Children get lots of ear infections. I know I used to as a young kid, and in general I've seen several people come in complaining of that lately. I never thought about it until a few weeks ago, but I realized that at "some" point I'd more or less stopped getting ear infections entirely. Why was that?
It turns out that children have smaller Eustachian tubes (little tubes linking the pharynx to the middle ear) in their ears than adults, and that the tubes are more level than in adults as well. These conditions combine to make it hard for fluid to drain from a child's ear - especially when the tube is partially filled with mucus or another substance. This creates an ideal condition for bacteria to be trapped, starting a middle ear infection (otitis media).
This isn't actually the first thing I've learned from my job, but it's the first thing that hit me as ::Oh! So that's why that happened!:: I think I'll try to put down future stuff on here occasionally that I find interesting. Especially since there's not too much else I can go on about without violating patient privacy laws or simply getting painfully repetitive.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
November Schedule
Well, there's no way of knowing how my schedule will keep working out in Dec/Jan/etc, but for November at least I've been able to get one that's entirely made up of 9pm and 10pm to 7am shifts, which is fantastic (doubly so, if I can keep that going for the next few months as well).
I should be a lot less exhausted with a fixed schedule. Even if it's one fixed at night like this. Plus, as I'm sure I've said before, I enjoy being around hospitals at night (always, really, but especially at night).
Whether I can make good use of the new schedule with studying remains to be seen. If I can't... problems. If I can, things might be looking up.
I should be a lot less exhausted with a fixed schedule. Even if it's one fixed at night like this. Plus, as I'm sure I've said before, I enjoy being around hospitals at night (always, really, but especially at night).
Whether I can make good use of the new schedule with studying remains to be seen. If I can't... problems. If I can, things might be looking up.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
What do they call someone who got a 70 in Med School?
A: A doctor.
Words of encouragement from a nice Doctor who had the night shift after I had just passed my training (yay! I passed~) on the lower end of the score requirement (not 70, since we needed an 82% to pass, but same idea). I didn't do all that bad, really. I don't want to overly criticize the test, since we're not supposed to criticize/talk about internal processes, plus it's not fair to since they're in the middle of rearranging the test. I'll just say that because of that rearrangement a few questions were asked multiple times and, for some reason, those mostly happened to be the questions I didn't know. So instead of getting -1, I got a few -2's for not knowing one thing.
Not to excuse me or anything - I'm still responsible for knowing the material whether it's asked one time or a hundred.
From now on there's just sort of a constant evaluation process I think, where the HPIs/forms I write up get randomly audited on a once (I think) per month basis, and an unknown doctor evaluates me once per month as well. So if I can do ok, and avoid making anyone dislike me, things are starting to look like they're going well (enough).
My biggest concern is getting to my studying now. My exam studying. As neat/fun/interesting as this job is, it's been a huge drain on my time completely incommensurate with the number of hours I've been working. Studying for the job, taking shifts at odd hours, and driving up to DC for my PT, and then back for a job, has resulted in me staying up for the better part of three days in a row at times, with little naps here and there. I'm hoping as of November I'll get a more consistent schedule, and I know I can officially ease up with the job-related studying now. But I still have to find/make self-study time.
My apartment still has little furniture. I'm giving increasingly serious thought to a sofa as a place of study because otherwise... I'm just doing it on the floor or something. And that's not conducive to studying at all. A table is probably less relaxed than a sofa, but I've not been too goo about working at tables previously; a little bit of coziness isn't all bad. It would have to be a pretty cheap sofa though...
Words of encouragement from a nice Doctor who had the night shift after I had just passed my training (yay! I passed~) on the lower end of the score requirement (not 70, since we needed an 82% to pass, but same idea). I didn't do all that bad, really. I don't want to overly criticize the test, since we're not supposed to criticize/talk about internal processes, plus it's not fair to since they're in the middle of rearranging the test. I'll just say that because of that rearrangement a few questions were asked multiple times and, for some reason, those mostly happened to be the questions I didn't know. So instead of getting -1, I got a few -2's for not knowing one thing.
Not to excuse me or anything - I'm still responsible for knowing the material whether it's asked one time or a hundred.
From now on there's just sort of a constant evaluation process I think, where the HPIs/forms I write up get randomly audited on a once (I think) per month basis, and an unknown doctor evaluates me once per month as well. So if I can do ok, and avoid making anyone dislike me, things are starting to look like they're going well (enough).
My biggest concern is getting to my studying now. My exam studying. As neat/fun/interesting as this job is, it's been a huge drain on my time completely incommensurate with the number of hours I've been working. Studying for the job, taking shifts at odd hours, and driving up to DC for my PT, and then back for a job, has resulted in me staying up for the better part of three days in a row at times, with little naps here and there. I'm hoping as of November I'll get a more consistent schedule, and I know I can officially ease up with the job-related studying now. But I still have to find/make self-study time.
My apartment still has little furniture. I'm giving increasingly serious thought to a sofa as a place of study because otherwise... I'm just doing it on the floor or something. And that's not conducive to studying at all. A table is probably less relaxed than a sofa, but I've not been too goo about working at tables previously; a little bit of coziness isn't all bad. It would have to be a pretty cheap sofa though...
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Is The Month Over Already?
Well that went fast. Way too fast. On the up-side I have a job I like and have learned a ton of things for it. On the downside, I'm going to be tested on those things in a week or so and need to make sure I do well enough to keep the job.
Between that, my move, and my adoption of a new cat/kitten (Her name's Ema, and she needs to go to the vet soon too...) I really haven't been able to get my "real" studying done. I've also had multiple problems with companies thinking bills are late because my change of address apparently didn't work properly, and my insurance company is now saying I owe some 30,000 dollars for my surgery (which I don't....) I have a lot of excuses, and feel that they're "good" (or as good as excuses can be) since all the stuff that's been keeping me busy lately has been necessary, but this is still starting to get problematic a bit; it's beginning to get worrisome at the very least.
At any rate. The plan is to keep focusing just on job stuff until my exam for that in a week, because I really couldn't deal with loosing this job through being unprepared. After that I'll turn my attention back towards my real studying. The upside here is that the necessary learning for my job started off steep, but really plateaus and I can relax once I get it all down. It's true that there's plenty more I can learn /through/ the job, but that's more a perk of the job than anything needed to /do/ the job. So if things work out here I know I'll need less time to study my for job, and will have that time back to study for my MCAT.
Between that, my move, and my adoption of a new cat/kitten (Her name's Ema, and she needs to go to the vet soon too...) I really haven't been able to get my "real" studying done. I've also had multiple problems with companies thinking bills are late because my change of address apparently didn't work properly, and my insurance company is now saying I owe some 30,000 dollars for my surgery (which I don't....) I have a lot of excuses, and feel that they're "good" (or as good as excuses can be) since all the stuff that's been keeping me busy lately has been necessary, but this is still starting to get problematic a bit; it's beginning to get worrisome at the very least.
At any rate. The plan is to keep focusing just on job stuff until my exam for that in a week, because I really couldn't deal with loosing this job through being unprepared. After that I'll turn my attention back towards my real studying. The upside here is that the necessary learning for my job started off steep, but really plateaus and I can relax once I get it all down. It's true that there's plenty more I can learn /through/ the job, but that's more a perk of the job than anything needed to /do/ the job. So if things work out here I know I'll need less time to study my for job, and will have that time back to study for my MCAT.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
My Move
Well, I haven't posted in awhile, but it's not for lack of happenings this time. It's just that I was without internet access until today while I waited on Comcast to get things set up in my new place (and it's still not entirely set up right, but I do have my cable now. Only need to figure out how to use the wifi to connect it to my tv and other things).
