Harlem

Harlem

Boy, was I excited.

I had managed to not only get a rotation at Columbia University for July (they only accept the top 10 Flinders students who apply), but I also was going to get to do Trauma Surgery! In Harlem, no less! What more could a medical student wish for?

Well, as Mom is always happy to remind: Careful what you wish for – you just might get it.

Oh, don’t get me wrong – things started out well. I was walking to the hospital on my first day, all decked out in a set of scrubs with my snazzy little med student lab coat (With lots of pockets. Which is a bit of a hazard. In a very short time I have managed to accumulate about 20 pounds of stuff in those pockets; enough so that I now walk with a hunch. Stethoscope, reference books, needles, syringes, snacks, water bottle, band-aids, blood tubes and – this being New York City and all – Jimmy Hoffa was hidden in the inside left pocket for a few days. But I digress). It felt good to be finally getting back to ‘work’, closer to being done and to be honest, it was neat to be a medical student in the US.

That feeling, however, didn’t last long.

Where do I begin? The 6:30am starts; the on-call every third day (which means 24+ hours in the hospital with very little opportunity for sleep); the senior doctor who likes to grill the residents and students and hear himself talk, leading to looooong ward rounds; getting most questions wrong due to differences between here and Oz; no one really telling me what I was to be doing or what was expected of me; the surly-and-not-too-cute nursing staff; or the fact that, after two weeks of trauma surgery, I have seen one trauma and no surgeries.

Not that I am *wishing* for either more trauma or surgery – Mom, I think I have learned my lesson…

When I am not actively doing a trauma – which is most of the time – I help take care of patients in the Surgical ICU. These are patients who are either very sick and going to surgery, or very sick after being in surgery. You get to see all kinds of things and it really tests you; you need to know a lot about a lot of things, and you really have to keep close tabs on the patients – they can go south very quickly. Which means regular checks, lots of monitoring and drawing blood at least twice a day to see how the patients are doing. And some things are still the same here as back in Oz: All three times I have been on-call, we have had a patient ‘code’, and two of them didn’t make it. And before you ask, yes:

I drew blood from all three of them.

And with that, it’s the weekend. Being NYC and all, there is always something to do and see. I’m going to go exploring and tr a few pizza places that have been suggested to me, plus getting ready for yet another week of fun-and-games. Not to mention finding someplace new for Jimmy…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan