tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256147942012-01-24T03:48:38.358-08:00Ramblings from an ER InternIrishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.comBlogger301100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-60160146631853903782011-02-02T19:07:00.000-08:002011-02-02T19:42:01.291-08:00

My, my, my, how time does fly, doesn't it? And you are all still wondering what happened to me. Did I graduate? Did I get away from my abusive ex? Am I safe? Am I happy? Am I free?The good news. I am 8 months pregnant with my current boyfriend's baby. This pregnancy has been rough, and I think of my other son every day. Knowing what I know now, aborting him was the best decision I ever made.

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-47712872604261675722009-05-12T01:32:00.000-07:002009-05-12T02:21:29.181-07:00

I never thought I would be alone for this long and yet I still have no one to share my night's or even my days. Someone to call for the good or the bad. Someone to dream with or plan with. My poor grocer watches me pick out a solo 6 ounce piece of fish and an ear of corn, two to three night's out of the week. A sad testament to the single girl's nightly dilemma of what to eat. And Ive got to

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-74447562784523563432009-03-13T05:03:00.000-07:002009-03-14T01:43:36.759-07:00

Just so you know, I had a really great post planned. It was about how I was doing so well lately. One about how things were getting better and how I had decided to reclaim my space and my nights. And more importantly to reclaim my voice, because I can't seem to tell people how I feel in the real world and I want so much from them and I don't know how to ask. I was going to say the things to my

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-595699337700867422009-03-02T15:04:00.000-08:002009-03-03T02:26:24.060-08:00

I'm not entirely sure the benzos are helping. I certainly sleep more than I used to and to all the world I seem more composed, but there is a post sedation fog that I really don't like. A dampening effect on my words and thoughts that others seem to appreciate. But I am worried. There is probably a good reason for all the pain I'm going through and will probably emerge a better person for having

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-63728921113473035902009-02-19T20:32:00.000-08:002009-02-20T02:10:37.023-08:00

I've got to conquer the nightly struggle to sleep because I can't continue to lose this battle.. Everyday I stumble through an artificially slow world because I am just not sleeping at night anymore. No matter how tired I am, once I lie in this bed my brain refuses to shut down. I was doing so well too. Then he came back, unannounced. I had just finished an overnight shift and was crashed out in

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-2938432031623154572009-02-11T23:35:00.000-08:002009-02-12T00:38:30.752-08:00

It is a strange situation when you find yourself a stranger in your own life. I wake up in the same bed, drive the same car and yet every breath seems foreign to me. This is not the same life I have been living. There is no car seat in the truck, no lunch box to pack, everything is exactly as I leave it everyday when I return. After fourteen years of being with someone I am experiencing

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1351928511983610332009-01-22T12:42:00.000-08:002009-01-22T14:40:32.022-08:00

Sorry to be gone so long, I know you worry. Life has been thrown into full panic mode recently and I haven't had much time to regroup. My life is accelerating into the light at the end of the tunnel: and I'm pretty sure it's an oncoming train. My program has decided that I am not progressing into becoming a doctor at a sufficient pace. Apparently I am distracted at work. I am letting my personal

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-62506007471980281402008-12-27T14:16:00.002-08:002008-12-27T16:19:48.031-08:00

Stripped down the first thing you see on the patient is the purple and back bruise on the left bicep. It is raised and angry, and you can tell with out asking that it hurts. But that it hurt much worse the moment it was created. It has a matching circular hematoma on the right, but it was the left side that took the most force. Every physician and police officer can recognize these bruises.

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-80140871879424837822008-12-25T06:22:00.000-08:002008-12-25T07:03:27.170-08:00

It's Christmas morning and I am where every loving mother is on her daughter's third Christmas. I am at work. Where I've been for every major holiday and social event since the day she was born. I'm living in the Pediatric ER this month so now I get to bring all the coughs and colds home to share with her. Who says I never bring her anything nice. We have been rocked and rolled as usual for a

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-33394388505108521232008-12-12T23:54:00.000-08:002008-12-13T01:39:41.966-08:00

I spent the day today like a normal person and it never ceases to amaze me how the most mundane moments can give me such pleasure. My daughter had her Christmas pageant and was chosen to be the Christmas angel. She was just a vision with golden curls and enormous blue eyes. It was such a pleasant hour, of just being able to sit in the audience, not have be a leader or have any level of

