Week 10: "Well, you don't place tracheotomy tubes, now do you?"......how rude! Get over YOUR fear of the penis Sir.

This week seemed incredibly long. This was mostly due to my numerous little naps in between. I am really able to fall asleep almost anywhere and sometimes I'm refreshed after just sleeping a few minutes.

Monday through Friday I got up at 4:30am, studied for the USLME until 6:10am, slept until 6:30am and went to work. Consequently, I went to bed around 9:30pm to at least get 7 hours of continuous sleep. Studying and answering questions in the morning significantly increased the amount I was getting right. It's still not where I want it in the end but I still have until the end of March to get there. I looked through the questions and worked on flash cards after work.

I attended a lecture Monday night held by Prof. Dr. Harald Lesch. He is a German physicist, astronomer, natural philosopher, author, television presenter, professor of physics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and professor of natural philosophy at the Munich University of Philosophy. He held a lecture about the smallest and the largest components of the universe and how they fit together. It was really interesting and refreshing to learn something different and new!

Wednesday, I was called into the OR to assist with a hydrocele operation. The patients ascites (excess water in the abdomen) was so extensive that it had reopened the processus vaginalis (connection between abdomen and scrotal sac) that usually closes in early development. Basically, he had excessive amounts of fluid in his scrotal sack....and since there was a lot of pressure from the fluid in his abdomen, it was like turning on the water faucet once we opened the membrane in the scrotal sack.

Cucumber, Apple, Basil, Lime Juice for the OR

Wednesday was a long day. The day involved ward work, operation, pathological conference lecture, evening meeting which was then still followed by a short educational lecture by one of the attendings. Luckily I had my back turned towards everyone to face the screen.....because I totally fell asleep for a minute or so....good thing I didn't snore. I was just so tired!

Friday looked like a busy day from the get go. One of the three interns wasn't there and the other didn't show up. We had two huge operations and two wards that needed to be tended to by interns.....and there I stood! My ward doctor was afraid I wouldn't be around to draw all the blood and his fear came true. Directly after the morning meeting I was sent into the OR immediately. I grabbed a coca cola and a biscuit and hurried off to the OR. I usually don't drink Coke, I did while in Ghana because coffee or tea wasn't very accessible and I needed caffeine. Now I do sometimes when a big operation gets sprung on me unexpectedly and I wasn't able to have breakfast yet. Caffeine and sugar to keep me from passing out while standing for 5 hours. Luckily the other intern had just overslept and was able to assist in the other huge operation.

Sometimes I just have to...

I was operating with the chief and he is tall. Although it was a 5 hour operation, my back didn't hurt nearly as much as it does when I operate with shorter surgeons. It was really nice operating with chief because he kept asking me questions. Sometimes anatomical, sometimes surgical or just logical to get me to think like a surgeon. He is an examiner for the board exams so it felt like a mini board exam.

Saturday I decided to tag along for an 24 hour on call. We started Saturday morning at 8am and I went home this morning at 8:30am. I slept for 2 hours and then again for 3. During the day we had quite a bit to do. The wards had to be tended to, the emergency room would call every now and again and we'd go there to check out the patients. We had some postoperative patients that weren't very stable and had to be transferred to intensive care. I hardly sat throughout the day.

We were called by the ENT-ward because they had a patient that hadn't peed in a day and a half. We asked them if they had placed a trans-urethral catheter. The doctor retorted that we (urologists) didn't place tracheotomy tubes so why should they place a trans-urethral catheter......Um....because every nurse should know how to!!! The genital area seems to be a big Tabu for many of the other departments and some doctors don't even take the time to look at the patient when it comes to urogenital tract problems and proceed to just call the urologist on call. Get over it people! Look under the blanket! Its only a penis!
 

Middle of the night, glazy eyes.

Late evening we were informed that a patient was being brought to the hospital with horrific labs. The patient was placed on acute dialysis when they arrived and desperately needed the kidneys drained. We couldn't do that until the acute dialysis was over though....which was around 1:30am. The doctor and I slept for two hours before being called to the CT to check out the patient's pictures and get the attending and nursing staff on call to come to the hospital and coordinate the anesthesiologists for the procedure. We were back in bed by 4am and slept uninterrupted until 7am. It was a long on call but also really interesting and the doctor and I get along great so that was nice too.

