Medical Students Make the Worst Patients

You know that old adage doctors make the worst patients. 

Well medical students are worse. 

Essentially, I did everything except stop breathing today- but I came pretty damn near close. And I still didn’t want to go the doctor. (Sad truth: I hate going to the doctor, like really HATE it). 

After about 2 hours of non stop coughing, gasping for breath, and hoping that the damn albuterol would kick in (it never did) I reserved myself to the inevitable. I was going to have to be a victim of the Polish healthcare system. 

Asthma + Infection: 1   Me: 0

When I did finally go they were way to nice to me. (I really could have probably used one of those cranquis comebacks- “stupid, stupid, stupid”)

To be fair, it has been way worse before and for months at a time. 

Anyways, back to tonight. I like drugs, drugs are nice. Did they help 100% no, but I’ll tell you what it sure beats suffocating. 

Of course then I’d have an excuse not to take my final on Saturday, hm….that’s a hard one. 

*Update*  I have pneumonia. So there you go. Don't wait to go to the doctor if you're sick. Lesson learned.

Dropping Things

Today I had an ovary thrown at me.

Okay, it wasn't exactly at me, more like in my general direction. The surgeon threw it towards a table and he aimed badly causing one very large, very cystic ovary to fall on the floor, and burst like an organic water balloon spraying "ovary juice" all over our shoes.

Luckily we were wearing shoe covers.

This was the first time I'd ever seen an operation to remove an ovarian tumor. They cut through the first layers and exposed the peritoneum underneath, before they even cut through you could see the fluid underneath. When they cut through that they spent about 4 minutes trying to suck all the extra fluid out. And then they reached down and pulled out the tumor. The thing was HUGE, and the lady was so tiny, I couldn't help but to wonder where she put it and how no one noticed the thing sooner.

I couldn't help myself and asked the doctor if they were always that big. His response, "that one is small, usually they're bigger." How in the world could it get bigger??? It was already massive.

Luckily the surgeons found no metastasis and the type of tumor and the grade were generally favorable.

This scenario is just the tip of the iceberg for my stories about people dropping things on the ground.

Last week I observed a vacuum delivery where the doctors were having trouble getting the poor kid out. They were pulling and pulling and then I heard a sudden loud "POP" like a suction cup being released and baby was soaring towards the floor. Luckily, the doctor managed to grab him by one of the legs and prevent anything really bad from happening to him, but it was definitely interesting. Luckily Dad had been asked to leave the room and mom was too out of hit to really notice. I should also add that the baby was perfectly healthy in the end.

You're Scaring the Patients

Today I got to do my very first full genealogical exam unassisted while being observed by our assigned babysitter. I was pretty confident that I had everything under control and that I could handle the situation just fine given that I have only performed one speculum exam and no pap smears in the past 6 weeks of my OB/Gyn rotation. 

I got everything organized and then went to grab the gloves. I couldn’t find them. I looked all over the cart and then because this was the first time in this office and to speed things up asked the doctor quite innocently enough I thought, “where are the gloves?” 

The guy kind of freaked out. Apparently asking questions in front of patients scares them and undermines our roles as medical providers. I was supposed to ask all questions pertaining to the exam before the patient came into the room. 

A two minute lecture ensued which centered on the topic of destroying patient confidence in our abilities to do our jobs. I’ve been yelled at enough that it generally doesn’t bother me, but this doctor definately succeeded in scaring the dickens out of me for a second or two. Who knows what this momentary “freak out” did to the patient who was lying on the bed spread eagle for the entire thing. 

He never answered my question so I after that I spent another minute looking for the stupid things. As it happens the gloves were on the ultrasound machine behind the screen and covered in a bunch of used speculum packaging. My question was legitimate. 

I feel bad for the patient, but I’m still laughing about the whole situation. I mean seriously?