this is for those of u that keep askin for our clinical experiences

well i started my surgery critical care elective this past monday...
ive spent the week in the trauma surg icu...
the week already feels like a mth.. the electives 4 weeks long.. (1 down 3 to go)...

im at a great place.. its a level 1 trauma center.. helicopter brings in major trauma from the surrounding area....

ive been in the middle of many many gold and trauma alerts.. from the patient being unloaded off the helicopter.. to the trauma room.. to the OR.. and then follow up in the icu...

today for example we had 2 gold alerts and 2 trauma alerts at the same time .. once we finally made it through these 4.. another 4 trauma alerts were announced.. its a never ending story.... (btw.. gold alerts are unstable trauma pts.. and trauma alerts are stable pts)

have seen many crazy MVAs.. all sorts of stuff that ud think ud only see on tv.....

its been very interesting to see how the trauma surgeons and neurosurg, and ortho and urology etc.. etc.. all come together in the trauma room...

so far this week ive been able to put in a few IJ lines.. couple subclavians.... 3 chest tubes and sutured closed half a dozen lacerations from car accidents to stab wounds...

typical day involves gettin in to the hospital around 5 or 6am..
print out the pt census in the icu..
get labs..
read films on the computer... and then go exam the pts on our service and write notes..
by the time 7.30 rolls around.. go over the pts with the resident on the trauma surg service... then we round with the attending who is absolultely brilliant.. hes a surgery critical care doc.. part of his training was under the doc that invented positive pressure support on vents... anyways.. hes great.. he teaches all the time..
after rounds write orders... for labs or imaging needed.. drop any lines that need to be put in...
and monitor everything..

frequently the morning is interrupted by traumas being brought into the hospital.. so end up rounding later in the afternoon...

call is q4... hang out with the intern.. and do the workups, consults, h&ps on pts being admitted.. etc.. etc.. typical stuff...

hospital is great... the provide us with pagers..we have 24 hour access to the library.. can sign out text books for a mth at a time.. housing is part of the hospital.. theres plenty of time to read when not busy... theres conferences every day which are surprisingly interesting.. usually conferences are really boring and are a good time to catch up on sleep.. but the ones ive been to here so far have been pretty good.,.. especially the weekly m&m conferences...

the residents are great.. know what they are doin.. totally give you autonomy.. have let me do many procedures already.. and have walked me through the entire process....


the program gives you access to the training tools used by the residents.. like the dummy used to practice intubation... laproscopic simulators.. pseudo skin foam to practice suturing etc.. etc..,

time flies by here.. so far so good...

awesome.

thanks for sharing.

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veritatem dies aperit

Sounds like you stay fairly busy so thanks for taking a few moments to give that insight.

well i understand how important it is for everyone still in basic sciences to hear wht clinicals are all about because i know when we were down there it was such a mystery.. had no idea what itd be like...

but rest assured.. its really fun.. and totally different from the way basic sciences are..

so yeah... u all have a lot to look forward to

thanks studentmd for telling us your experience. You said a couple of your friends from the charter batch got into a residency, could you ask them if they can stop by valuemd and write about there experiences at mua and passing the usmle and also there experiences for the match

well i would but they just not into that..
plus they either started residency early.. so they busy...
or they just busy finishin off last weeks of clinicals...

ill try and ask em..
but i kinda doubt ull get much of a response...

ull get to understand how things can get busy and hectic once u get to this point...