What I've learned this year.

So in response to Angie's invite, here are a few of the wonderful things I've learned this year as a Family Practice Intern:

Ditto to Angie's list, and I've learned....

- sometimes you don't know the answer, and sometime your upperlevel and attending don't know either, and sometimes the answer is irrelevant anyways.

- communication is key (with other docs, nurses, patients, families, secretaries, RTs, etc.)

- when in doubt, ask for help.

- when in doubt, don't let the med student do it.

- discuss code status in terminal patients.

- sometimes stopping to eat is more important than patient care. (you can't care for other if you don't care for yourself right?)

- the importance of staying informed about every patient I'm involved with. (ie. it's best to know if the mom had a C-Section, vaginal delivery, normal baby, sick baby or stillbirth before entering her room)

- complaining does not change things and usually does not make you feel better either.

- while carrying five different pocket manuals around in the white coat pockets is a great security blanket, it will also give you significant neck and back pain... and do I really use them that often anyways?

- to value my vacation time and days off and use that time wisely.

- it's almost impossible to read your scriptures every day as an intern, and it IS impossible to go to church every week... but it's worth trying.

- medicine is truly a profession of life-long learning. Patients, procedures, diseases, and treatments change every day!!

My First Prescription

The first prescription I did not even write... it was for GoLytely. I was doing pre-op exams for patients getting colonoscopies. So everyone got a prescription for a gallon of the laxative that cleans out your entire colon so that we can stick a camera up and look for polyps! Guaranteed to have you sitting on the toilet for hours! So I stamped the prescription pad with the "GoLytely" stamp, placed a patient label on the top and just signed my name on the bottom line.