Feeling like a clown punching bag....
You know those punching bags that have sand in the bottom, the ones you hit and they kind of sway all over the place? That's kind of how I have felt at my last few births.....the big challenge from now until next april is LEARN HOW TO MANAGE CARE - sounds easy enough, but there's a lot to learn.....I am learning how to run a birth - keep up with paperwork, monitoring the woman, the baby, the progress of labour, and everything in between - not only do I have to learn how to do this, but I have to learn how to do it well....the thought that two lives are in my hands is a little overwhelming at times - if other people make mistakes at work, its usually no big deal....if I make a mistake two people could die.....
And so, as I try to get this all nailed down, I end up feeling like I'm tripping over myself the whole time - as my preceptor asks me if I've done A and I realize I haven't, she asks if I've done B (which I haven't done either) or C (again, not done) - WHAM, WHAM, WHAM - the punching bag ends up jostling in every direction.....
the good thing though, is that I, like the punching bag, am still standing when its all over. My preceptor is a good teacher who, when I'm standing around at the end of a birth looking stunned, laughs at me and tells me not to worry, that I'm a good student and I'll get it all eventually.....much better than being berrated for my inadequacies as are some of my classmates
But it is tricky - beyond the birth stuff, I also have to sort out all the prenatal stuff and the postpartum stuff - keeping a running tally in my head about who needs what test when, what the results were and what needs to be done about it - for 40-60 women....I've taken to writing everything down - my brain is full of clinical stuff, there's no room to remember anything else - I carry my second brain in a notebook in my bag....
Happily, I still love my job and consider myself lucky to be here....just the other day I read a birth announcement in the paper:
"Baby William would especially like to thank Rhea for a great catch" - too cute!
And so, as I try to get this all nailed down, I end up feeling like I'm tripping over myself the whole time - as my preceptor asks me if I've done A and I realize I haven't, she asks if I've done B (which I haven't done either) or C (again, not done) - WHAM, WHAM, WHAM - the punching bag ends up jostling in every direction.....
the good thing though, is that I, like the punching bag, am still standing when its all over. My preceptor is a good teacher who, when I'm standing around at the end of a birth looking stunned, laughs at me and tells me not to worry, that I'm a good student and I'll get it all eventually.....much better than being berrated for my inadequacies as are some of my classmates
But it is tricky - beyond the birth stuff, I also have to sort out all the prenatal stuff and the postpartum stuff - keeping a running tally in my head about who needs what test when, what the results were and what needs to be done about it - for 40-60 women....I've taken to writing everything down - my brain is full of clinical stuff, there's no room to remember anything else - I carry my second brain in a notebook in my bag....
Happily, I still love my job and consider myself lucky to be here....just the other day I read a birth announcement in the paper:
"Baby William would especially like to thank Rhea for a great catch" - too cute!