Elective #2

I finished my first elective last week. I had so much fun and learned a lot! I know it looks like I spent a lot of time not doing clinic type things, but I assure you during the week I was in the office everyday either treating patients or learning about x-rays, or other random things.

On Saturday last week I flew from that elective to a big city on the East Coast to start my second elective. Talk about a huge difference!

The elective that I'm in now is Emergency Medicine. I've only done a few shifts, but so far it has definitely been the a$$ kicking I thought it would be. The ED is massive, there are 4 wards associated with it and every ward has at least 15 beds, that's not including the beds they usually have to put in the corridors and waiting area when it gets busy.

I walked in the first day bright eyed and bushy tailed with absolutely no idea of what to expect. I left 8 hours later with my tail between my legs feeling quite a bit stupider than I have in a while.

Over the course of my first shift I spent the first few hours following one of the PA's around getting the lay of the system after that I started taking my own patients.

I feel like every time I was talking with them I would forget to ask something important. And then when I headed to report about them to the attending I'd get nervous and totally (pardon my french) f*** up the presentation or leave something out. Granted considering I've never had to fully present a patient up until now I think I'm doing okay, but it could use some improvement.

And forget about patient management or procedures. That's one thing my school really screwed us over with as far as teaching- they did a great job teaching history and physicals, but patient notes and learning how to do little things like suturing is something they never really emphasized that would have been VERY helpful. I've never written a real patient note until last month and no one said anything about what I wrote, so I didn't know if I was doing it right or wrong.

I only had 3 patients the first day.

I felt like such a failure as I left.

My second shift I had 4 patients (the shift was only a few hours) which I was much happier with. But, I know the Attending's were talking about me. Eventually they asked me where I go to school and as soon as I said "Poland." They exchanged these looks and one said, "well that explains it."

I feel like I'm not doing well. I want so badly to be good at this and I'm trying as hard as I can, but I'm so far behind and it's painfully obvious to anyone who watches me. I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, I don't know how to improve quickly when I'm so far behind.