Outta there and walking home in the snow!

I get three days off in the week for being on call over the weekend. I am taking Wednesday-Friday off. Thursday I turn a quarter century old...  (0_0) ...... I'm heading to Heidelberg for the Semi-Live Urology Conference during my free days.

Hope everyone had a lovely week! Stay healthy!

Baci

V

Week 9: Study, work, little sleep, repeat.

To sum up my last week: work, study, little sleep, drinks, science, boots.

I can't really keep my days straight. Nothing extraordinarily exciting happened patient wise. I spent my evenings studying and when I was fed up that the results were not that great after a 10 hour work day, I went to bed at 10 pm and got up at 4 am on Thursday to study before going to work. 

Tuesday was such a lovely day outside! There was real, full on sun! We didn't have any coffee pads left on the ward for our coffee machine in the doctors office and I had all my immediate tasks completed, so I told the doctors I would be more than happy to walk to the nearby grocery store and buy some. Thank you coffee addiction! The doctors gave me some cash and I was able to enjoy a few minutes in the full on sun! In a t-shirt! The other pedestrians looked at me a bit weird but that temperature and weather is great weather for Wisconsin standards. 

Saturday wasn't much different for the first half. Library from 8am till 3pm. Afterwards, I met a friend for coffee and then attended the Night of Knowledge. This night takes place in many big german cities and it was the second year in my city. The while city is involved. My main visitation sites where the hospital (go figure) and the northern campus (chemistry, physics, astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research). The urology department and a few others had a stand with two models of the DaVinci robot for interested future surgeons and video game enthusiasts alike. The bulk of my time was spent on the north campus though.

I heard a lecture from Jens Frahm (important in the development of the MRI) about the newest developments in MRI technology. He showed us some cool videos of real time images. I've had a real time MRI done of my heart (I really need to get those images). Afterwards, I listened to a lecture about astronomy in South Africa. I really love astronomy and could listen to lectures about the topic all day. My aunt and uncle met up with me and went back to the hospital. I helped the visitors use the DaVinci. Although it wasn't planed that I even help out, I stayed until 12:45am taking everything apart.

This morning (Sunday), my friend and I left early in the morning to drive to Düsseldorf. After a quick stop at Starbucks (something we don't have in our small town, so every time we are in a larger town we tend to make a stop), we went to a restaurant called Mongo's. It's a Mongolian restaurant where you can put together your own dishes. We ended up eating for three hours. It was so delicious! And since it was mostly vegetables and fruit, I was full but not the completely uncomfortable full you feel after carb binge eating. 

We then headed to our actual reason for being in Düsselfdorf. The boot exhibition. It's a HUGE exhibition that deals with anything body of water related. We spent our time in the scuba divining and yacht exhibition halls. Thought I'd take the biggest yacht (7,000,000€) home with me.... 

Tomorrow it's up and early again......so it continues......

P.S. Recipe: I am always tying new ways to use what is available on the ward to make something delicious. Especially when it's cold outside, I like to make a cup of hot lemon with honey. So this recipe is no rocket science:

Lemon juice (quantity depending on level of preferred tartness)

Honey (quantity dependent on level of preferred sweetness)

Hot water

So simple and yet so very delicious!

Week 8: Tulips, Talkative patients, Test preparation & Thai massages

boring

[bawr-ing, bohr-] 

adjective

1. causing or marked by boredom
Origin: 1835-45

Boring is not an adjective I would use to describe the first full week back at work.

Monday started the week off with a bang. I was in the hospital until almost 6pm. The day started out with only half of the ward filled with patients and then BAM....the whole ward full from one minute to the next. We also had an oddly over proportionate amount of female patients. Three of them consumed quite a bit of my time which consequently lead to me being in the hospital so long.

Up dark and early....love a good full moon

The first, (understandably frustrated with her progression and constant fall backs in therapy) started to cry while we three doctors were leaving the room. The men left, I stayed, held her hand and comforted her until she had stopped crying.

