Shouzer

Today I finished up my last shift with Nicole Bernal, a 4th year general surgery resident and the Trauma Chief at SLU Hospital for the past six months. Nicole was kind enough to let me shadow her during the month of December and again this month after returning from a two month stent at St. John’s–a hospital off of I-64/270.

This was more than a shadowing expereince–she treated me like an intern, which was pretty awesome and scary. I was in my SLU-issued scrubs armed with a trauma pager, phone, and stethoscope. I was as official as I could get without the M.D. behind my name.

When she was in-house I was in-house, be it a 12-hour shift or a 24-hour shift. The day would start at 6 a.m. when we would get the sign-out from the night team. At 7 a.m. we would start rounding on all the patients. I had my patient list and I would go fill out the progress note, record any labs that were drawn, and check on any radiology films. I would then meet with her and we would go over any pertinent findings and get everything ready for Grand Rounds with the Attending physician.

When a trauma came, my pager went off and I headed to the ER. It was difficult working in the exact same setting with my co-workers in the ER but being in a different role. I wasn’t the ER tech in the trauma anymore. She let me examine Level II traumas and get their history. I filled out the H&P form and wrote admission orders for the floor or ICU.

But I didn’t just do paperwork. I was able to get some procedures done as well. I assisted with at least 10 chest tubes (placed one of them), some intubations, reductions of fractures, FAST Ultrasound exams, splinting, some resuscitation….and I got to practice suturing as well.

I also got to go to the OR on cases. I saw three ex-laps, a left lower extremity fasciotomy, craniotomy and lobectomy, triple-A repair. The OR cases were really interesting and it was a great way to see real anatomy.

One of the things I like the most was that she spent a lot of time reviewing CTs and Xrays and showing me how to read them….and then asking me what I saw on new films as we reviewed them.

When there was nothing to do and we were caught up with everything, I crashed in a call room. And, of course, I would sleep for 30-45 minutes (if I was lucky) and the pager would go off. My favorite was this…and this is how it went out over the pager “TRAUMA TEAM STAT: 26 y/o M GSWx3 Homeboy dropoff”

This is pretty much how I looked after one night in the ER after six traumas:

I think my eyes were a little more glossed over and blood shot because I was so tired though.

It was an awesome expereince….one that challenged me physically, mentally, and emotionally. She taught me a lot. If anything the experience of being on the trauma team has only strengthened my desire to be a doctor.

It’s gonna be sad going to work this weekend as a tech again. Oh well, I’ll survive it.

I suppose I can go public with my post-graduation plans now. I requested my transcript be sent today, so now my application is complete. I’m gonna be back home at SIU. In two and half years, I’ll have a secondary education degree to hang on the wall next to my finance one. I’ll be certified to teach high school math and business. My decision stemmed from wanting to do something that I could actually get excited about, and I wasn’t finding that in Finance. It’s gonna be really good.

Oh, and since no one wants to read sports rants here, I put my first (hopefully, of many) over here. I may also include non-sports, non-Shouzer related things from time to time.

Spring Break is almost upon us, and I’m certainly looking forward to it.  I wanted this to be an easy semester, but unfortunately this ended up being one of my busiest in a quite a while.  Oh well.

As Kyle said, the NCAA tournament started today, but it hasn’t been what I’d hoped for yet.  There’s only been one real upset thusfar (a 9 over an 8 doesn’t count).  I guess that bodes well for my bracket in general, as I didn’t have as many upsets throughout the tourney as I would have liked.  On the other hand, I just think there’s more polarity between the top and bottom of the tournament this year than recent years.

