Ahh . . . the soothing sounds of a ventilator.

I ran today. Not long. But hard.

This past week has been almost the complete opposite of last week. Last week I felt lost, confused, frustrated, pissed, and stupid. This week I felt like I may have actually known at least something about what I was talking about. Dr. Robert was on this week and, bless her heart, she talked to us like we were equals. She didn't make us feel stupid, or ask trick questions, or make us doubt ourselves when we were talking during rounds. Its amazing the difference a professor can make on a rotation. She liked my ideas! When I told her I wanted to use midazolam and morphine as a pre-med for a cat having major surgery she said okay! She said, go and try it, see how it works for you. She let us try things so we could see their effects. Of course, if we tried to use thiopental in a greyhound she probably would have said no, but still, it made me feel like a real doctor making real decisions. It was empowering.

I kicked ass on the test too. Only got 2 out of the 45 questions wrong, Dr. Robert said it was the best she ever saw anyone do. Thats pretty freakin' awesome.

Only bad part about anesthesia are the long surgeries when nothing happens. We had a dog under anesthesia for 6 hours yesterday and it only had a hypotensive episode early on that was quickly corrected with a dopamine CRI. The best part about that one was waiting 45 minutes in the middle of the surgery for cytology results to come back. Today we had a dog under for 5 hours and the surgery only took 40 minutes. What was the reason for that? One of the surgeons dropped the $10,000 scope and broke it. We spent wasted time waiting for the large animal department to stop whining and bring us their scope. The dog also needed radiographs which meant more time spent with Dr. Shay running around and tangling my monitoring equipment. He did steal me a cookie though from the radiology techs' office. That was nice. We spent our wasting surgical time watching the most uneventful monitor ever (this dog could have monitored itself) and reading Redbook and doing the crossword puzzle. Dr. Shay does not understand why American women read that magazine. I couldn't really explain it to him.

So all in all, anesthesia was a successful rotation. I liked it actually. I felt like I was challenged and that I learned a lot. Always a good feeling to have at the end of a rotation.

Diazepam? Yes please!

Its been a week of anesthesiology. I'm surprised it took them this long to make me cry. If you want to feel like a moron constantly, feel like you're going to kill an animal, and get treated like a five year old then anesthesiology is the rotation for you! This week has been long and scary. I mean, I've been drilled in rounds before but not like this. We present our cases and then give our anesthesia plan and try to explain the drugs we want to to use. Only problem is that most of the time we really have a wide array of drug choices we could use and its hard to pick one over the other. Do I really think that it matters whether or not we give diazepam or midazolam to a dog we're about to spay? No. And most people wouldn't care either. But these damn anesthesiologists know every nuance of the drugs and if you don't know that there was one study done at this place 3 years ago that showed that this breed of dog will get hypotensive if you give this specific formulation of this drug well then, you might as well quit vet school now. Dr. Barney is the worst with that. He knows everything. I mean it. Everything. I mean, its good and all but it make rounds exceedingly stressful because I know nothing. Okay, maybe not nothing but it sure feels that way.

We had a case come in last night to have an emergency spleenectomy. Well, the spleenectomy turned into a giant-basketball-sized-tumor-of-the-ureter-ectomy which then resulted in a rapid loss of 30% of this dog's blood volume. Needless to say, all the anesthesiologists within a 50 mile radius panicked. I tried to do my best to help push fluid boluses and monitor its blood pressure (the mean was close to 40 mmHg most of the time . . . not good) and Dr. Barney is standing there grilling me on calculating fluid replacement therapy and total blood volume. I told him I didn't know (which I didn't at the moment) and he told me that an animal's body was 8% blood and then asked me to calculate that volume. I stared at him for a good 45 seconds that felt like an hour and finally asked if I could use a calculator. What did he say? "Okay, but I'll be disappointed." I wanted to punch him in the face. Then I wanted to cry. But there was no time for that because thats when the blood transfusion arrived and I had to figure out how to ask how to set that up without sounding like too much of an idiot.

The dog is fine. He made it and is happy being tumorless.

Its not all bad. I've found a kindred spirit in Dr. Shay. He's this funny man who tries his best to make students afraid of him. I just find him hilarious. He is always yelling and telling me to not pull out the catheter he just placed or asking me if I've killed the animal yet. His favorite thing is to tell us about the things we'll need to know IF we graduate vet school. I just come right back at him with some sort of witty comment and we get along fine. I think he actually likes me and may in fact enjoy working with me on cases. Thats always good. He told me that he was impressed with my knowledge on acetylcholine. (I did a little internal victory dance when he told me that.) He actually told me that he and and another doctor used to make bets on which one of them could make the most students cry. They even had two criteria of judging: number of cries and quality of cry. Some would find that cruel. I find it hilarious. But maybe thats because I don't think Dr. Shay could ever make me cry. Which is a good thing.

I think I'll have more to say about anesthesia, but right now I'm exhausted.

My new escape

So there are only a few days left in my vacation until I have to go back to the slave labor that is clinics. I want to say that I'm really excited to go back but really, I've had such a relaxing time on vacation that I kind of want another week off. I think once I get back in the swing of things it won't be so depressing. Its not the work that I'm not looking forward to, its the people and the drama. My new resolution is to stay out of trouble and out of drama! You heard it here first. Now lets see if I can actually do that. Lets ask the magic 8 ball:

"My sources say no."

Crap.

Well a girl can try can't she? A friend from college used to say: "drama free is the way to be." Thats going to be my new motto.

Actually, I'm kind of excited about the group that I'm going into Anesthesiology with. They're all people that I know I get along with.

Right now I'm sitting in a little coffee place near my apartment. Its my new safe haven. So far it seems like few undergrads frequent the place which is awesome. Its an older and more hippie crowd. I'm not really a hippie but I do appreciate the quiet atmosphere. Although, fall semester hasn't started yet and once September hits everything might change. But for now its a nice place to study anesthesiology and listen to my Jason Mraz albums.