My second patient...

This could be an interesting summer...I enrolled patient number two in my study today, and new interesting problems arose!

My patient was at Huntsman Cancer Hospital today and he was scheduled for surgery at 8:45 this morning so I got up early and was at the hospital by 6:00 am. This would not have been so bad if I had not stayed up until 3:00 am due to a fun date and not being able to sleep because my allergies are horrible, but that is another story.

Anyway I arrive at the pre-op room and go in and talk to my patient. He is a great guy, really funny and way nice. 8:45 rolls around and the patient before him (who was scheduled until 8:30 am) was still in the room.

I went in the room to talk to the Anesthesiologist and the CRNA (certified registered nurse anethsitist) about the study. The anesthesiologist was in the hall and he knew all about the study but he told me to go tell the CRNA so she would know what to do. I had never met her before and after my first experience with her I wish I could have kept it that way....are you seeing a theme for this week Natalie vs. Nurses? She was rude and acted like it was this huge burden to follow the two settings specified for the ventillator on the protocol and if I had a nickel for every eye roll I got from her I would be a rich girl!

Anyway she was a jerk but I dealt with it and when I came out the clinical nurse coordinator was laughing at me, apparently it is not a joke that this lady is a total b@&%$! I guess I better get used to it.

Then the waiting began...by 10:00 am the first patient was still in the room and I had to go do other stuff, so I called the Anesthesiologist at 1:00 pm to see how the case was going (it is a 5-6 hour surgery) and he informed me that they had not even started yet!!! FUN!!! To make a long story short, my patient finally got into the OR at 3:00 pm, over 5 1/2 hours late, and so here I am waiting for him to get done so I can follow him post op for an hour and I should get home about 10 pm. Good times, nothing like 16 hours of sitting around and waiting!

I am sure this will get better, but it is quite humerous to me now...how else would I want to spend my summer? Verbal abuse from nurses and waiting all day for a surgery is my definition of living the dream :)

I hope you enjoy my pain, I hope to have more of a life soon so you don't just hear about my research study, but for now that will have to do! Look on the bright side, at least I am blogging!!!