If you find the weather getting warmer, and you happen to be a college boy desperate for some college girl pie, there are certain things you must clothe yourself in. First, find your wrinkled khaki shorts, the more wrinkled the better. Chicks dig these, and since they are the only kind of shorts you own, you are off to a good start. Next, the shirt. Try looking through your little sister’s closet. You are trying to find something bright, preferably pink, and way too small for you. If you are out of luck, get a shirt emblazoned with fraternity letters. It doesn’t matter if it’s your fraternity or even if it’s your shirt, just make sure it isn’t clean. Get yourself some flip-flops, because shoes are so faux pas in the spring time. Finally, if you’ve showered, shaved, or brushed your teeth in the last week, you might want to stay in a few more days. There’s nothing that turns a girl off more than fresh breath, a smooth face, and the sweet aroma of Axe.

Yeah, I saw some interesting characters on my way to class today. All of them looked like the above. I think I might be getting the flu.

Kyle and I were checking whether or not we had a quiz today in our Food Science 101 class (yeah, you read that right), when he noticed some interesting posts on the discussion board. Apparently our first exams had been regraded. Huh? He checks his grade, and it went up 4 points. Obviously, I had to check mine.

It turns out that my grade actually went up from a 90% to a 98%. How the hell do you make a mistake like that when grading a multiple choice exam? I’m sure they explained what happened in class, but I don’t go to that one. I suppose one of the downsides to not going to class is that had nobody noticed the mistake, my grade would have remained unchanged. One of the upsides seems to be that I can still virtually ace my exams.

I honestly don’t care enough to check on the answers to an exam for which I got an A. So when I saw 90% the first time around online, it really wasn’t that big of a deal to me. Yet still, it was a pleasent surprise to see the updated grade.

Today is my last official duty as a Rose-Hulman student. I have to give a demo of my robotics project. I built a little car that has a SONAR sensor on the front. It stops if it senses an obstacle in front of it. I personally think it’s pretty cool. We were originally supposed to have a final in that class, but the prof decided to make the finals period the demo time. It was to be my only final for the quarter so now I don’t have any, and yes, that is as good as it sounds.

I also had to give a presentation on my senior design project last Monday night. It went pretty well. We got compliments on both the project and the presentation. We built a touchscreen LCD screen for the ChallengeX car. It has an animated powerflow map so people will know what is happening in the car. It’s pretty similar to the Prius’ LCD screen.

I’m moving out this Saturday. Oh what a day. I hate moving, but I am really looking forward to that day. It feels like a giant weight is falling off my shoulders. Next Monday, my grades will come out, and if all goes well, I will be officially free.

Dang.  I rather liked the idea of a Tuesday and Wednesday of classes being cancelled.  Why can’t that happen again?  Sure, getting around was a pain, but who really cares?  I had nowhere to be anyway.  Oh well…

So, I’ve got an exam tomorrow in Classic Civ 111, Mythology of Greece and Rome.  The class is very cool, but best of all is my professor.  I’ve only had him for about a month now, but he’s one of the best profs I’ve had in my four years.  He really tries to make lecture fun, and so far the class has been pretty easy, which I’m all for.  He gave us a pop quiz the other day and basically gave us all the answers.  I think it was more just to review the material and give everybody points for showing up.

His best question was, “Name two rivers that flow from the Garden of Eden.”  Now, that might not seem easy, but he gave us hints, too.  “They’re both real and located in Iraq.  The first sounds like an animal–a large striped cat.  The second…  Well, I can’t think of a clue for Euphrates.”  You really can’t go wrong in a class like that.

Check the blogroll and you’ll find Confabuler and Illinaisa already have some UIUC snow day pics. I’ll add mine to the collection.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kbharlow/20070213

All classes have been canceled for Tuesday (Feb. 13) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. More than 5 inches of snow fell overnight, up to another foot of snow is possible by Tuesday night and a blizzard warning is in effect. U. of I. employees who have been designated as essential personnel are expected to report to work.

This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor

Pictures to come later.