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-61066493504320346442008-12-10T01:53:00.000-08:002008-12-10T02:53:17.521-08:00

I'm having a hard time tonight and I don't know where to turn so an anonymous blog it is. I miss my son. I miss him and everything that he represents. I think about what he would look like, and smell like. I wonder what he would be doing right now. I covet an ultrasound picture I took of him before I went to the clinic. I know, it was stupid, but I snuck an ultrasound picture of him before he

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-8161098049380105712008-12-09T15:59:00.000-08:002008-12-09T22:07:43.910-08:00

I have to return to work in a few days and I am of course dreading it. It's not that I dislike my job all that much, contrary to some opinions. I'd say I dislike 60% and all out loathe 30% which means the remaining 10% has a shot at getting a compassionate, caring doctor like on TV. Do you feel lucky today? Yeah, me neither. By the way these odds are pretty much in constant flux so some days my

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-82439122433413976292008-12-07T02:03:00.000-08:002008-12-07T03:55:34.578-08:00

Its late, I'm tired and I'm scared as shit to fall asleep. I have a fairly long history of nightmares, I would suspect most people in my situation would, but the intensity has been ratcheted up lately. Most of my bad dreams occur with such regularity that they no longer have the ability to frighten me. I wake up from them and shrug them off as a marker of my current state of mind, like something

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-87623905924000840162008-12-04T23:29:00.000-08:002008-12-05T02:57:32.880-08:00

So it's about time I buy a return ticket back to reality and writing seems to be the only vehicle that knows the way home. After all the fighting to stay true to who I am and not lose myself, I suppose I will admit that it was a forgone conclusion the entire time. I was never going to win. I was never going to be the same person I was before becomming a doctor. There is no way to learn the true

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-15064273324337560612007-04-04T18:46:00.000-07:002007-04-04T19:12:18.565-07:00

I'm on a Q 3 schedule right now and it absolutely killing me. Slowly, painfully. Death by a thousand sleepless nights. Or at least that's how I feel. I'm scheduled to be on call 10 times in the next 28 days. Let's think about that. Thirty hours a shift X 10 shifts and were talking three hundred hours. Now in the real world, the world of forty hour weeks, it would take me 7 and a half weeks to

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-48249838625017769022007-03-31T13:48:00.000-07:002007-03-31T14:48:03.634-07:00

Any intern no matter how smart or stupid can quote the the hours regulation. 80 hours max per week. 24 +6 at a time ( 24 hours straight seeing new and old patients and 6 hours to tidy up loose ends) Any intern up to snuff also knows what a crock of shit it is.Internship was once termed "the last sweatshop" in America, by the AMA no less, and that it still true today. In no other job do you have

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-52634437523303730772007-01-04T11:04:00.000-08:002007-01-04T11:15:26.468-08:00

I promised myself that I would blog next time I'm happy so that I can stop being called the "most depressing blog out there" Thanks for sharing everyone. So why I am happy today. Well I found out that I get to stay at my current program. I was originally set to leave after this year and go to another place but I really didn't want to . My family is established here, I have friends and I love the

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-66162196610482138402006-12-30T21:59:00.000-08:002006-12-30T22:49:08.038-08:00

Well, I guess I've been avoiding blogging recently because I've had a lot of personal things going on with me. Things I had originally decided I wasn't going to talk about with anyone. Maybe I've changed my mind on that thought though. It's more difficult now because I know that some people I know personally now read my blog and now I have to wonder about what they think. There's an anonimity I

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-78858532297854947892006-11-17T19:14:00.000-08:002006-11-17T19:41:46.468-08:00

Wow, I got a lot of responses for my previous blog and it was well appreciated. I 've just started Neurology and I'm feeling a bit ambivalent about it. I don't enjoy the brain. I don't really care what it does, or how facinating most people think it is. It's just a pile of pink jello as far as I'm concerned, or at least that's they way it looks splattered on a gurney.I suppose I dislike the brain

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1161928613365474982006-10-26T21:17:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:33.295-08:00

I'm half asleep in the Peds ED, the only thing that has stood between me and blissful sleep is a 12 y/o with abdominal pain. I was set to send her home until her WBC count clocked in over 15,000 and she bought herself a CT scan. One more rule out appy for my last shift before vacation."Do you guys have an attending in here yet" asks one of the residents from the adult ED. We do not in fact have

