Personal Narrative: Heading To The Medical Office

Katlynn was out of the hospital after about a week and a half. All of us girls cleaned the house spotless upon her arrival. That may not sound like much, but we were young girls that lived on a farm, so being messy was pretty much our thing. Katlynn came home and we all showered her with hugs. The first week she was home we watched her like a hawk, trying not to make it noticeable. Since Kate got out of the hospital she has to take pills every morning and night, and she had to make a trip to Mason city twice a year. Today she only goes once a year because she hasn’t suffered a seizure since. There have been a few scares here and there, though. It’s been seven and a half years since that terrible day, and Kate’s doing great. She is at the age

My second clinic rotation is internal medicine and I’ve had many encounters, both with patients and colleagues, which have made me pause and reflect. One of those encounters, in particular, will still be on my mind long after I finish typing this reflective journal. The patient at the center of it all is a lady I’ll refer to from here on as “Mrs. Flowers.” Mrs. Flowers is an 81 year old female with dementia and diabetes. She arrived on our unit with a diabetic foot infection that had progressed from a simple toe ulcer to wet gangrene. Over the last 2-3 months, gangrenous changes encompassed the distal half of her left foot. During pre-rounds, our medical team unanimously agreed that we would contact surgery for a consult. At time, it was obvious

Week three in clinical was difficult for me, I had a great experience overall but I hated seeing and holding a baby that had passed away at 21 weeks. To know what the family could possibly be going through was heartbreaking. I wouldn’t exactly know what to do if I was with the patient and her family exactly. I do know that I did place her in the room when she was admitted to triage. I do feel good about seeing the scenario play out, while being a student rather than being in the field alone. Other than that I was able to see the beginning stage of labor as well as a C-section. Everyone was so bent out of shape on making sure I eat and that I don’t faint, but it seriously wasn’t bad. As a matter of fact I was too intrigued with the mother rather

What a horrible horrible day it was. It all started the first day of 6th grade here at Memorial Middle School. My mom walked in with me to get my schedule because we didn’t go to open house. I went up to my protime and it was in the art room with Mrs. Teerink. My mom sat down at a table with me and I was really scared and embarrassed. Then, to make it even worse, I started bawling my eyes out. While a lot of people walked in, and by a lot of people it was like 20, but it felt like it was a million.

During my time shadowing physicians, I have realized that physicians need to be expert listeners in order to effectively assess a patient and fully understand their problems. I observed that the more a physician actively listens to their patients, patients trust their physician and can openly express any further troubles. My upbringing has given me the ability to be an effective listener. Raised in a quasi-conservative Indian household, I learned to carefully listen to everything my elders have to say. As a physician, I will take advantage of this skill to be an active listener for my patients and be able to better implement the appropriate treatment plans.

Getting into the specialty center would mean a lot to me. I love art and want to learn more about how I could improve to become better and better. I have always wanted to become a famous artist or just any regular art teacher when I grow older throughout the years. My favorite art media to use is just using pencil or making objects out of clay. I take art as a way of focusing on what you feel by not physically talking it out like an art therapist. It gives me confidence knowing that what I feel like doing is the best thing for me to do.

On Thursday June 14, 2017, I had to return a page from the emergency room (ER) doctor for and admit. When I returned the page the ER doctor wanted to admit a patient with stage 4 brain cancer that was a DNR for hospice care. I told the ER doctor that this was not an appropriate because this patient needed and wanted hospice care and that the hospitalist did not need to be involved. The ER doctor proceeded to tell me that I don’t want to do my job and I need to admit the patient so he could get the care that he needed. When he told me that over the phone I almost lost my cool and professionalism in a matter of seconds. I hung up the phone and walked down to the ER. I went into the patient room and spoke to the family members and they told me

Today in clinical, I offered a male patient to perform a full bed bath. It was my first time performing a full bed bath on a male and the thought of this made me feel a little nervous because I had only practiced this task in the simulation lab and the thought of performing peri-care on the male gender was intimidating. I began to gather my items and throughly think about how I would normally perform a bed bath on a female and the difference of genital areas. As I brought the items into the room, my patient was friendly and helpful in directing his preferences of which areas he wanted to be washed first. His friendly personality made me calm down in a situation where I would normally be on my toes, as I was not thinking about my

