And Then I Got Lost Going to the Changeroom

So, I saw an elderly lady have an indwelling catheter being put in today. In fact, I was the one to hold her feet together so her legs would spread apart for ease of access. I was surprised to see they didn't have her anesthetized whilst putting the catheter in (or maybe she was and I just didn't realize) but she didn't seem to have any pain from it.

There is nothing more terrifying than being a medical student in some sort of clinical setting where there's a bunch of older, smarter doctors and the room is small. Everyone is doing something and you feel like you're in everyone's way. You don't know how to do even the simplest things. The anesthetist asked me to unlatch the brakes for the bed and I didn't even know how to do that. You don't know whether or not you should ask questions because it could either show enthusiasm and interest or be annoying. You don't know where to stand, what to do with your hands. You don't know if you should even talk to the patient because that could be interpreted wrongly.

You're so acutely aware of how incompetent and inexperienced you are and you feel like everyone is thinking to themselves, "Well damn, how did she get to third year?"

That being sad, spending today in the operating theatre (for the first time) was amazing. It's fascinating to see anatomy we've learnt from lecture slides and cadavers being put into practice (note to self: adult spinal cord ends at L1. That was the only question I was quizzed on by one of the docs and I said L4/5. Fml).

The thing about being a shitty medical student (and by shitty I mean very inexperienced, incompetent and potentially a "danger to the patient." Never forget) is that you seriously don't know what to do and, to be frank, the doctors who are "overseeing you" really don't care about you. There is no spoonfeeding. They let you loose. You don't know where to go or if you're meant to follow them. They're not going to say to you, "Okay, come with me." You either go with them or you don't. They don't care which you do (well, they probably do but you can't tell what they want). You're like this fly. Your place in the clinical setting is so up in the air. You're not helpful yet but you've been at uni long enough that they are justified in quizzing you on questions and expecting some knowledge.

It's a really scary place to be in. But it's still pretty cool.

Another thing about doctors and nurses is that a shit tonne of them are hard as hell. They're just not nice. Oh, they're very nice to the patient but to the med student? It's a different story. It's not that they're mean, per se. It's just that they're strict. They have expectations of you. They refuse to coddle you or soften the blow with kind words. They have egos the size of my breakfast bowl of porridge (and that's big).

I saw a nurse/doctor interaction today of great interest. The doctor was a hardass but she was young. The nurse was hard as fucking hell. I didn't even know where to look when they "disagreed." I was just glad I wasn't the cause of the disagreement.

There was, however, a really, really nice male doctor who was just really, really nice to me. He actually smiled and greeted me when I walked in. He mouthed the answer, "L1," to me after I got the answer wrong to the spinal cord question with this big goofy smile on his face. When he saw me silently panicking about the fact that I didn't know how to unlatch the brakes on the bed, he did it for me without a word (and without the other doctor who'd asked me noticing). He was such a calming presence for me because it felt like I had someone on my side in that room.

J