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1160570145505823102006-10-11T05:20:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:33.103-08:00

Well, I am finally begining to recover from the Hell that was my month on Orthopedic surgery and I'm pretty sure I didn't learn a damned thing. Oh well, at least it's over. Intern year on the whole has not been that bad. It's certainly a lot of work, there's no getting around that. I'm back in the ED again so I'm pretty happy about that.It's so weird when your on a tough rotation how much you

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1158191777715665652006-09-13T16:41:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:32.806-08:00

Have I told you yet that I hate ORTHO. Ugghh. First off I'm Q2 this week. For those not in the know that means that I am on call from 6 am Monday until noon on Tuesday then 5:30 am on Wednesday until noon on Thursday. I have no life outside of the hospital. Just a mind numbing blur between sleep and the hospital. And if I'm real lucky, sleep in the hospital. Except I find that trauma has a

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1157340287370799532006-09-03T20:05:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:32.613-08:00

Well, I'm on Ortho now and am in the seventh circle of intern hell. Nothing I ever do is right and for the most part my goal at the end of the day is to try and psych myself up for yet another shitty day.This rotation is just re-enforcing what I've always known. I hate surgery. It's not just the actually surgery itself ( oh let's see how long we can stand on our feet without eating and peeing),

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1155539748190473042006-08-14T00:01:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:32.406-08:00

I know it's comming and there's nothing I can do about. There are two empty beds in the MICU and this can only mean one thing. I will not sleep tonight. There are comming. The Code Blue down the hall, the ER patient with urosepsis. All conspiring to seperate me from the necessity of sleep.Only in medicine is it considered a badge of honor to go thirty something hours without sleep. Every other

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1154935399303959222006-08-06T23:17:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:31.931-08:00

Everyone dreads there first night on call and I 'm certainly not cool enough to pretend that I wasn't scared. For those not in the know, call means that you start work in the morning, stay overnight in the hospital and round again in the morning. It's about a thirty hour shift. The scary thing about being on call is that most of the people who know what the hell there doing leave around six, and

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1154409645714438852006-07-31T21:27:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:31.704-08:00

Much to my dismay I'm out of the ER now. I only get two months in the ED my first year and it's halfway over. I'm on medicine right now, and I hate medicine. Everyone picks their specialty for different reasons but most of us in the ED say the same thing about medicine: we can't stand rounding.Rounding is the art of doing and saying absolutely nothing for hours on end while standing up and

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1153553351239225342006-07-22T00:11:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:31.531-08:00

Now I haven't been an ER doc for too long, but you get used to the usual stuff pretty damn quickly. Under thirty with chest pain-either panic attack or cocaine. Big lady with abdominal pain- gallstones. So it was kinda nice the other day to get a suprise. I was hanging out in the trauma bay with the typical MVA when the security gaurd comes running in. "we've got a situation out in the ambulance

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1152908140061173012006-07-14T12:50:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:31.320-08:00

I hate when the board isn't moving. No one is going upstairs, no one is comming back from triage and everybody starts getting bitchy. The board is the center of activity in the ED. As the patients come back from the waiting room they get a spot on the board, but not necessarily a bed in the ED. It lists their age, complaint, which MD is seeing them and there final dispositon. People essentially

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1145077632688767322006-04-14T21:41:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:31.035-08:00

I'm broke. You wouldn't think you'd hear that from a doctor to be, but we are the poorest humans on the face of the planet. I already owe close to 250,000 and currently have -1000 in the bank right now. So I'm searching for yet another loan. I'm not a total jackass with money, inspite of my debt load. I never owed any money before medical school, didn't even own a credit card. But financial aid

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25614794.post-1144431454994837082006-04-07T10:36:00.000-07:002006-11-13T18:40:30.816-08:00

So congratulations to me. I'm going to be a doctor, and I'm so excited about it I could just die. Or at least kill my younger self who decided this would be a good idea. Like at least 50% of my classmates I don't want to be a doctor anymore. But were all fucked because we owe so much money that there's no backing out now. It's less painful to pay back the mob then pay back medical school debt. At

Irishdochttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01719177360151576253noreply@blogger.com3