Anyways, I've been very busy lately. Moving in was pretty exhausting. There were a lot of boxes that had to go up three flights of stairs, which was a huge pain, although it will be worth it later. It's nice being on the top floor of places, and having no one thumping on your ceiling. My apartment is pretty well located as far as neighbors go, actually. To one side is a cable/satellite/mechanics room so I have no one on my right to bother (or who'd bother me), and because my apartment is in the corner of the building in a sort of broad V angle, I don't have anyone directly opposite me either. There's even a hallway to my left, so no one is on that side as well. The only people who'd bother me/I'd bother are those living below me, and that apartment could be empty for all I know.
The downside to all this is that my apartment lacks light. Because of the weird V shape it's forced into, it only gets direct light from 7-11 in the morning or so. On one hand that means I'll never have the glare problems of my old place. On the other hand... it does get a bit dark. It's ok though. It's a nice enough place, and would look great decorated. Decorating it is being postponed a bit though, because I drove my car into the sidewalk (don't ask how...) and will have to pay for a new bumper. The bumper's not damaged nearly so severely that it /must/ be replaced, but it looks tacky and I can't have that.
The moving process was tiring and exhausting, but when my family left afterwards, and nothing had to be moved anymore, it got so oddly quiet by contrast. It really felt pretty lonely and depressing that night, although everything is better now (although I'm still kind of living in the middle of nowhere).
I had a meeting at the hospital on the 10th, and got my ID badge, so I'm now officially good to go. I hadn't started real work yet because I was out of touch due to the move, but I expect I'll be able to get moving forward with that any day now and am looking forwards to it. I've been working on my MCAT studying as well, although a little bit less than I might have hoped. It's just been really busy lately though with the move, and I've been making a 4 hour round trip twice a week as well for physical therapy for my shoulder. But I have been getting some studying done. I've decided to go over physics first, since that was probably my weakest point.
I'm hoping to have my review of that done by the middle of October if possible, so I have enough time to get in a good overview of the other subjects as well. Then I'll start really narrowing down my studying in late winter/early spring, prior to the actual exam. But I need to start with a really broad overview of everything before I can find my weakest points.
That's it for now I think. I still have a lot of studying to do for my job as well; there's still 200 some terms and abbreviations I need to learn for training, along with all the procedures and forms I ought to familiarize myself with.
Anyways, I've been very busy lately. Moving in was pretty exhausting. There were a lot of boxes that had to go up three flights of stairs, which was a huge pain, although it will be worth it later. It's nice being on the top floor of places, and having no one thumping on your ceiling. My apartment is pretty well located as far as neighbors go, actually. To one side is a cable/satellite/mechanics room so I have no one on my right to bother (or who'd bother me), and because my apartment is in the corner of the building in a sort of broad V angle, I don't have anyone directly opposite me either. There's even a hallway to my left, so no one is on that side as well. The only people who'd bother me/I'd bother are those living below me, and that apartment could be empty for all I know.
The downside to all this is that my apartment lacks light. Because of the weird V shape it's forced into, it only gets direct light from 7-11 in the morning or so. On one hand that means I'll never have the glare problems of my old place. On the other hand... it does get a bit dark. It's ok though. It's a nice enough place, and would look great decorated. Decorating it is being postponed a bit though, because I drove my car into the sidewalk (don't ask how...) and will have to pay for a new bumper. The bumper's not damaged nearly so severely that it /must/ be replaced, but it looks tacky and I can't have that.
The moving process was tiring and exhausting, but when my family left afterwards, and nothing had to be moved anymore, it got so oddly quiet by contrast. It really felt pretty lonely and depressing that night, although everything is better now (although I'm still kind of living in the middle of nowhere).