The second, I merely wanted to take a brief history and fill out the admissions form. In extremely quick twist and turns, the patient brought the topic of conversation to geology, the definition of one's mother language, bilingualism and how she sees the world. There was no stopping it! I tried to redirect the conversation back to the topic at hand thrice....she didn't seem to get the point or at least just didn't care. I was saved by one of the doctors who had to get her informed consent for a procedure. I should note that the male nurse student was in the room before me to fill out the nurses admission form (a normally quick thing) and I waited about 15 minutes for him to be done.

The third was a charm, she's known to the department. A dependent personality. The first time in the room, I had to place a line and she explained her whole medical history to me. She told me others usually have problems placing lines but that she liked my calm and friendly aura and believed that I would be successful. I placed it on the first try. This promoted me to her new personal favorite status. Uh-oh.  That was in the morning. A few minuted before I was ready to pack and leave for the day, the nurse informed me that the patient needed a new line placed since the one from that morning gave up. Greeeeeeeeeat. I spent the next half an hour trying to place a line. I was actively doing something those 30 minutes (had to poke her 4 times before it worked) and she used that time and told me her whole personal history. I couldn't have escaped that even if I wanted to. The line needed to be placed.

By the end of that I was drained. The others had gone to the afternoon meeting without letting me know (they thought I had already left). When I caught up, they were all shocked to see I was still there.  I left the hospital and bought myself tulips as a reward for the day.

We have a new resident and a new intern in the department. The resident was also on my ward. This allowed me to work on some other things during the week. I translated a release letter into English for one doctor, proof read an English paper for another doctor and was able to help the doctor doing admissions with those.

I was treated to a Thai massage on Wednesday!

Best Moment : I was visited by Pat. X this week. He had his follow up meeting with the general surgeon and he is tumor free! I was so happy to hear that. We talked for a bit before I was asked by one of the doctors to do something else. (It was a task on the ward I wasn't really responsible for so it kind of irked me that the task wasn't given to the responsible intern and rather to me just because I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I obviously didn't say that and completed the task.)

Made it out of the hospital in time for the sunset. Score!

Friday, the other intern didn't come at all! I was in a really bad mood already (I'll explain below) and planned on getting my work done and leaving as early as possible to go to the library. Now I was hopping from one ward to the next. Its extremely annoying when a doctor doesn't have a clear plan for the day and rather just throws tasks your way that easily could have been collected at the beginning of the day. I didn't sit down once until lunch. I also didn't leave the ward for the library until 4:30pm.

Wanting to draw blood, can't find clean equipment & then find this in the closet. Not ok. Guess who cleaned up.

Worst moment: I was in such a bad mood because the night before, I had worked on two blocks of questions for the USMLE and it was the worst result I've had yet! I had been steadily increasing my score over the last few weeks so this turn really shocked and upset me. This USMLE business is tough. Its not fun. It consumes almost every free minute I have. Not to mention the constant pressure I feel regardless of what I'm doing. I would much rather spend my nights after work and my weekends doing something else or relaxing but instead I'm spending hours with the USMLE prep. Someone once asked me if I was doing the USMLE on the side....I had the urge to punch him. I'm schduled to take the exam March 30th. So until then, I will still constantly feel pressure, continue to lose hair, continue to have stomach aches, continue to have psoriasis outbreaks  and continue to spend the largest amount of my free time with this stuff.

I spent most of Saturday in the library and have to work on doctor thesis stuff today (my doctor thesis professor sent me an email requesting I put together a presentation of results....perfect timing.......)

I wish you all a lovely Sunday and hope its much more relaxing than mine :)

Stay healthy!

V


P.S. Recipe: I very often make myself a smoothie in the morning to take to work. The first few weeks I drank a lot of kale smoothies (since it was the beginning kale season) but have now switched to pure fruit smoothies for a while. So delicious and fairly quick to make. Especially with the NutriBullet I have. This week:

Lemon didn't make the cut for the picture.

1 Banana
3 fresh squeezed oranges
1/2 fresh squeezed lemon
1 chunk of papaya

Yum!

Doesn't get much shorter than this....week 7

I really don't have much to say. I went to work on Monday and the doctors from the New Years Rotation were shocked to see me there. One of the doctors wanted to send me home almost immediately. Since I was already there and had gotten up at 6 a.m., I stayed.

