Si se puede!

Hoy quiero escribir en español, y les advierto que en español, yo escribo como hablo.

Pues bueno, aqui sigo, voy terminando la 3ra de las 12 semanas de mi rotación de cirugia... y ya me burnoutie. Estoy nefasteadisima con la vida, con las guardias, con mis compañeros, con los pacientes y con los DIABETICOS!! Odio al mundoo!! Grrrr... quiero dormir, y comer bien, y divertirme y no se... ir 4 años atras en el tiempo, cuando decidí entrar a medicina y darme unas cachetadas para desapendejarme y estudiar LAE o algo asi. Bueno, a lo mejor no tanto. Si me gusta mi carrera y todo, pero creo que no tengo ni remotamente las mismas ideas de la medicina que cuando entre a la carrera. Creo que era yo muy ingenua (eufemismo de pendeja) y tenia ese entusiasmo caracteristico de los estudiantes de medicina de nuevo ingreso. Ese entusiasmo que hace que te emocione hacer curaciones desagradables, tactos en lugares que no reciben seguido la luz del sol, etc. Con decirles que en mis primeras vacaciones de verano me fui de intensa-freak-ñoña a trabajar de voluntaria en la Cruz Roja. Hazme el favor! Ahorita, tiempo libre que tengo, tiempo libre que es bien aprovechado en dormir o vegetar cual vaca de campo. La carrera, el estudio, el estres, la pronunciada carencia de horas de sueño, la mala alimentación, los pacientes hostiles, los pacientes nefastos, los malos médicos, los hospitales de seguridad publica y todo a lo que nos exponen hace que (o al menos en mi) tu forma de pensar cambie.

Creo que no me gusta la gente enferma. Sí, lo dije, soy un futuro médico a quien no le gusta la gente enferma. Me encanta la medicina, lo que no me gusta son los pacientes. Tengo un particular resentimiento contra los de Medicina Interna, sí diabeticos, hipertensos, hipercolesterolémicos del mundo les estoy hablando a ustedes! La mayoría (acepto que hay por ahi uno que otro que no cae en esta categoria) son gente necia que no se quiere cuidar a si misma y que no te deja que la cuides. Yo se que uno de los principios de bioetica es la autonomía del paciente, pero hay gente en la que debería de pasarse por alto. Gente que esta enferma porque quiere y que luego espera que el médico haga milagros y les arregle lo que 15 años de DM no controlada les hicieron. Osea, no me chinges! Como te explico que durante años y años les estuvieron diciendo que controlaran su azúcar, presión o colesteron y no hacian caso. Digo, por qué habrian de hacerlo? ellos se sentian "bien", no? Pero luego les da su embolia, entran en coma hiperosmolar, dejan de ver, les tienen que amputar la pierna, dar dialisis etc... y vienen diciendo que nunca les dijeron eso. Arrshhh me molestan. Aparte los servicios de salud estan saturados de gente que tiene este tipo de enfermedades prevenibles (o almenos sus complicaciones). Egoístas que no se cuidan ellos mismos pero demandan que tú hagas algo por ellos.

Arshhh!! Estoy molesta con los pacientes! Pero sobretodo estoy molesta con los malos médicos que me he topado ultimamente. Esos médicos que por pura weba no pasan a quirófano a un paciente que lleva mas de 20 horas esperando su turno! Esos médicos que hacen amputaciones que parece que en lugar de con bisturí nadamas les pasó un tren y les cortó la pierna! Esos pinches médicos que no se lavan para entrar a quirófano y que no respetan el área blanca! Esos PINCHES MEDICOS!! Arghhh!!

La verdad creo que para lo que me ha servido mi rotación de cirugía hasta ahora es para 3 cosas. La primera darme cuenta que NUNCA podría ser cirujano, la segunda que los cirujanos tienen un trabajo que implica muchas, pero MUCHAS cosas desagradables, y 3 Que lo que mas puedes aprender en los hospitales publicos es lo que NO debes hacer.

En fin, ya me desahogue. Respirare profundo, contare hasta 10 y me dire una vez mas: "sí se puede! Es solo un año".

I needed this. Back to reality, to my shitty shitty reality.

still here

I'm here! I haven't given up or died or killed anyone. It is actually getting better, I think. I never really though it would be this much work. You have some pre-made conceptions of your rotations, and have heard of others who have gone through it. But still, you never really know until you're living it.

So here's my day:
5:45 - wake up, shower, get ready and try do grab something to eat on the car
6:40 - be at the classroom before the annoyingly punctual surgeon closes the door
7:50 - go to whichever hospital I'm doing my morning clinical activities (this transfer ranges from about 1hr to 5 minutes if its a the university hospital)
8:30sh to 6pm -arrive at the hospital and enter as many surgeries I can.
-somewhere here run to eat something at the cafeteria-
If I'm on call that day I have to go to the hospital and stay there till the next morning, otherwise I'm free to go and have a good 6 hours of free time, which I basically spend studying, running errands and sleeping.

