I made a difference - FINALLY

So, I've finished up my 2nd week of my 8 week surgery rotation - and thus have also just finished up my second call night. I showed up to the hospital at 5:30 AM on Thursday morning & left the hospital 32 hours later at 1:30 PM on Friday afternoon. I came home, told Jezabell hello, call my sister-in-law to tell her Happy Birthday & then feel asleep for 10 hours. Except for the lack of sleep thing, I actually like the nights when I'm on call. There are mostly interns & residents there & they let you do more things & procedures. Last night I got to drive the camera for a laproscopic procedure for one of the chief residents, I got to stitch up a patient after surgery (I took forever & the entire OR staff was yelling at the intern supervising me because they wanted to turn over the OR room), I got to work with the anesthesia team & try to intubate two different patients for surgery, & got to work up a consult patient for my team.

All of these activies were "good & dandy" - but it was a simple bedside procedure where I was able to shine. The mid-level resident & intern were busy performing the procedure and my call partner was busy grabbing the necessary equipment for them - which left me as an observor. Since this procedure only required local anesthetic, the patient was alert & awake. After a minute into the procedure, we all realized that local anesthetic was not going to be adequate to control all the pain, so our patient grabbed her mom's hand & the residents hand and persevered. She only had one demand "TALK TO ME!" Our resdient began to describe what the intern was doing, but she stopped him and said "NO, don't tell me what you're doing - TALK about something else." This is where I stepped in and proceded to converse with this girl for the next thirty minutes about anything & everything. At the end, our patient told us that the procedure we had just performed was more painful than childbirth - but then she looked at me & said "thanks for talking me through this." That simple gesture has helped this exhausted & overwhelmed 3rd year medical student to refocus & improve my attitude. . .so, no. . .thank you!