The day was a busy one. I was sent from one task to another, one blood draw after another (some patients twice), one phone call after another.....

The doctors had all agreed to get the work that had to be done, done in a timely fashion. This meant that I was out of the hospital around 2 and was told not to show up for the rest of the week. (I would have came Tuesday and Friday but I'm also not going to beg them for that....I can handle a few days off of work. Gives me the opportunity to study.)

New Years was rather relaxed. I had dinner and watched a movie with two friends and watched the fireworks at midnight being lit on the streets.

I also booked my first vacation in the mean time. Stay tuned to find out where it is I am heading in February for 9 days.

When my dad heard I had booked my vacation, he insinuated that interns now a days have a much more relaxed life style.

I won't argue with him that getting paid nowadays is a fabulous improvement opposed to back then. I also really can't complain about my work environment which might allow me to leave work earlier (I usually end up staying anyways). However, I still work a 40+ week for minimal pay (its pitiful when calculated on the hour). Also, its really all about optimizing the time and money you do have. I don't fly direct because layovers are cheaper and I spend a lot of time looking for the right flight that incorporates weekends or holidays so I don't lose vacation days.

Over the many years of looking for and booking flights (in the meantime not just my own but have become somewhat of a personal travel agent for family members) I've developed my system of finding just the right flight.

I'll be working the weekend shift before I leave which gives me Monday-Wednesday off.....3 less vacation days used!

I hope everyone had a good holiday season and had fun over New Years. Now its back to the real world tomorrow!

Stay healthy!

V

Week 6: Short but sweet (like all those cookies and yummy treats you've been eating)

First, let me wish you all a Happy Christmas (as the Queen of England would say) and/or Happy Holidays! I hope you are spending some quality time with loved ones and if you can't be home with your family (as I wasn't home in Wisconsin this year) I hope you used today's technology of Skype or Facetime to stay in touch.

I wish you all.....a Heppe Christmas

I showed up for work on Monday and Tuesday. Other interns decided not to but I didn't want to risk my vacation days being used for days I could easily be working. I think my colleagues were quiet happy that I showed up.

Monday morning, still during rounds, the chief attending told me I'd be assisting in his operations that day. This was after we had almost seen all of the patients and about everyone of them had labs ordered. The ward doctors had hoped I'd be around to draw all the blood for them, when the announcement came that I'd be in the OR, even before the morning meeting started, the realization dawned on them....and their facial reaction was a little bit priceless.

We had two operation to perform. The first was a smaller one that was finished relatively quickly. The patient had a hydrocele. A sack filled with fluid in the scrotum essentially. This patient had decided to walk around with it for years and thought three days before Christmas would be a fabulous time to have it operated.......

Great Idea sir......

After the fairly quick first operation came the second, somewhat lengthier one. The patient had had his bladder removed at the beginning of the year and was back to have a incisional hernia repaired. The chief attending and I were joined by the general surgeon that I helped operate Pat. X with. Since hernias aren't part of the field of urology but the patient's incision was due to an urological problem, the departments worked together. Additionally, the surgeons are friends and don't find much time outside of work to see each other so they use operations needing both specialties as opportunities.  The chief attending and I were also interested in how hernias are being treated currently. Basically, a big sheet of material was inserted and sewn onto the abdominal inner wall.

After the operations, I returned to the ward for lunch and finishing up whatever needed to be done.

Monday night, I attended a basketball game with some of my girlfriends.

Tuesday, I was called back into the OR. This time however after rounds, morning meeting and blood drawing. This was the first time operating with this particular attending. We removed a testicle due to testicular cancer. The patient had noticed a swelling only two weeks earlier.

Public Health Announcement: Men, check your balls. Seriously, know what your testicles feel like and notice when something changes. It can go faster than you think. I have many guy friends, your guyss hands are in your pants 95% of the time anyways. Optimize that time ;)

I was allowed to leave after the operation was done in order to catch the train to Hamburg, where I spent the holidays with extended family.

