RN to Dr Blog

Yep its 0110hrs, yep I have to be at work in 5hrs, nope I haven’t slept…

BUT tomorrow is my second last shift as a full time RN and I can’t help it cause I have been busily scouring MSO (thanks I loves ya’s) for all those you got offers and particularly those to UNE so I can PM them a quick hi!

And by the way I made a facebook group – well the 1st group had one and the 2nd group through made their own so why not the 3rd group. Plus there is special things about being the 3rd group – like 3rd times a charm and 3’s a crowd (and hopefully a great crowd!) Its at (very long link…) http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?ref=sb#/group.php?gid=101015197032

As for me my house is way sold, the organisation is almost done, the work is almost over, the iphone is updated with medical texts and apps and the list of important and knowledgeable colleagues emails is entered (what else except for assignment help!) Now all thats left to do is have a sleepy do a little work then throw down some cocktails at my ‘Cara’s periodic absence to become a doctor party’ tomorrow arve!

Congrats to everyone that swings past that got an offer to study medicine, now for the next battle…

So I am reporting yet again at an ungodly hour whilst on night shift – and yes have been doing a few of those lately. My boss seems to have gotten the impression that I like being awake at this hour, or having to spend 2 days after coming off nights just to become diurnal again. Then only to have a week of normality before it all starts again. Oh well, nevermind tis better than some other shift combinations.

Spent a few days in Sydney last week with a friend who is trying hard to get into med school with me next year. Had a great time and didn’t spend too much money.  Was nice to return to Syd and see what the big place is up to and think that I might return there someday.

Well I am getting along with the moving house, packing up fandango. Got my room at the rents cleaned out and is now movable into so I got a week and a half off in a week so will be finishing off then mostly.

Felt all organisationy the other day and looking into finance and austudy and stuff – and oh is that all phooey! Part of me wants to not talk to centrelink at all and instead just make sure I work regularly and support myself. Oh well all the more reason to save up big this year.

Otherwise haven’t been doing much – meant to go to a RACGP  conference at the gold coast on the weekend but by the time I went to register most of the sessions that sounded interesting enough were full. I don’t think there is anything else much of interest in Toowoomba this year – it seems like the only highlight was the Cardiovascular meeting, which I might hike up for again next year. Will have to check in with some of the docs to see whats on.

Still deciding if and what I should start reading up to get ahead a little, even though I don’t think I will have any problems. Probably will know less textbook answers than the nerd types but can make up for that practically I think. Still I feel the need to do something! Am contemplating trying to spend some time with the radiologists upstairs and maybe hang of an ICU reg for a day. I have been told that I could get into some anaesthetics but am waiting for the paint to dry on that.

Otherwise everthing else is blah – same ole, same ole.

How about you??

Well I have settled back into my work routine – work, sleep eat and repeat. Picking up a nice few overtime shifts at the moment which is just lovely for my bill paying capacity which, yes, is still stretched as I haven’t organised myself enough to pack up my house and rent it yet. Its just such a bbbbbbbbiiiiiiiggggggg job, I am now garage saleing which means that I have got reason enough to get permission to use one side of mum and dads garage even though they aren’t using it anyway. Then I imagine it will be a few trips to some the goodwill bins, plus my newspaper ads for furniture. It seems my goal of having the place rented out by the end of march is pretty much out the window!

I am very excited – I finally obtained a suture set so I can start assulting bananas!

Anyways I gotta go as at work and I keep forgetting I have this open.

Toodles.

We healthcare professionals are prone to be stressed, put most people in a situation where they have to juggle the care of people and they will have a bout of anxiety, maybe a spot of hypertension. Make them then try and juggle countless tasks into an impossible time period and if you don’t find tachycardia and hypertension then that person is an automaton. Now add in interpersonal relationships amongst collegues and that person is now spreading the stress, giving themself and others redheads, short tempers and possibly precursoring acute coronary syndrome. Its understandable – if we don’t do something right it could have the worst of all consequences – death.
So in hindsight of my day, I should of ceased communicating to my collegues at approximately 1700 when our nurse manager blustered in, stated she was a shit magnet and that we were low on beds and left. I try and keep a level head, the more you fall into the atmosphere the sooner you burn yourself out, so I suppose reaching 2100 before I had a conniption was possibly a personal best, if not a departmental best amongst my immediate collegues. Boy had I juggled, it was a full department, made ever the worse by a phenomenon known as bed block. Simply caused by not physically having a bed to put a pt into, or by nursing collegues in the ward overexercising their right to refuse to accept a pt until they are ready (with the latter more common). Not that I blame the ward nurses – I have been on both sides and I would be unhappy enough turning up to work to deal with the same garbage as the day before (one benefit of EC nursing). But working where I do in the trenches gives me access to the best excuse – I can’t exercise the right to stop someone having a heart attack, or trying to chop off their finger. I can’t just stop the flow into my department because I cannot clean out what I have.
No – now this is how you make a emergency nurse crack, not by giving them a acute case (they would praise you – an acute case in our dept basically excuses you from juggling and commits you to dealing with only one pt) not by filling all the rooms up, admitting them all to a full hospital. Nope most will cope. Its then taking one stressed out emergency nurse and combining that with a stressed out ward nurse (with more rights to pt control) basically telling the emergency nurse to stuff it.
Sigh – its not only the trenches – emergency is the trenches for the opposing side.
Next time I ring the cleaner to see if a bed will be done soon so I can put a pt in it and when told are busy are ok with that excuse, only to have the cleaner come to the department (obviously not that busy!) to tell you never to ring that the bed will be clean when it is clean, thats a conniption point.
My boss says lodge incident reports for bed block, so I did, adding in some inappropriate staff attitude as well – Karma bit me there. Being garotted by my nurse manager after transferring a pt and only finding out they might have gastro when I get to the ward and that the pt is not isolated, me blaming the Dr but trying to protect him at the same time, only to find out the Dr believes this is semantics and the pt actually does not have gastro.
I think someone was baiting me for the sharks tonight.

