a slow, slow day

So there is a question - what's a surgeon that doesn't get to cut or treat injured people: A bored, depressed, hall wandering someone... Surgeons and wannabe surgeons need to have frequent access to the OR! It's like an addiction and you all might know what happens if you deprive a junkee of his drugs.... They go crazy. So yesterday was a day when I desperately needed some OR time and nothing happened all day. I didn't even get to see patients in the morning, because once again the chase behind the intern has started.... I don't want to get to the Hospital at 4 in the morning just to make sure that I actually do get so one or two patients before the intern sees them. That would be insane. It didn't even help much telling him the day before that I wanted to see two particular patients and that he did not have to see them.... This was not a good start to a long day. I need a daily dose of patient contact! (otherwise I will just have too much time to think about who I really miss most being so far away from Germany....) Rounds were sort of intersting, at least we didn't just sit around waiting for people to come into the ER. But once rounds were over, time didn't want to go by. There was just nothing to do. Kosair did have quite a lot of surgeries and that did keep me busy quite a bit, but actually I did enjoy that a whole lot more than sitting around waiting for an Emergency to happen. Not even the ICU had anything interesting to offer. And studying in a crowded room did not really work that well either.... I tried to keep myself busy, but when you got nothing to do, being sleep deprived and far away from a loved one is really hard to deal with. But I got to admit there was one slight moment of excitment when we got called to the ER for a consult on a patient that had lost conciousness while holding a sharp knife. But the knife didn't even go all the way through her subcutanoius belly fat.... So not quite as exciting as it sounded at first, and definetely not exciting with three med students arounds..... I want to do stuff and not just watch! When I finally got to go home after having spend almost 6hours just sitting around, I got out into grey Louisville winter weather.... That didn't really raise my spirits. Back home I studied for a little while, watched some TV and went to bed early just hoping for this slow slow day to be over quickly and hopefully waking up to a better day.... And today did turn out to be better. I had something to do in the morning, not just chase interns/residents, and since today was a post call day for my trauma team I got to leave after rounds, cause there was nothing else to do and the resident taking care of our patients today did fortunately realize that. So I got to leave before noon and had lunch with Tim and Deb at Papa John's!!!! That was great and in addition to that the sun was out today. It was cold, but sunny. And that puts the whole world into a different perspective!!!! Back home I didn't need to crash right away and worry about not getting enough sleep at night because I still had things to do. It felt good to catch up on important Emails, making some phone calls, clean up a little and then study for a while... It was an afternoon like I hadn't had it for quite a while, but definetely needed! Tonight I will go to bed a lot more satisfied and I already know that I will have things to do tomorrow, because I will be the only senoir in the ICU. That does mean that I have to get up 3.30 again, but I it also means that I will have work to do!!!!! During those past few days, I did realize how nice it was to have been the only student at Kosair for three weeks! I had to work more, but I never got bored and had to sit around waiting for things to happen......