My adorable little godchild

Hamburg Rathaus

In this time, I found a TV show to watch while babysitting my godchild. Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey. I fell in LOVE! I've always been fascinated with astronomy and even took a class back at UW-Madison. This show is beyond fantastic! The information, the graphics, the facts and the way it is hosted by Neil Degrasse Tyson is just great. I read up a bit and found that it is a sequel to a 13 show series done by Carl Sagan. After I'm done with this series, I'll look at the older ones and see how far we've come. The show has resparked my inner super nerd. I would love to return to college after med school and take more classes in Astronomy, Biology and so much more. The world we live in, the present time, and we ourselves are so insignificant in comparison to the time of the universe. At the same time, this show portraits the stories of people who were so vital to our time and how the smallest of coincidences lead to where we are today. If you want your mind blown.....watch this show!

I'm in LOVE. I'm also a HUGE nerd.

Its back to work tomorrow and Tuesday. We have off Wednesday and Thursday, which I will hopefully spend in the lab and library. New Years Eve will be a quiet one (as of now) with a good friend.

I wish you all a great new year of life, filled with happiness, success and most importantly health! I hope that our civilization calms down with all the havoc going on in the world and focuses on the good and comes together instead of driving itself apart. Happy New Year!

V

Week 5: Vasovasostomies, tumor removals and Mozart!

I have a hard time keeping days straight during the week. Multiple times a week, I don't know what day it is. I usually know what number of day it is because I document the date so often....but the day of the week? Always lost. Monday night, while sitting at my desk at home, I suddenly yelled outraged that I had forgotten to attend the intern lecture that afternoon which takes place every Tuesday!.....I was about to grab my phone and text the other intern that we had forgotten the lecture when I realized that it was only Monday. If it wasn't for Throw Back Thursday on my Instagram feed, I wouldn't know it was Thursday. I'm not the only one with this problem and so we colleagues often confuse each other even more.

I had a visitor on the ward on Monday. The patient (from here on out referred to as Pat. X) with the tumor from last week, came to say hello and introduce me to his wife. He informed me that we was being operated the next day. It was important for him to come tell me personally because he wasn't sure if the other department was staying in touch with me. I told him I would talk to the surgeon and see if I could assist.

This I did and was granted permission by my ward doctor and the surgeon to assist in the surgery. The whole thing took about 4 hours and went really well. We were able to removed the tumor in basically one big piece.....weighing in at 3kg (6.6lbs). It was a rather impressive mass. It still amazes me that the patient had no other symptoms but the varicocele.
 
Thursday, during the morning meeting, the senior consultant summoned me into the OR. I had no idea what operation I'd be helping with. My back has been hurting the past week and I already thought I might have to help with a fairly long operation that day. Luckily for me, I was assisting the senior consultant with a vasovasostomy! The operation reverses the result of a vasectomy, in the hopes of re-fertilizing the patient if he decides, for instance, to have kids again. The operation is done in part through microsurgery which requires sitting! Score! It was a 5 hour operation but it was all spent sitting. I helped cut, hold, coagulate, find, position and in the end sew throughout the operation.

Dear men, please think about what it is you are doing when you get a vasectomy because the work that goes into reversing it is a lot of fiddly work for the surgeon. The surgeon told me I better find a guy that hasn't had a vasectomy. Will do sir.

Lemon juice + honey + hot water = deliciousness and cold fighting power!

I felt bad leaving my ward doctors by themselves while I was in the OR. Who would be around to make sure the guys ate breakfast and make them lemon and honey tea because they started to get a cold. I've definitely taken on a motherly role with some of the guys. They haven't been doctors long and get caught up in all the stress and forget to look after themselves. I do it because I care, not because its expected (just thought I'd point that out for anyone starting their internship soon and thinking they will have to do all sorts of non-medically things and become personal slaves).

Some days get so busy, I just grab lunch for everyone and we eat on the ward.

I stopped by the ICU on Thursday to visit Pat. X. He was awake and happy to see me. He himself was amazed at how well he is doing. This guys spirit is so great. More patients need to have his attitude. He intends to stay in touch with me, even after he is out of the hospital.

Thursday night, I met up with 4 of the guys for some spiced hot wine at the Christmas market and afterwards a drink in the Irish pub. Live music was being played and we all sang along with the chorus of one of the songs at the end of our night (about the same time that all the students were starting theirs). The next day one of the guys sounded 10 years older due to his rough voice (he obviously does not sing along loudly to music in his apartment...)

