Residency

This marks day 2 of my orientation to residency. I'm really looking forward to the entire process, and in perhaps a sick way, being beat up, drained, exhuasted and thoroughly marred by the entire process. I'm certain this comes from knowing that at the end of it, I'll have grown tremendously, and while the process is painful, I do like knowing myself deeper than ever thought possible (and the ability to do so with others).

I also got called a professional today by one of my peers - and I don't mean by another resident (although technically we are). Rather, this comment came from who a consider an outstanding staff chaplain who I've worked with closely for a bit now and highly value that chaplain's opinion. The comment's timing was particularly nice, as it was made in response to wanting some feedback inregards to the a situation I am now in: the extreme short version being, taking up arms for S. against her would-be, family assassins. While I would have loved to simply reply (as per S's suggestion) with "fucking ridiculous" I did have to admit that not much good would come of it and needed to formulate a better approach.

Tommorrow morning we'll see the results.

Miscarriages suck

Even if they are technically early. Been up for hours now and I wish I could go to sleep. Bleh.

Verbatim

I'm suppose to write up last Thursday as a verbatim - which for those less inclined to know all the ins and outs of CPE life, its basically a written transcript of who said what, where they were, what they did, etc. from the start of an interaction with a pt to the very end of the encounter. Names are changed of course to keep things anon. (expect for the chaplain of course) and everything that you can remember is to be put down so others can read it, learn from it, and if one is lucky enough, torn to pieces over (in a good way). I really shouldnt put it off much longer, other wise I'm sure I'll miss a few key exchanges, but I doubt it. I think the meat of this encounter is not as much as what the pt said word for word, but what should have (and was) done.

I still think we ought to be allowed to carry K-bars. I would have found a nice place to stick it a few days ago. Hell, I wouldn't even have to actually use it. Just calmly walk up, pull it from its leather sheath and say "I know 57 ways to kill you with this the way you are standing."

I see dead people

They're everywhere, but I'm pretty sure they know they're dead.

After popping my head into a random room - well not really that random, one of those, check out the census, note a few things and go, "huh, that's weird" - a had been speaking with a pt for a bit and she asked "So do you see dead bodies a lot?"

"Yeah, all the time."

(shudder) "I dont think I could deal with that. Do you get nightmares?"

(laugh)"No, not yet at least"

I then proceed to tell her about my first deadbody that died on me while I was just a couple feet away. This then gets her to open the door a bit (a door I didn't even know was there, let alone close) and let me in. As much as I love just chit chatting about all sorts of things, it's nice to have a real talk. Although I suppose in this case, the chitchat was needed for what we professionals (I've been dying to say that) call "establishing rapport".

Same pt, different subject, it was really nice to have a pt that didn't care about language issues. Not to say that they were cursing like a drunken sailor, but it is a little funny when people start talking and say something like "Yeah and then I have to deal with all this shi--...errr stuff" Not her. Just the uncensored shit,crap,fuck, etc on occasion. I don't need the front. I don't care about any "bad" words. I won't be offended. And of course, I like seeing the real person - it makes getting where we may need to go a lot easier.