A Day at the Clinic
Today I shadowed one of my professors at one of the satellite cancer centers run by the University of Wisconsin.
...What a day.
I won't go over it in too much detail. I met 5 or 6 patients. The most striking patient was an old man, with bone mets in his spine and hips, who gave us all candy. Oh and he was legally blind. I have the lifesaver sitting by me now. The therapists are really amazing, and strong people. They have the same no-nonse attitude of many nurses, but coupled with a strong caring about their patients. Radiation therapy is really, really scary, and they are the human face that patients see every day for the 2-6 weeks of their therapy.
The scariest part was the first time I watched as they turned on the beam with a patient in there. I wanted to scream "STOP THAT'S A HUMAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING??" But before you know it, the 1.6Gy has been delivered and the therapists move on, treating about one patient every 15 minutes.
The most striking case I saw was just a case, the patient was at another center, and his case was presented during peer review. Let's just say the words "penile cancer" and "fungus" plus "eaten away his penis" were a rude awakening at 8:20am.
Overall the day did me some good though. I realized my uncertainty about working in a clinic comes from 2 positions on the issue. 1) Radiation Therapy is boring. 2) A clinic is a really, really nice environment to work in for what I want to do.
So, this helps a lot. I'd like to find some place to run or administer or work clinically with PET. I don't want to be an academic. I don't want to do a lot of research.
We're narrowing things down! So here's 3 cheers to my professor, for helping me out and letting me follow her.
(On another note, WTF, I come back and have 12-work-related emails, after nobody's said more than TWO WORDS to me in the rest of this week.)
...What a day.
I won't go over it in too much detail. I met 5 or 6 patients. The most striking patient was an old man, with bone mets in his spine and hips, who gave us all candy. Oh and he was legally blind. I have the lifesaver sitting by me now. The therapists are really amazing, and strong people. They have the same no-nonse attitude of many nurses, but coupled with a strong caring about their patients. Radiation therapy is really, really scary, and they are the human face that patients see every day for the 2-6 weeks of their therapy.
The scariest part was the first time I watched as they turned on the beam with a patient in there. I wanted to scream "STOP THAT'S A HUMAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING??" But before you know it, the 1.6Gy has been delivered and the therapists move on, treating about one patient every 15 minutes.
The most striking case I saw was just a case, the patient was at another center, and his case was presented during peer review. Let's just say the words "penile cancer" and "fungus" plus "eaten away his penis" were a rude awakening at 8:20am.
Overall the day did me some good though. I realized my uncertainty about working in a clinic comes from 2 positions on the issue. 1) Radiation Therapy is boring. 2) A clinic is a really, really nice environment to work in for what I want to do.
So, this helps a lot. I'd like to find some place to run or administer or work clinically with PET. I don't want to be an academic. I don't want to do a lot of research.
We're narrowing things down! So here's 3 cheers to my professor, for helping me out and letting me follow her.
(On another note, WTF, I come back and have 12-work-related emails, after nobody's said more than TWO WORDS to me in the rest of this week.)