Hennessey & Ginger Ale

Friday was a rather slow day. The other intern and I spent some time doing ultrasounds on each other. We figured it would be super easy to find and evaluate our kidneys since we are young and slim. We thought wrong. We actually had a really tough time. One of the doctors even came and helped us. Luckily he informed us that it usually is hard finding the kidneys in young, slim women. Thankfully it's a lot easier with our patients!

Hello Kidney

Best Moment: The continuous positive progression of Pat. X and his treatment.

Worst Moment: Nothing bad happened. I wasn't in the best of moods at times. Mainly I think because Christmas is getting closer and usually I'd be on my way home to Wisconsin around this time. Sadly not this year.

Off Topic: My uncle and I surprised my grandma this weekend with her Christmas Present. A trip to Hamburg for dinner at Opera Ristorante followed by Mozart's The Magic Flute in the Hamburg Opera. It was a great night and a lovely show! I can recommend it greatly for anyone interested in opera.

 

Music: I downloaded the new J. Cole album "2014 Forest Hills Drive" and love it! In general, I like all of J. Cole's music. This album has a different vibe than his last one but great nonetheless! For any R&B/Rap/HipHop fans out there ;)

This coming week is a short work week for me. I'm only in the hospital Monday and Tuesday before heading to Hamburg to spend Christmas with my extended family.

I wish you all a very happy 4th Advent!

Stay healthy!

Week 4: Blood wurst, Basketball player, and bewildering patients.

This past week was a wee bit stressful.

Besides the normal work that needed to be done, we had to teach students almost everyday. This entailed about a group of 30 people showing up on the ward. I had to get them all situated and was running around like a chicken with its head cut off some of the time. I also had my catheter class everyday expect Wednesday. That meant staying at the hospital until 6 pm on those days. To top it all off, there were multiple instances were patients/relatives got on my last nerve.

It seemed like I lived in the hospital the whole week so I am having a tough time even trying to remember what happened on which day.

On some days it seemed like anything walking was getting a needle poked into their body by me. The patients even joked I was making blood wurst and that was surely why I was drawing so much blood. My ultrasound game was up too. I started to recognize the patients by their kidney ultra sounds.

If you have veins...I am drawing your blood. Beware.

I had another patient on the ward who didn't mind at all when I was there to do an ultrasound.....really didn't mind, if you get my drift. He asked about my life and what part of school I was in and complemented my personality. All very kind but it got a tad bit awkward when his wife came into the room to come visit him and he said comments which seemed to incriminate us of something we weren't even doing. "Oh see, my wife always catches us talking Miss Hasselhof!" (as wife walks in)......well yea, of course I was talking to you,.....you asked me a question about your further treatment....wasn't about to spell it out for you in interpretive dance.

Yes sir, you may leave tomorrow unless some foreseen distress arises!

Tuesday, I went and donated blood (or at least attempted) and dragged a colleague along. My hemoglobin level was too low. My colleague didn't hesitate to blame my vegetarianism as the culprit. The nurse basically egged him on though when she suggested I eat more meat....not knowing I don't. My colleague could hardly contain himself. Yea, yea.......

A little success story. The other intern was having a bit of trouble drawing blood from a few patients on her ward. I offered to help but also failed with one patient. The other patient was one of a 60 kg/m2 BMI. After two failed attempts, I was not about to give up. I had to make this work.....and I did! Little superficial vein on the side of the arm was the winner.

Wednesday night, we gathered on the Christmas market again before heading to good ole Thanners (the bar filled with med students every Wednesday). It was another fun outing.

Thursday, the Göttinger Eltern kardiologischer Kinder Organisation (GEKKO) (Göttinger Parents of cardiology children) had their annual Christmas event. I was able to get Jamal Boykin, from the local pro basketball team, to come and say hi to the kids and sign some autographs.

Thank you Jamal Boykin for coming over to say hi!

