I'm a Fickle Ghost

Alright, it's been a while, but I have been busy. Well, mostly. Five days a week at the hospital from 0630 to 1500 and four days a week at school from 1530 to 2200. So, a little busy. Anyway, I haven't had a lot to talk about. I can't really talk about the surgeries I am seeing--and I am seeing quite a few, mostly general--and there isn't a whole lot else going on in my life.

I has become evident that I will need a second job. I'm going to have to pay about $2,500 to the school next semester. If I can't find some sort of supplement income via scholarship or grant, I'm going to have to make it myself. So, here's hoping I can find a part time gig that will fit my increasingly cramped schedule. Although, I really can't even begin to start looking because I am still in the orientation period at work, and I don't actually know how long that will last. Someone said something around a month, but nothing has been confirmed. Anyway, it would make it really tough for me to schedule interviews, seeing as the only weekday time I have free is Friday evenings. So maybe I'll browse for a while?

I don't know, but I am still a little behind on bills as it is, so I'm definitely going to have to find secondary work. Sucks.

Grades are still good, though. So, that's something.

Gee, this is a ridiculously boring and tedious first entry back. My bad, guys. Don't you hate it when you have nothing profound to say?

I've decided that I am going to start running, because I have always wanted to be a runner and it's about time I get over my fear of dying of asthma whilst trying to sprint it away. I just need to start. Build up my strength and my lungs will follow suit. Or so everyone tells me.

Now I just have to convince my body to get out of bed at five am to do so. Told myself the past two days that I was going to try and ended up automatically, as if by deeply instilled habit, shutting off that alarm until five-thirty and sleeping through those last minutes. I should probably not do that tomorrow.

I'm a little worried that it will exhaust me completely in the beginning and I will hardly make it through work, let alone school, and, oh, the other four days of the week. Especially since I've apparently decided to give up caffeine. It's not like a total, cold-turkey thing. The truth is, and this sounds crazy coming from me, the freaking caffeine aficionado over here, but I haven't been drinking it all that much anyway. In fact, since my departure from Starbucks, my caffeine consumption has exponentially declined from sixteen shots a day of expresso to maybe a sixteen ounce Americano, if I can drink it all before it becomes cold and unloving. I was buying it and not drinking it and I thought to myself, you're dumb. So, I just stopped buying it. And, since I've basically been weaned off of it over a five-year period, I haven't really had any headaches or other side effects--except being tired. And, incidentally, I have been falling asleep faster and staying asleep all night. That's pretty neat. Six hours is actually doing it for me, whereas before I felt like I couldn't get enough sleep. I am also going to go ahead and attribute some of that to the exercise I am now getting everyday chasing people around the OR--which, FYI, is actually quite large, square-foot-wise.

So, yeah, things are alright. And I think that maybe now is the time to start running. I'll be going out early in the mornings before it gets too hot, so even if this nice spring weather only lasts a week--as it is wont to do--it shouldn't be too bad. It's not like it could be any more conveniently laid out for me, I just need to get up and do it. So, that's my goal tomorrow--and honestly, my only real goal. I'll get my ass up and go for a walk. Probably not a run yet. Maybe I'll try to once or twice, or even venture to go along--for a little while--with my Couch to 5k app. Maybe.

I guess I'll figure that out around five in the morning tomorrow.

In other news, I am looking at anesthesiology in a completely different light than I did two years ago. I swear, the more I learn about the specialty, the more I like it. I'm actually kind of becoming torn between surgical specialties and anesthesiology. Luckily I have a while to figure it out.

There is this thing called a CRNA. It's a nurse with a BSN and critical care experience--usually one to two years in an ICU--who went to a school for two to three years to specialize in anesthesiology. I, obviously, went ahead and did a little research, because I thought for a minute that it could be a viable option (until I heard about the years in the ICU. I'm sorry, but I am not strong enough to be a nurse. I just don't have the constitution) and I learned that they are the oldest nursing profession and also the highest paid. In fact, nurses have been administering anesthesia for decades longer than doctors. Physicians just came around to practicing anesthesia in the last, what, seventy years? That's a little crazy. I actually found that a little shocking. That's what I get for underestimating nurses once again--see, guys, this is why I can't be one.