Currently my clinical activity is very relaxed. I'm at a nice hospital, which is kind of private, and everyone has been very polite and helpful. They have free cookies and coffee, and some nice and comfy chairs at the doctors lounge. Life is good there. We enter all the surgeries just to see, and to some we participate -by participate I really mean retract and try not to get in the way of the real docs-. They are not very strict with the hours, and the don't really demand anything from us. It's more up to us to have the initiative to ask our doubts, to study, go check on the patient etc. Have I mentioned they have free cookies? heh

I like to enter the surgeries, I though I wouldn't. It's just such a weird feeling to be opening up a person, a living person. It's one thing to see a dead body, to cut it and see the internal structures all grey-ish and putrid; and a whole other to see it alive. It's like this person trusts us enough to let us do this to her and pay for it. Geez! It's a weird feeling, I'm telling ya!

Anyway, I've got a ton of dirty scrubs that need to be washed and several chapters to read. I'll see you.

xo
Lola

PS: Oh, by the way. Scrubs rock!! They are the best clothes ever! I'm going to miss wearing them all day. It's like being in your pajamas. Besides, I look so damn good on them! hah

Sick of it

So this is it. I've been officially a 5th year for about 3 days and my life is already miserable.
Friday and Saturday morning we had our introduction to the clinical practice, the schedules were handed out and it turns out we'll be having what we here call guardias ABC. Which means that we're on call every 3rd night! Its just crazy, seriously. I mean, people in the US complain about their Q4 schedules (on call every 4th night) ... come on! This is just a living nightmare.

So this past Saturday I had my fist night on-call, meaning I was at the hospital from 6pm Saturday to 6am Sunday. I started on a public health hospital, with an excess in patients and a huge deficit in resources, both economic and human. As I said in older posts, I started with surgery. Yet, somehow in this overflowed hospital there were only like 2 surgeries that day, so we went down to the ER to help out there. We did like a gazillion EKGs (which reminded me that I've forgotten how to read them :S) learned how to place a Foley and a nasogastric tube, and tried to do both. The Foley was easy, but the naso was a complete fiasco.

It was a very slow nigh, but due to our naiveness, stupidity and first day excitement my partner and I didn't get any sleep. Around 11pm I started coughing and feeling a little bit off. As the time passed, the cough increased, and by 6am I felt I was going to cough my lung out. I went home in what felt like the loooooooooogest drive back ever, changed my vomit-splashed scrubs -only a little, but still gross- and collapsed in bed. I woke up around 12pm feeling like shit. I was feverish, coughing like a maniac and felt like I had been run over by a truck while asleep. I slept a few more hours, woke up and tried to eat something but really couldn't. I checked my temp and I was around 38oC (100.4 F). I called my mother and afterwards I cried a little. Seriously, I was feeling horrible. My mind was running the worst-case scenarios which implied me having to repeat my rotations because I missed a class or a clinical activity or dying, or something. I got so paranoid, I started tracking in my head the possible culprits, every sick person I saw while on call yesterday were cursed for making me go through this. I slept again, and I finally got to a limit around 7pm when I call a friend of mine who is a doctor and went to his house so he could prescribe me some drugs. When I got there I was 39.5oC (103.1F) and nearly collapsing. He gave a shot and some pills and I laid down for about 2hours until the fever came down. I've been on drugs since and feeling much better, but still knocked out.

Dammit! What a way to start this year, huh? I had a nervous breakdown/panic attack while I was lying on my friend's bed. I just wanted to go home and forget about this shit. Go home and get my life back. I mean, the universe was telling me very clearly that I shouldn't be there, that this was not for me. Then I talked to a friend and the drugs kicked in and I went back to being a crazy and masochistic medstudent. So, I guess I'll be here at least a little longer.

I'm on call tomorrow, and I'm already starting to freak out. I'll count to ten -or maybe 1000- and try to relax. I'm so not getting near anyone coughing or looking remotely contagious, and I don't care if he/she is dying. My body and my mind cannot go through this again, especially since I've haven't come out of it properly. I'm just literally sick of it.

Well see how it goes. I'll just go to bed right now and try not to die.

nervous breakdown

so, here I am, hiperventilating, bitting my nails, at the verge of crying and desperate for a cigarette despite being non-smoker ...

My clothes and my just-ironed coat are hanging from my door...

My scrubs are inside my backpack just in case I'm on call tonight...

SHIT! I'm freaking out!

I don't want it to be today! Please! It cannot be today!! :'(

Killing me softly

So, tomorrow I start my year of slavery, a.k.a. my clinical practice year, with REAL 80hrs weeks!

I'm back to my apartment, it looks sad. I live about 2 blocks from campus, and right now all this area looks dead. The other so-called students don't start classes until the 14th. Those lazy chumps!

Gotta go, I've got a lot of things to do before my nervous breakdown.

Glückliches neues Jahr!

Happy New Year y'all!
So hey, I finally was able to change the background color, the margins etc of this blog.

Kudos for me and my fast-learning skills that allowed me to frikin' kickass at html! Woooo!

Mmm... yeahhhh right!! You almost fall for it didn't ya? The truth is, I asked my very geeky and Übercool brother to help out his non-techie sis. As I suspected, if you have any basic skills in programming it is a piece of cake. The thing is, I don't have any, not even remotely. Anyways ... Danke Verrückt! Ich liebe dich :D