Friday was stressful. The day started bad when we were in need of beds for patients and our ward had 4 rooms occupied by patients paying for a single room (usually it is two per room). Now, everyone might have their own personal view on this topic and so do I. I hope I don't offend anyone with my view but it is how I feel. I work in a hospital. Not a luxury hotel. Yes, this is Germany and we have one of the best systems in the world and everyone is used to high standards.....but again.....I do not work in a hotel. Our main priority is to take care of patients. I also realize a hospital needs to work economically but then things need to be restructured if there is so much emphasis on patients getting their own room for a few extra bucks rather than caring for the patients who need our help. If we are not in need of beds and a patient wants to pay more for a single room.....be my guest at Hasselhof Hospital Hotel. If we need beds because we already tried finding beds to put our urological patients  in on other wards (with less specifically trained staff ) before putting them in "your" room then hotel very quickly turns into hospital so that everyone can be taken care of.  The people responsible for arranging beds for patients were going half insane because we didn't have enough beds. (People against my view might argue that it is the hospitals problem and not theirs if there aren't enough beds.....well then I hope you experience wanting to come to the hospital because you are sick and not getting a bed because other people with your selfish mindset won't give up "their" room).
So back to the ward. We needed beds and none of the patients were willing to share "their" room....not even after being asked a third time and told how we had tried to arrange something else but it simply wasn't possible.......how in the world were they not feeling the slightest bit guilty?! And to use the excuse that it's your last night and you would like to be undisturbed....the nerve! Exactly, it is your LAST night....so you can sleep at home tomorrow if the patient we decide to put next to you is a horrifically loud snoring, foul smelling beast of a human being......(all of which we are doing to intentionally pick on you, by the way)

Then, relatives accused us of not doing our job in contacting them after a patient's operation although we had tried several times with the number they left us. The relatives walked in the room all ready to complain about how unbelievable it is that we wouldn't call them. Even after explaining that we had tried to call several times and that in the end, perhaps it was the technology that failed.....nope, they persisted that we had failed and that technology couldn't be the culprit. You are right Ma'am...we are evil, so we decided not to call.

All that had me feeling an inner rage. Then the topic of drawing blood started again and the patient I had successfully drawn blood from now needed a new lab work up. I volunteered to draw the blood thinking it would take me away from the stress for a few minutes. Oh naive, sweet naive little Viktoria.  The patient complained left and right about drawing his blood. He went on about how all other doctors didn't have problems drawing his blood (I refrained from enlightening him that I was the only one that had been able to draw blood from him while in the hospital). He continued with telling me drawing from the back of the hand was so painful while I merely inspected his hand as a possible location. I replied that I was fully aware of this fact and that was precisely why I was spending so much time looking for a suitable vein else where but that his veins weren't exactly jumping out at me and that he was more than welcome to show me where these "great blood drawing" veins of his were located. (I remind you of the 60 BMI) He only took a glance at his arms and then refrained from making suggestions. There were multiple more comments that I had to suppress a reply to. In the end, I had all the blood I needed from one try.

My ward resident was in the OR for the second half of the day and I was alone on my ward. At about 2PM I realized that 30 students would be arriving in 15 minutes for class on the ward and my doctor was still AWOL. I took matters into my own hands and organised three patients to participate in the teaching and gathered all the necessary material. I coordinated the same procedure for the other ward as well. In a bit of a frenzy and more headless chicken runs, I had all 30 students distributed amongst the patients with the necessary documents and appointed doctors and rooms for the discussion that followed the patient interviews. I inhaled the lunch the other intern had kindly brought back for me. My ward resident strolled onto the ward about half an hour into it all and was glad to see that I had it all under control. While the students discussed with the doctors, I took a yogurt and hid in the admissions room for 5 minutes of peace.

Friday night, the department had their holiday dinner and I met up afterwards for some wine and some good laughs. A good way to end the week.

Best Moment: A few:
1. My patient from last week with the tumor called to give me an update because he wasn't sure the other department was communicating with me. I'm going to try to be at the operation.
2. I now have a pager! The doctors say I'll regret having one but I'm excited.

Next level!

3. Another colleague brought me chocolate! Yes!

Keep the chocolate coming please!

Worst Moment: Well the Friday work day kind of sums that one up.

Here's to a better week starting tomorrow!

Stay healthy!

V