Day 1-3

Well I made it to the first day!! Boarded the trolly about 7:30 am for my 10 min ride to Carilion Memorial. Most people at this time of the morning are riding the trolly into town, I am riding away. Carilion Memorial has over 12,000 employees, so parking at other facility sites is limited. Carilion a few years ago started paying for this trolley system in Roanoke to help this parking crisis. There are many administrative offices as well as outpatient clinics around town. Many!! So the trolly helps to eliminate this parking crisis. Back to my story. Arrived at Carilion and met my co-fellows. Patrick fresh out of PA school grew up in North Carolina but moved to Roanoke 3 yrs ago for PA school. Amber, a PA from North Carolina, used to live near Seattle as a child. We walked into the board room to have a Mac Box sitting on our desk with a brand new Mini Ipad, a running jacket, a backpack, and a binder. I was blown away...and Ipad. Oh and P.S. Our brand new Iphones will be here Friday or Monday. WOW!! Of course I love the technology so I was super excited. "Its all to enhance our learning." Next we met with a psychologist for 2 hours to help analyze our personality. Actually was pretty cool. I had a feeling they would want to ditch me after analyzing my personality...They warned us what kind of people we will have conflict with and how to deal with these people. They teach you to recognize personalities rather then getting upset. We learned to cater to different personalities. Guess this could be helpful with difficult patients and staff members.  Got to meet with someone who gave us all the numbers and stats on patients. Get this...on Monday Carilion Memorial Hospital Emergency Department saw 270 patients!!! I thought 120 patients was crazy. They see an average of 250 per day with over 20% being admitted (guess that is high). Don't tell Adam (they accept all transfer patients and hold them in the ED calling it the TBA unit (to be admitted) until they have a bed. After all this, the head guy took us all out for drinks and appetizers. Great end to a first day. 

Wednesday we began the day by learning LPs, Intubations, Central Lines, and Chest Tubes. Okay little credit back to the doctors. Not as easy as it looks. Don't tell them. Pretty sure I will be the worst intubater ever as my left arm was shaking so hard as I am trying to hold the "Mac" (curved like the c in Mac) and Miller (strait like the l in miller) and shove the tube down the right hole. Its kind of like placing a foley...you got to get all the stuff out of the way to see the right hole. The girl who taught us was a senior ED resident that was awesome. She told us the "quick and dirty" of what we need to do to get the job done. Reality check, I need to start lifting weights so I can see the chords. Don't think Mat will let me practice the whole intubation thing on him. Later we met with HR to sign up for benefits. Okay, ready....how much or benefits per pay period for Mat and I together. $200? $400? Nope! $44 per pay period. I thought the lady was joking. I was blown away. She didn't think I was so funny. And free gym membership (2 gyms in town Carilion owns, 7,000 square feet each, indoor and outdoor pool, plus two smaller gyms downtown.) So not a bad two days.

Today, Thursday was didactic day. 8 hours of pure learning! I took the trolly again. Love this whole transportation thing. Today I walked out my front door to see the trolly at the stoplight which means I had 30 seconds to run a 2 min walk. And...I had a dress on and highheel boots. I went sprinting down the street, around the corner chasing the trolly. It was five minutes early! The security guard that I met the other day told me "slow down" in her southern accent, "they still have to unload." Then one man told me running in my dress "was f-ing hot." Oh boy. Then a homeless man (seriously its like riding with the folks from the Mission or the Carlile to Carilion) introduced himself and told me his fascination for forensics, multiple times. Each morning they all get off at this unmarked brick building. Today...I found out it is the outpatient psych unit. LOL. Now it all makes sense. I got to go to case review with the 20 ED residents for Carilion. They went over some great cases. "Oh how the nurses always triage sick patients to a level 5, and don't always believe what the nurses say." They got many eye rolls from me I am sure. I wanted to say, "tell me about a time with a nurse saved your butt." Like when you ordered aspirin IV? They then took us out to lunch with the CEO who was amazing! She was a nurse for 30 years. She makes things happen! Then had lecture from an MD about the eyeball, headaches by the medical director, and how to make good medical decisions. During the last lecture I see my phone buzz from Mat, "Bad News." I couldn't text him back as there were only 3 of us in this lecture. Make me wait 2 hours for bad news!! Well Mat has to go buy a toolbelt (that was the bad news) as he got a job today. He will work for a family owned construction company as a "Field Service Technicion." He explains it as a "handyman." So excited as this is right up his alley. He wears nice clothes and gets his own van. I will take a picture on his first day. No worries!! 

We are finding time to enjoy some warm weather (sorry it has been so cold there) by running and wearing out Miley. Missing our family and friends! Mat's mom and grandma come this weekend. We are excited to see familiar faces.