I do not have a great reason why I went to my 12 o’clock Intro to Foods class today. But, I did. It is, what I would call, an easy high school class. Attendance not required. I walked away with a funny story. The class is 50 minutes long. 25 minutes in, two guys enter the class and sit one row behind me. The only though running through my head: “Why bother?”. They sit down, no notes, and one of them has chosen to eat an apple. Ten minutes later, I realize we’re getting close to the end of the notes packet, and we are going to adjourn prematurely today. I laugh a little on the inside, because not only did these guys show up with the maximum potential of only getting half the lecture material, but now they aren’t even going to get that. So class ends, and I stand up to leave. The apple eater asks me a direct question, “What class is this?”. “Wow,” I think to myself, “he’s gotten so little from today’s class that he’s not entirely sure he even entered the correct classroom.” No, I was wrong. “FSHN 101,” I said. The girl sitting beside me asks them, “Aren’t you in this class?” I was going to avoid that question. “No,” the non-apple eater remarks, “we just got out of our last class early and came for the comfy chairs.” I exited my row and left the building. That’s my story for the day.

One more thing before I go, which I thought of as I was walking back from said class. Why is it that we put salt on the ground to melt the snow, but in chemistry, we mix it with ice to make the ice colder?

This semester I’ve got a lot of reading to do every day, primarily because I’m taking two psych classes.  In general, I actually like reading, but I really can’t stand reading textbooks.  They’re long, boring, and overall can’t keep my attention.  I’d read a whole page and then realize that I was actually thinking about something else the whole time.  None of the stuff I just read is actually in my head now.  It’s horrible.

I wish that, in general, the books we had to read for class were more interesting.  They don’t have to be fiction or anything, but textbooks in general (the big hardcover ones) just seem so high school to me.  I realize there’s times nothing else will work, but for the most part I think lecture could be used for most of the “textbooky” things, and the books we have could be interesting supplements to the material.  Oh, I’d love that so much more.

Well, I’m home again now, but this week has been pretty crazy.  On Tuesday, my roommate and I gave a presentation on Controller Area Networks for professional development credit.  All of the ECE majors must go to 9 of these things before they can graduate, and the department has been pretty slack on providing opportunities.  Speaking of that, I forgot to get my form stamped.  I should make a note in my calendar….  Anyway, if anyone wants my thrilling power point presentation on CAN, I’d be happy to post it.  I figured no one would care, so I didn’t bother.  The presentation went well, except this one jerk kept asking questions to try to trip us up.

Wednesday and Thursday I was up in Chicago for more interviews.  Those are always fun.  I’m about ready for all of that action to be over, even though I am grateful to have the interviews.  It would suck to have none, that’s for sure.

I finished up my first project in robotics today too.  It was a line following robot, and mine did decently.  I didn’t have any time to refine it because of the aforementioned business.  Plus, I was out of town 3 days last week.  Anyway, I was just glad that it worked at all.  I didn’t get to test it, so hopefully I’ll at least get a B.

As I mentioned before, I had a final on Tuesday and then nothing until Saturday.  Well today’s Friday, and that means it’s time to study.  It’s surprisingly hard to get myself to study after I’ve had to day to just sit around and decompress.  I could really go without it.  I’ve taken a couple finals before without studying for them, but this one is 40% of my grade, and I know I need to study.  Ah well, I’ve got an insane grade in the class, so I really shouldn’t need to worry that much.

my last final was horrible. its a good thing the class is curved because i estimate my score on it to be in the low-to-mid 50s. on top of that, i just got a letter in the mail from Macy’s who declined to give me a job offer. this was the place where i felt i interviewed the best and was also the one place i really wanted to get an offer from.

Ahhh, finally a little time away from studying.  I’ve been studying quite a bit since Thursday for all these crazy finals I’ve had.  I’ve gotten 4 of the 5 out of the way now, though, and my last one isn’t until Saturday.  Anybody who knows me knows that I’m gonna be taking the next few days off to just sit around.  It feels so good.

Of the finals I’ve had, only one really kicked my ass.  I had my CS 433 final this afternoon, and it was pretty crazy.  Based on the way the midterm went, though, I figure everybody had the same problem, so it’ll end up getting curved quite a bit.  I got about a 79 on the midterm, and that ended up being an A or so.  I can’t complain too much about that, I suppose.