Journal #12 August 24, 2009 11:17pm

I’m going to keep this journal short and sweet. While I might have had the energy on other days to journal for a few pages, today is not one of those days. I’m exhausted after an interesting first day of work at my placement. It was overwhelming to come to work this morning and already have things to do. The learning curve was steep and doesn’t seem like it will level out anytime soon, I will most definitely need a week or two before that happens. I met all the people I will be working with today and they all seem easy going and fun to be around. The doctor, Dr. Wright, is an all-around amazing guy who grew up in Jamaica and came here to practice medicine, I have yet to hear his entire story but I have a feeling it is pretty inspirational. He apparently almost died as a child from Dengue fever, not the most fun illness to have as a child, he remembered it vividly even though he was 4 at the time he got sick. Today I got right on doing EKG’s myself and taking vitals for patients. I think what really surprised me was just how comfortable I got doing what I was doing, asking patients to reveal themselves to me in a way I had never experienced before. One fellow even kept calling me ‘doc.’ I saw more boobage today than I had seen in a while, and while that is an immature way of putting it, you have no idea how nervous I was after my first 2 male EKG patients when I thought about how it must be to put EKG leads on a woman, where the pads need to go directly on the skin underneath the breast. I frantically searched the forums (after googling EKG lead placement female) for advice and found a few words which resonated with me, just act normal. If I make it a big deal, it becomes a big deal. So with that I went off to take an EKG on my first female patient alone. It went very well, I just kept talking to the patient while I was doing my thing and getting everything set up. Before I knew it the procedure was over and she was out the door thanking me for my help. I really can’t wait to see what will happen tomorrow, I just got my running shoes in the mail so I’m excited to start my day off with my first run in DC!!!