Feb 13, 2007 17:49
I think I can stay in med school. The entire ordeal was actually a lot easier than I imagined, but then I am a bit of a worrier. I was in the same group of people that I'm always in. They always break us up into small groups by alphabetical order. As a result, I'm good friends with Deidre Wyrick, Kristin (formerly Harshfield) Wheeler, Lynn Wink, Zach Young (no relation to me) and Endrit Ziu. We also always go last. Today wasn't until 4:20--seriously. I spent all afternoon reading about managing acute asthma.
Promptly at 4:20, we walk into the clinic exam room, and there's SIM-MAN in a patient gown, breathing normally. Standing above him is Dr. Soulsby, our Pentecostal preacher of a cardiac physiologist, wearing an eye patch. Somehow, he turned into a pirate. (Acutally, it's a detached retina, but I like the idea of a pentecostal pirate physiologist.) We start off with SIM-MAN breathing normally. Dr. Soulsby did some light preaching, and then SIM-MAN started coughing and wheezing. His heart rate and blood pressure jump up (asthma attacks are scary, so you get an adrenaline rush), the amount of oxygen in his blood goes down. We stood around for a bit telling Dr. Soulsby what's going on with his heart rate, blood pressure, and O2 saturation. Then we finally look at each other and then Dr. Soulsby to say, "can we give him oxygen now?" We're given the oxygen tube, the thin plastic tube that gets stuck up someone's nose, which we stick up SIM-MAN's nose. That increases his O2 saturation. Then we give him some albuterol which is a beta-2 agonist and a type of bronchodialator. SIM-MAN immediately says in his computerized voice, "I feel better." I mean, immediately. I don't think we finished squirting his inhaler when he said it. I hope all my patients do so well.
The rest of the day, however was bad.
water main broke but no one told us that we're not to drink the water for another 24-48 hours until after I've made and consumed my morning coffee. I might be the first case of cholera in Arkansas in a long, long time.
8 am class. It's normally at 9 am.
I forgot I had temporarily parked my car in a reserved spot. It was towed. My dad's coming down tomorrow to help me get it out, and he's not going to be happy. Unhappy Dad = not good. So tomorrow will be worse.