At this rate this will be my second and last grad school update because I'll graduate in April!
Oops!
I started my first internship this week!
I'm working at Intermountain Medical Center, a Level 1 trauma center in Murray, Utah. I'm on the NeuroRehab Floor, and I absolutely love it.
I leave every day excited to go back the next morning and I don't think it can get much better than that!
I'm so impressed by IMC and my supervisor.
I joked to my roommate today that I want to be my supervisor when I grow up, and I wasn't entirely kidding! :)
I wanted to write down some of the crazy things I've seen and experienced this week so I can look back years from now and remember how new and exciting all of this once was.
Hopefully it can reignite a fire and passion for my work on a day that I need a little boost.
On my first day some of the things I saw and worked with were respiratory failure, a fairly severe intracranial hemorrhage, a below the knee amputation, a patient with gunshot wounds, and I felt a fistula in someone's arm and could feel blood freely pumping and flowing from the artery to vein.
It was incredibly amazing and incredibly overwhelming!
On my second day I started working with the patients I mentioned, and I started to feel some sense that I could and would get the hang of this whole thing at some point, so naturally, the next day put me back in my place ;)
On the third day I realized just how much I still have to learn, and how much of that comes with pure experience.
A patient on our floor coded while working with Occupational Therapy, so I watched as the entire floor went into Code Blue mode. One of the nurses (an older gentleman who is close to retirement, and about whom multiple people said they feel safest when he is on the floor!) jumped on his gurney and began performing CPR. That was the first time I've seen CPR performed on a live person.
I was amazed at how everyone handled the situation - it was chaotic, but the most calm and organized chaos I've ever experienced!
The patient was stabilized after about half an hour and they were able to get him down to ICU again.
Lastly, today we had a patient with a traumatic brain injury from an unhelmeted motorcycle accident.
That was the first thing that got to me this week.
I've never liked motorcycles, and after seeing this patient today I stand by that opinion.
I've said it before and I'll say it time and time again - if you choose to drive a motorcycle, don't EVER do so without a helmet.
This week I've seen a variety of patients with a variety of personalities and quirks, which always keeps things interesting...
Overall, I could not be happier with my internship!
It's been quite the week and for the first time in my life a part of me is sad to have a four day weekend ahead of me! :)
One week down, nine weeks to go!
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