Anyway, they can do all types of anesthesia, from general to blocks and epidurals and whathaveyou. But, they can't practice any other medicine. I mean, they can be nurses, but outside of the OR, they don't have any other privileges--or so I have found from research, if you know different, tell me! Unlike physicians, they do not write orders or run codes or work in the PACU, ICUs, or on the pain management teams. They just fly the plane. Essentially, they keep you alive while you're on the table and get you over to the people who will continue to do so in the various wards of the hospital post-op, but they aren't physicians and can only work independently in the OR. And, though they can be completely autonomous, I know at my hospital they are closely monitored by an MD/DO when they first administer the agent. As cool as it sounds to be a CRNA, I don't think it's for me, because I don't think I can dedicate the next seven/eight years of my life--approximately the amount of time I'll be spending on undergrad and med school anyway--just to do one thing. Just to specialize in one particular area. Granted, I do think if I chose anesthesia that I will prefer the OR setting--it is my happy place--the thing I love about the idea of an MD is that they can constantly be learning if they so desire. Sure, medicine gives you vast opportunity to become a specialist and spend decades honing that craft, and that is very admirable and cool. But it also has the potential to give you insight and practice in multiple specialties. I mean, say I do become an anesthesiologist and I spend my first five years out of residency in the OR, what if I want to go back to critical care in the ICU setting, because I need a change of pace or because of a life change? I can apply for fellowships, I can change cities, I can learn and hone a new craft.

Sure, all of this is probably highly idealogical. I mean, at a certain point most people settle into what they are doing because it is habit or comfortable and fits their growing family and lifestyle. They don't want to compete anymore. They don't want to be a student anymore. I will probably fall into this category someday. (I actually am getting closer, year by year. Last year I was still alright with the idea of seven to ten years, post med school graduation, of surgical residency to become a heart doc, but more and more the idea of four years of anesthesia residency seems so much less daunting and a lot more enjoyable, if only for the fact that anesthesiologists are typically more calm and cerebral than most surgeons. Plus, as I get older, I really kind of want to have kids, and man would that be easier to do if I wasn't constantly at the hospital cracking chests and opening abdomens. But then I feel like a sell-out. Ah, it's a catch-twenty-two. Well, sort of.) But, maybe I won't. I mean, this is me we're talking about. I change my mind on the hour sometimes. What if I want to have that opportunity? Sure, I could do it as a nurse, but here's the kicker: if I keep going to school as a nurse, I would have to pay for it each time. Take classes each time. Work crazy hours each time. And, if I am going to do that, shouldn't I do better? Shouldn't I get paid to be a student? Shouldn't I be a resident, or a fellow? Shouldn't I be a doctor?

Now!, don't take any of this as a rail against nurses. I honestly don't think I have the gall to be one, and I don't think I have the joy either. The nurses I know personally are some of the toughest bitches I've ever met and also the most genuinely kind people I know. They are right up there with the best of the paramedics (another job I have completely decided I never want to do as a career). I just don't think nurse is the right route for me.

Plus, you know, I'd have MD after my name. How cool is that?!

Anyway, I say this knowing full well that I have ages to figure this out and that I am nowhere close to having to decide. Things change, and so do I. Right now I can't see myself loving anything outside of the OR. I love the OR and I always will, I think. Yes, I am starting to think that I love WATCHING surgery more than I might love PRACTICING surgery, but that doesn't rule it out yet and anyway, I think I'd still rather do that than be an internist. And I don't want to be an ER doc. And I don't see myself diving headfirst into gynecology--although, I'd actually probably prefer this to internist or ER (it has surgery, too, you know. For the retrieving of the babies and the lady parts and whathaveyou). But, I can't know. I can't know right now, so I don't even know why I am thinking about it.

But, I am, because that is what I think about. Because I am highly task oriented. My mind is on my future, where I am going, what I will be doing, who I will be, all of the time always. Unless I'm in a math class or something. Then I think about math.

Man I need a social life.

Anyway, that's that for today. I'll try to do more from now on, but who knows when they next one will be. See you then.

Every Hour I Change My Mind