Chuggin' Along

My first week of anesthesia is just about over and it's kind of hard to believe.  Monday morning found me a little nervous as anesthesia seemed intimidating and I didn't know how things worked.  However, as the week has progressed, I have gotten more comfortable with the anesthesia process.  Tuesday I had no cases as there was just three anesthesia cases the whole day so I helped my classmates who had cases out.  Wednesday and Thursday two of my classmates were gone as they were taking boards.  As soon as we lost two classmates, the cases just piled on.  We had at least ten cases both days.  With only seven students, this led to a very busy two days.  Wednesday I had the first case in which a dog was having its knee repaired after tearing a ligament.  I got done with that case, had just enough time to eat lunch while going over my plan for my next patient with the anesthesiologist, and then got to work on my second case, a goldendoodle who had a mass in her ear.  The dermatology department put a video scope into her ear and used a forceps-like tool to remove as much of the mass as possible.  Needless to say, two cases in one day wore me out!

Yesterday was my large animal day, in which I was the anesthesia student who would take any large animal surgeries that were going on.  There was one horse who needed to have a camera inserted into three of his joints and have bone/cartilage fragments removed from the joint as well as be castrated.  So, I was in the large animal clinic all day.  I successfully knocked the horse out using drugs and got him intubated.  I did fail at placing a catheter into his artery (the tech had to do it for me) but other then that things went quite well.  It was slightly nerve-wracking at the beginning as I had never done anything even remotely close to that before but it was a good experience and I would do it again.  Sounds like I may have the opportunity as there are supposed to be about 10 horse surgeries next week. 

Other then living the life of knocking animals out for surgery, I did start my resume last night.  I can't stand doing it but it's got to be done!  Tonight is the Christmas party for our young group so I'm looking forward to going to that.  I am second on call tomorrow during the day and then first on call Sunday night.  So I will be in Champaign-Urbana land all weekend.