I started working in the hospital last Monday on the inpatient medicine floors.
People who have gone through this already talk about how this is similar to being thrown into the swimming pool to learn how to swim, but wow. I wasn't learning how to swim, I was trying to figure out how not to drown.
Like I said, my first day was Monday. But what I didn't know, until I got to the hospital on that beautiful Monday morning, was that my first call day was also Monday. Meaning that my team would have to take care of the bulk of new patients being admitted into the hospital. Meaning that while everyone else got to spend their first day getting to know their team of residents and interns and figure out protocol for different things, I got to meet my team in 5 minutes, listen to an outside hospital's report of an incoming patient in the next 5, and then run off to meet the patient to get their story, because there was no time for how do you do's and a cup of Starbucks coffee. So while everyone else was getting to dip their toes into the water, I was getting pushed off the diving board.
Problem is, I don't know how to swim.
But there was no time for self-doubt, so I ran off to meet my patient, running through my history and physical template in my head - she was complaining of chest pain Michelle...don't forget to ask about onset, location, duration, characteristics, aggrevating/alleviating factors, radiation of the pain, self-treatment - and everything I possibly remembered about cardiovascular disease, which in that moment of stress and anxiety was...well, not much.
I took a couple of deep breaths outside the room, trying to get my heart rate to stop beating in my ears, and then after plastering a fake confident smile on my face that belied how I was truly feeling inside, I knocked on the door and walked in.
Hi! I'm Michelle and I'm a third year medical student, and I'll be taking care of you today.
Sweaty palm met sweaty palm, and we were treading water. I could do this, and my confidence in the past two years of classes on patient communication and physical exam skills returned.
Until I finished my spiel and she looked at me and said, "Espanol?"
No, no espanol. None at all except for me llamo Michelle and no comprendo, which I repeated about ten times as she tried to tell me her story.
But all's well that ends well. Her son walked in the room five minutes later and told me the gist of what had happened, and was able to translate questions and answers for us. Yes it hurts when I breathe. No I wasn't doing anything, I was sleeping. No nausea or vomiting, but I was sweating. No, the pain hasn't gone away. 8/10 on the pain scale - giving birth to that one was worse.
In the end it all worked out. She had pneumonia, and so we kept her for a couple days to figure out what it was, and then treat it, only to find that diagnosis was wrong, send her for another procedure to figure out what the true diagnosis was, treat that...and then yesterday, she was finally discharged.
She had been in the hospital for exactly the same amout of time that I had been.
So today is my day off. My day to recharge and study frantically only surely to get all the questions asked of me wrong. And then tomorrow, I go back in and start this whole process all over again.
