I lost my streak today. I was dopplering the wrong side to find the fetal heart rate. Though now that I think about it, maybe I wasn’t really doing it right before. I just learned today how to distinguish between listening to the cord and listening to the heart itself, and there were definitely times before when I was just listening to the cord and thought that was enough, which in a way it is for the purpose of just getting an FHR reading, but it’s not as satisfying. At one point when I got the heart itself right away my attending said, “I’m so proud of you.” Which may have had a tinge of sarcasm to it (if you met if you’d get what I’m sayin), but it still felt good.
I also did my first real bimanual exam today. That’s all I have to say about that.
What I keep getting tested on though, and keep failing is being able to say what kind of follow-up/ next step is needed for different Pap smear results. I think I’ve gotten close to covering them all (by getting them all wrong) though so, we’ll see how I do tomorrow.
Honestly though I know it’s only day 4, and really only day 3 of actually seeing patients, but I’m still able to stay pretty motivated throughout the day. When patients don’t want a medical student to come in on the visit, the MA will put a little sticky not on the door that says, “NO STUDENT :'(” and while I understand it also makes me a bit sad and I go sulk at my computer pretending to be productive. I hope by next week I maybe can start to be a bit more independent and maybe see some patients on my own. At least for the simple, uncomplicated prenatal visits I pretty much have his script down pat. We’ll see though, I still have a lot to learn.
I had breakfast this morning, which is unusual for me, but it was because I was meeting an old DWW friend who is from the area before heading to clinic. It was nice being able to catch up and get the low-down on Visalia and Tulare County in general. I had the eggs benedict and a coffee. It was good.
I skipped lunch cause of breakfast but did go to another coffeeshop close to the clinic. For dinner I made sinigang after I got home.
Tomorrow we are back to didactics with the school in the morning; back to COVID Zoom school yaaay.
nANIMOv 