Well the cardiovascular meeting was great – heaps of new info and some figuring out of some old info too! The after dinner was interesting to say the least, with a tanked up rheumatologist on my R getting me stuck in conversations from learning how to fly to the soviets, I was doing my very best to stick to my collegues on my left but twas hard.

Had a dream last night that I was running a trauma (as a Dr) and my nursing collegues were there asking me what to do next. Very odd.

Well just a quick note before I head of to the 7th Annual Cardiovascular Meeting – very exciting! Should be a good information filled day.

That and the freebies, not to mention I didn’t pay a cent for the conference itself or the dinner at the swanky resturant tonight! Ahh drug companies…where would medical education be without them!

Yay – I got my offer for Med School. UNE and so far I think its a CSP. May not know about MRBS scholarship until mail today but if I don’t get that then I have to defer.

Yes 3 1/2 weeks is just not long enough to refinance a home loan, pay off some big bills and save some money too. I have been trying but not renting the house out till I knew made it all a bit tight. Hence this year unless there is a MRBS offer I will be renting, refinancing, repaying and then I think I might head over to Dubai for the 2nd half of the year and throw some travelling in before I start! Not too bad of a plan really. In saying that though now I know I am in I am excited and want to be there!!!

But a significant step seeing all the applications, exams and interviews are over!

Pouring over some blogs by some fellow emergency nurses tonight I was prompted to find and access my last blog that I made. It was found, I remembered my password then spent a good 5mins reading, laughing then explaining to my collegue why I was sitting quietly one second then gaffawing the next. Of point the first post describes my woes over losing my previous blog (obviously a 2006 lost cause now) and my visions for the blog for the future. A future notably short lived as I only made 3 posts in March of 2007. You may find my other blog here.

Which brought me back to this blog – I have a purpose for this blog, not only somewhere to write my incessant ramblings but to inform others of my progress towards medical enlightenment and hopefully encourage and daresay inspire them also. Regardless I do realise I am probably the worlds most non up to date blogger. But hey bear with me and hopefully we might see more than 3 posts in one month here in the future.

Plus it serves as an interesting diversion from night shift in a entirely empty emergency department.

Well its been a couple of weeks now since my interview. All in all I think it went great, the interviewers were nice, we had a good chat and now its wait and see time. 21st January here we come!

Meanwhile I still have to get organised like its happening which sucks cause I am spending most of my spare time sorting, packing, refinancing home loans, getting rental appraisals and don’t forget Christmas.

So I pretty much have it all figured out for next year – house should be refinanced and rented by mid Jan, with me back at the ‘rents. I have applied for college – Duval. I gotta hit up Armidale hospital when I get there for a job. And if only it sounded that easy.

Work has been well – work. Its all a bit strange since I started applying for med – I am really happy the Drs there are all behind me. I am getting shown extra stuff and they are letting me do things that I wouldn’t normally do – I reduced a dislocated finger the other day and stuck someones forehead back together. That and I am getting requests for me to cannulate where others have failed – always a good skill. My nursing collegues are interested but non-plussed really, its all a funny dynamic really. And my boss is my boss, one second I am being treated well and getting in charge shifts and the next I am being treated like I haven’t been a nurse for 4 years. One day I will figure out why shes up and down.

Went to the Drs to get all my immunisation stuff yesterday. Went to get boostrix – national shortage, sigh. I just hope I don’t forget to have it!

Anyways now its closing in on time to get back to my current full time job – hope I have some decent collegues on so its not a dud afternoon.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Cara

Hey all,

Well finally heard back from Newcastle and have got offered an interview for JMP – yippee.

Yesterday was my birthday so what an awesome day to find out that I got shortlisted.

Now onto bigger and better things like organising accommodation, working out how to keep the home loan afloat and of course going back to watching the Sex in the City movie t work while theres nothing happening on night shift!

I know I hadn’t written for a bit – I was a little down about my UMAT results but obviously for no reason. So I will definately be keeping this blog up to date again!

Ciao!

Cara