I had a meeting at the hospital on the 10th, and got my ID badge, so I'm now officially good to go. I hadn't started real work yet because I was out of touch due to the move, but I expect I'll be able to get moving forward with that any day now and am looking forwards to it. I've been working on my MCAT studying as well, although a little bit less than I might have hoped. It's just been really busy lately though with the move, and I've been making a 4 hour round trip twice a week as well for physical therapy for my shoulder. But I have been getting some studying done. I've decided to go over physics first, since that was probably my weakest point.
I'm hoping to have my review of that done by the middle of October if possible, so I have enough time to get in a good overview of the other subjects as well. Then I'll start really narrowing down my studying in late winter/early spring, prior to the actual exam. But I need to start with a really broad overview of everything before I can find my weakest points.
That's it for now I think. I still have a lot of studying to do for my job as well; there's still 200 some terms and abbreviations I need to learn for training, along with all the procedures and forms I ought to familiarize myself with.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Back to Studying
Today I went and arranged to get my pants hemmed for work, and those are supposed to get finished for my by next Wednesday. I also got a confirmation yesterday that my drug test came back negative and my other papers had been received(how the drug test came back negative when I was on percocet, I'll never know... but whatever). So other than my move, all my pre-work stuff appears to be taken care of. As for the move itself, someone else in my building seems to have reserved the elevator on the 10th. Which could be a problem, but could be ok as well since the only thing I really need an elevator for is my desk (most everything else is reasonably small, and can be carried well enough by one or two people).
What I get to do next is study. I get to keep studying for the MCAT, and I have to study the binders I got at work to memorize a few hundred abbreviations as well. Memorizing the abbreviations is probably going to be my short-term priority, since it has to get done for me to get/keep my job. It's fairly interesting anyways, actually, and it's much easier to memorize abbreviations than study for the MCAT, so it will probably be a good change of pace. I'll probably go out and grab a few sets of flashcards for that purpose tomorrow.
I have to memorize these fast though, so I can get back to studying for the MCAT; in the end, that's the only test that counts.
What I get to do next is study. I get to keep studying for the MCAT, and I have to study the binders I got at work to memorize a few hundred abbreviations as well. Memorizing the abbreviations is probably going to be my short-term priority, since it has to get done for me to get/keep my job. It's fairly interesting anyways, actually, and it's much easier to memorize abbreviations than study for the MCAT, so it will probably be a good change of pace. I'll probably go out and grab a few sets of flashcards for that purpose tomorrow.
I have to memorize these fast though, so I can get back to studying for the MCAT; in the end, that's the only test that counts.
Friday, August 26, 2011
And Then A Hurricane?
Really? Really? Really: because an earthquake in a part of America that doesn't get those wasn't enough - we clearly needed an unusual storm as well.
Everyone is expecting the power to go down, which will be inconvenient for my faxing/emailing records back and forth to all the people who need them. Hopefully it manages to get fixed soon enough though, and I can finish my pre-employment requirements prior to my move.
I kept things going today by getting the PPD test for TB, and the first of a series of Hepatitis B vaccinations (the only one needed before work can start). I have to wait till Monday for the PPD results, before I can fax that and my vaccination form over to HR. Once that's been done, I'm effectively finished. They still haven't contacted me for the drug testing, and I'm worried that will cause me trouble. I also still need to get my scrubs hemmed so they fit me properly. All the fundamentally necessary paperwork and visits are now taken care of though.
Everyone is expecting the power to go down, which will be inconvenient for my faxing/emailing records back and forth to all the people who need them. Hopefully it manages to get fixed soon enough though, and I can finish my pre-employment requirements prior to my move.
I kept things going today by getting the PPD test for TB, and the first of a series of Hepatitis B vaccinations (the only one needed before work can start). I have to wait till Monday for the PPD results, before I can fax that and my vaccination form over to HR. Once that's been done, I'm effectively finished. They still haven't contacted me for the drug testing, and I'm worried that will cause me trouble. I also still need to get my scrubs hemmed so they fit me properly. All the fundamentally necessary paperwork and visits are now taken care of though.
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