Anesthesia school is a 2-year marathon.
When you feel tired and beat up, you just have to keep going. Just keep going to clinical.
Anyways, I just wanted to announce a couple of things.
First, I’m done with my second semester and I’m onto my third semester. I took a week off for a family vacation in between the semester. It was definitely much needed. This semester is supposedly better in some ways. For example, there are less OR jitters compared to the 1st semester. But going to a new clinical site presents its own challenges (a new anesthesia machine, new charting system, different drug dispensing, different protocols, different equipment, different labels, different drug vials and doses, new names and faces, not knowing where anything is, new surgeons, new procedures, different patient population, etc). Now we’re going strong by going to clinical 4 days a week and 1 day of class (and my, that day is 10 hours long!!). When I look back at what I knew in October versus now, it is a huge difference. It’s incredible.
This semester there’s a couple of focuses: research, emergency management, regional anesthesia. I’m pretty pumped. I’ve come far but there’s still much more to go. Resiliency has never been more important than now.
Second, as of yesterday, I’ve done 100 successful intubations. It’s a great feeling.
Third, thanks to everyone who’s been writing me positive messages about the blog, supporting me through the flashcard purchases, and anyone who’s enjoyed reading my blog. I see that each month there are more visitors and visits than the next, despite me not updating it as frequently as I used to.
Fourth, happy nurses week again.
Fifth, congrats to those who got into the UM-Flint nurse anesthesia program. It was nice meeting some of you and I’m sure we’ll meet again soon enough!
I have to go now. Until next time,
Jessica