internship, 2

this week has been a combination of good and bad days.
the bad days were really awful. so much so i wanted to come home and cry.

for example: no lunch, endless discharges and new patients, have to do blood cultures on a renal failure patient with practically no veins to be seen/felt due to massive odema, having hypoglycaemic symptoms (meaning hands shaking v badly) whilst trying to do said blood culture, only to have blood clot when i finally draw enough blood to put into tubes, and spending next 1.5 hours trying to find more veins on the poor old guy to poke and then attempting an arterial puncture only to fail miserably. NOT A GOOD DAY. :(

but yesterday was awesome comparatively- nothing to do! i even had time to take a nap and go to the staff sale on the top floor and buy oodles of cheap yummy chocolates from one of my favourite brands! lovely. even had time to drop by and say hullo to some of my favourite patients (dear me, i'm so biased) in other wards. LOVELY :D

but this student internship is good, and i'm learning lots. i can do a preround by myself now, i can do discharge summaries relatively quickly, i can refer patients and call for help (only thing is, i can't use the phone so usually i grab someone and beg for help with calling)

i know that i'm probably not getting the "full" experience, some of my friends are so super busy they leave at 930 pm, but i can't complain, it's the luck of the draw where you get posted to. at least my neuro exam has improved by leaps and bounds and i can roughly gauge power and reflexes now. so i'll be grateful for what i get! :)

i'm learning, slowly. i won't exactly survive as a REAL intern yet, but i'm getting there, i hope!

this only makes me want to study harder so i can pass my finals and get to work. somedays, i love my job! (on others, i just want to hurl blood and faint). i remember on monday, after i spoke to 2 of my favourite happifying patients and told them they could go home, their faces lit up instantly, and i was thinking: oh God, i really love this job! (this was all offset by the amazingly horrendous blood culture the next day)

but more and more, i realise that as much as i sometimes think i'm in the wrong profession (i should have been a nurse!), i think i'll survive :) we're stronger than we think we are!