October 21, 2009

• Keep building bombs, gonna drop ‘em all.

  So today was the second time that I have seen a patient pass at internship. This patient differs from the first patient that I had pass away in that I was observing the nurse who was assigned her room when she was first admitted into the hospital and I helped take care of her in the little ways that I can as a high school intern (i.e. I am allowed to help move people, help grab IV piggybacks, IV bags out of the refrigerator, take blood pressures, and oodles of other things) on many of my internship days before I walked into the room to find the ominous words tumbling out of the nurses’ mouths as they suctioned the patient’s mouth dry of her last spittle: “She passed.” The first patient passing that I experienced was another nurses’ patient that I had not followed at all, and there was a large support base of family members, whereas this second patient was alone in her room when another nurse walked in and discovered her.

  
   
  

  My defense mechanism of distancing my emotions from the death of others has been a large contributor to the lack of empathy I feel toward the situations. My emotions seem to be fleeting and trivial to me when I am involved in these situations. I can tell that the reason I repeat “Ain’t No Reason” on my playlist when I get home after these kinds of days at the hospital is more of a tribute to the idea of death rather than the actual specific occurrence of it. It really has almost become a ritual of mine, to empathize with the idea of death through this song.

  
  (This was a spur of the moment video right after I got home from internship and changed out of my scrubs. I apologize for the un-warmed up voice. One of these days, I’ll warm up before I hit the record button…)
   

  Also, I know that many people on here who want to know what colleges I am applying (or planning to apply) to. Here’s an incomplete and not completely decided list that I have as of now:

  
  Columbia – early decision
  UT, Rice, Harvard – regular decision
  USC, Johns Hopkins, UPenn – maybe?
  other places – have not decided yet

  Now, for a life update. I have found that I love being at the hospital and helping as much as I can by doing the little things that I can much more than I love being around my peers at school. I can tell that I have been getting more recognition for my efforts and the nurses are beginning to trust me more by giving me small things to do that can make their lives easier. It may sound lame, but now that I hear a “thank you for your help today” instead of “bye, see ya” as I leave internship, I feel like a million bucks. All this has made me 110% sure that I belong in the medical field and that this is exactly what I was made for.
   
  Unfortunately, that’s exactly where my certainty stops.

  I have found that I love the medical field with all my heart but I cannot decide whether my 10+ year old goal of becoming a physician is really what I want to pursue; I spend most of my time shadowing nurses since there are very few doctors on the inpatient floor in the afternoon and most of the residents at the outpatient clinic are always busy with their own stuff. I think I have developed a soft spot for nursing. Why, you ask? Well…

  All of my interactions with the nurses have shown me how important they are and the way they care for their patients really touches me, while the doctors are only in the rooms with their patients for a few minutes of the day. What it all boils down to for me is a battle of whether I aim to provide good care for a large number of people or great care for a lesser number of people.  I can’t decide whether I would rather be the one ordering tests, diagnosing illnesses, prescribing medications or the one who is actually taking care of the patients with the illnesses and administering the medications. The physicians may be able to see the progress of the patient through short visits and patient charts, but the nurses are the ones who observe the progress of the patients the most, as they spend twelve hours at a time caring for a patient two or three days a week. But then, doctors get paid much more than nurses (probably due to the higher liability, I suppose) and no matter how little the money means to me when compared to the opportunity to impact others’ lives for the better, it still matters a tiny bit. At this point, I do not know what I want to do.

  I heard from a little birdie somewhere that it’s possible to earn a B.S. in Nursing and then go onto medical school and become a doctor, but I do not know how plausible that is. If I can get it to work, I believe it’d be my best bet for finding happiness in life and peace with myself. I’m going to try to track down the resident MD in internal medicine who was an RN and NP before she went to medical school at the outpatient clinic today and beg for some counsel.

  If there is anyone who is experienced with this side of the health care industry who knows anything that would help me, I’m all ears.

  And, that’s what I’ve been up to with and that’s what has been keeping me away from the blogging so much. Maybe someday I’ll post some of the more interesting excerpts of the long weekly logs that detail my days at internship just so people can see what I’ve been up to.

  -bbbbbbbbbbbloveshelpingothersbbbb.
  
  

  • 2:09 pm
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