dear_tiger]

That icon makes me smile every time :D