On November 30th, 2015, I ventured to the Santa Monica Convalescent Center to spend time with patients in the dementia ward. At first, I thought I would not enjoy spending almost two hours with people who were unable to be cognitively present due to varying degrees of dementia and Alzheimer’s, which impairs their ability to retain memories and sometimes returns them to an almost baby-like mindset. However, I soon formed several bonds with many of the residents there. A woman named Kathy, a volunteer from nearby Presbyterian church, handed out copies of well known Christian hymns and soon everyone was chiming in as best as they could. I then sat down across from a woman named Alice and asked her about her life. She is an elderly African American woman who answered my questions with very opinionated and interesting answers.

My first clinical I felt my greatest accomplishment was not being shy and hesitant. The first day we had clinical was the first day that I got the opportunity to float to another floor, I was very nervous at first. Going into a new place for anyone is different at first because you don’t know what to expect. I think what made my experience so great was the endoscopy nurses and doctors, they were some of the nicest and helpful people I’ve met so far. I got a wonderful opportunity to learn next to the doctors doing the procedures and also see other roles of the healthcare team like the nurse anesthesiologist.

Today was the second day of my 6-week placement at Ward 3A-Logan Hospital, I have originally been paired with a demand casual pool RN, however, the said RN is not confident enough to handle me as her student nurse at the time. After the scrum at 7am, and the handover on the 4-bed bay + sides, I politely ask her if I could take one patient as it was one of the instructions of my CF during the orientation on day 1, but I was answered with “I’m not really familiar with the area and I’m from the demand casual pool...” Having sighted my CF at the corridors, I excused myself from the RN and discussed the matter to my CF, and she allowed me to be buddied with a very good EN, informing me that “she is an EN” before letting me to the bay and introducing me to my new buddy EN.

It is a quarter to 10 o clock when I find myself driving steadily in the pitch black darkness of night on the freeway. My father is sitting uncomfortably in the passenger seat next to me and the entirety of the situation is extremely disquieting. Every couple of minutes I shudder at the sound of his cough. Not only does it sound and look agonizing but the sudden outbursts startle me every once in a while. The ride however does not proceed without dialogue as my father periodically gives me directions. Without them I feel I would not know how navigate to our destination on my own as I am still an inexperienced driver. We are on our way to the emergency room on what would have been an otherwise stale, uneventful school night. The whole time worst

Like any other experience I had in a clinical setting, I must say it is always short lived. I thought that I would have a difficult time in the class as well as the clinical setting. Class has been difficult for me, but clinical seem to be a great learning experience. The fact that I had a teacher that is passionate about her specialty was even better than I imagined. Sometimes its intimidating to ask questions that may come off as dumb or too simple to ask to her, but she can help you conquer your fears and weaknesses. I still wish that we could just have more time, and more learning experiences so I can get a better feel of the specialty. I know that OB isn't for me, but I did enjoy learning a in depth experience of it. I never know what

I was very nervous before I went to the floor. I had no idea what have to do and how to start my day with my patient. When I first entered to onto the floor I realized the unit was little different than the usual floor. The floor was so quiet and basically there very few people were outside of the room. Once we got a tour of the unit I got to attend group with some patients. I was still nervous and lots of thought were running in my mind. I was looking for my patient and trying to figured out how should I talked to her so she feels comfortable with me. My actual patient was trying to ignore me, so I sat in the room with other patient and started to talk to one patient. I was feeling confident as I started to talk to her, because she was responding

Today started as a normal day. I woke up at four to get ready for my shift. Being a doctor doesn't have the best schedule. You go in when they tell you and you can't leave until they say so. To me saving lives is worth it otherwise i wouldn't have dealt with college. On my commute to work i made my usual stop at the local coffee shop and continued on. As i was approaching the hospital my pager went off, it was my boss telling me that someone was going in for an emergency operation and that i was needed in the operation room as soon as possible. I ran the rest of the way and got into my scrubs as soon as i could. When i got the the operation room they had already started so i went to get some info from the nurses. According to one of them the patient was a fifty