Calling It

...time of death- 20:40 on 9/10/2013. I have learned this week that I am really good at self sabotaging. I am so focused on what I am doing right now that I push everything else far aside. I live with my pager being within a one foot radius at all times. I wake up in the middle of the night convinced I have slept through either my phone or pager going off and frantically check it only to find out I have no messages. And I LOVE it. I called things off with a perfectly nice guy this week partially because I was getting annoyed at going to St. Louis about every other weekend and missing any weekend deliveries.

My confidence in myself is rather low which is common for most students (rightfully so as we are still babies in this whole doctoring scheme) but there are instances when I suspect something but fail to speak up and it turns out I was actually on the right track. I had an instance of this today while being along side a girl as she worked through active labor. We kept getting her right at the doorstep of calling in Dr. C to do the delivery and that little baby would opt to regress back. I kept thinking "I believe that is what turtle sign actually looks like" but as it was just me, a nurse, and the girl's family, I opted to keep my mouth shut cause I have learned to not say any crazy terms in front of patients during intense moments (after 28 hrs of labor, we were at defcon 1). For the non-medically related people that read this, turtle sign is an indicator of the shoulders being positioned so they are too wide to fit through the pelvis. Oddly enough I read about this type of issue (aka shoulder dystocia) last night and knew the techniques for it but again I opted to not attempt them. Nursing staff has way too much faith in us students and assumes that we know what we are doing so I feel like if I had asked the nurse that was with me if the techniques would have been appropriate she would have agreed with me because of the doctor part in my student doctor title. Well it turns out my instincts were right and now I am kicking myself cause I might have helped speed up the delivery for this poor girl had I jumped in and done a simple maneuver.

The great things about this month:
1) My passion for what I get to do as a career has been restored. I am having such a blast even though I am working my butt off for this rotation. I come home exhausted and am so pleased about it. It is a good tired. I look forward to going to clinic each day and stare at my pager willing it to go off when I go home.

2) Some of the odd facts I know have come in handy for this rotation. My attending was so pleased with knowledge I had from watching a "True Life" episode on MTV back in college and being able to track down a treatment they used on the show. She has said multiple times that this is going to positively impact the lives of many of her patients and credits me. That is an amazing feeling.

3) Dude, I deliver babies. Like literally, I am the first person to ever hold new tiny humans.

4) Recovery phase from the past two years seems to be about complete. The three of us are all in a much better place with some fantastic/healthy changes about to happen. And there might be two furry additions to the fam in the very near future.