New Month, New Team

Now that it's a brand new month, the interns and FP residents move on to other rotations. We lost Dr. G to ER, Dr. K to clinic, and Dr. B to medicine (I think). In their place, we gained one 1st year FP intern, Dr. BP. This is probably her first time doing OB since her third year in med school, so Dr. C immediately took her under her wing to teach her how to deliver babies, write notes, etc. In the process, she also taught Anita and me a few things to improve on our note writing. Hopefully that means we'll get more teaching time with Dr. C and maybe learn to do sutures (Marcus and Blakely have already done those).

Because the Green team (me and Anita) was working L&D today, we had to write postpartum notes for the Blue Team (who starts their night shift tomorrow), so Anita and I were told to get to the hospital by 5:30 a.m. That was early. We lost track of how many notes we wrote, but in the end, poor Dr. D had to see all 12 patients on her own since there were no other doctors to help her (Dr. BP is still learning and Dr. C was still in L&D). To thank Anita and me for our work, Dr. D got us all breakfast on her account. But...when we were back in L&D, we were restricted to writing H&Ps since Dr. BP was getting all the deliveries. Altogether, I don't think we ever wrote so many notes in one day before. But that's what happens when your team is shortstaffed. *sigh* Dr. C said another resident will be joining us in future days and weeks. Hope so.

There was one emergency C-section today, and since Anita went to OR yesterday I decided to scrub in for this one. This time I caught the scrub nurse just as she entered the OR and she was able to pull a pair of gloves for me. It was just me, the nurse, Dr. D, and Dr. S (who lectured on antepartum and postpartum bleeding). It seems that with each C section I watch, the residents expect more of me (Dr. D even called me the "expert retractor.") My job involved more than just retracting and blotting this time around; I also had to hold the thread tight between suture reloading and learn to cut sutures correctly. Yes, there is a proper way to cut thread; you can't hold the suture scissor like a regular scissor and just cut. I did that the first time and Dr. S said that was clumsy. "Only cut at the tips, and with a small turn of the wrist," she said. I had three chances to redeem myself but each time I'd make a mistake in some form or another. On the last one, Dr. S even lightly slapped me on the wrist for "turning the blade the wrong way." *sigh* No one ever told me there was a method for cutting thread. Well, now I know.

After getting off work, I went to Panera Bread to meet with old friends and exchange rotation stories, news, gossip, the usual =P It was nice to see familiar faces again.