How to Shadow a Doctor

Hey guys!

In order to accompany the recent bombardment of blog posts about my doctor shadowing experience, I have made a YouTube video giving you guys some tips of accomplishing this task yourselves. It's a very general video to help give you guys a basic understanding of what to do and what to expect. If you would like any specific questions answered feel free to leave them in the comments of this post or in the comments of my video which will be below. If you want to read about my experiences in a more detailed manner be sure to read the three posts I have written as well. And if you guys like to know more about my pre-med experience so far please let me know because I would love to tell you about the other things I've been doing to help me with my medical school applications.

OR Observation

Hey guys!

Long time no blog! Sorry. :/

As you guys may already know, I want to become a doctor. And as you have seen, I reposted my posts about my ER shadowing experience. Well last week (7/18/13) I completed my third doctor shadowing experience by following an anesthesiologist. While I know many will wonder why I didn't choose a surgeon to shadow, it's because I hoped to be exposed to many different types of surgeries rather than those limited to the type of surgeon I shadow.

My experience began with a rocky start because the OR was slow and the anesthesiologist I was supposed to shadow was allowed to take the day off. Luckily, two other anesthesiologists were kind enough to allow me to shadow them instead. After changing into scrubs, a cap, mask, and shoe covers, I felt like a real member of the medical care team. During the first case I was able to view down a patient's throat and see the cords before a breathing tube was put in place. Instead of staying and watching that procedure I was able to go and watch a CABG from start to finish. This is an open heart surgery and more commonly known as a heart bypass. Rather than taking a vein from the leg, the surgeon chose to use a mammary artery from the chest wall. Then because the patient had very small and delicate vessels, the surgeon chose to put the patient on the heart-lung machine. All in all, the entire procedure was very awesome and only took about two hours.

Before I had to leave, I was able to watch an epidural be administered for a patient having a procedure done on his prostate. While much less interesting than an open heart surgery, it was still interesting to see a first hand viewpoint of a very popular form of anesthesia, especially for pregnant women in labor. My conclusion about whether I would want one for if/when I have a baby is that the worst part isn't even when the medicine is administered, it's when the doctor numbs the area with a local anesthetic. Interesting enough, that medicine is used a lot for patients who need stitches.

The rest of my OR experience was a little less eventful. The number of surgeries and procedures was too low for there to be a need for three anesthesiologists and so another doctor was allowed to go home. This then put more pressure on the remaining doctor I was shadowing to complete all the tasks and prevented me from properly viewing more procedures. 

Nevertheless, I am very grateful to the doctors and OR department for allowing me to stick around even when my prior shadowing agreement fell through. I also realized just how much authority and responsibility a doctor has especially in a department like the OR that has a strict schedule and rules to follow. Anesthesiologists have to keep track of all nurse anesthetists making sure a patient remains under anesthesia during the procedure and that all surgeries start on time so that every other member of the operating team can move on with their jobs.

Let me know if there is more information you would like about shadowing doctors or just the pre-med experience in general.

Lifescouts: Keyboard

Hey!

I really want to come up with a cute greeting to use for these blogs, because sometimes I get tired of putting hi, hello, and hey. Any ideas for me?

This badge is for playing a keyboard.

Now to me, I don't see many differences between playing a keyboard and playing a piano so I don't understand why they are separate badges, but that means I get one more to claim. The only keyboard I've ever owned was a little toy keyboard given to me for Christmas by my aunt and I think only has 3 or 4 octaves on it. Even though it's small, I love it because it will record one song that you play at a time and teach you how to play 10 pre-recorded songs. Other than that, I've played keyboards at friends' houses just because it was there and they didn't have a piano. 

Sorry this didn't have a fun story!

Badge count: 21

Lifescouts: Piano

Hi!

In continuing with my Lifescouts series, my next badge is the piano badge.

When I was four years old, my mom gave me the option to either start taking dance lessons or piano lessons. I chose dance and so she set me up with ballet classes. During my first class, I got freaked out and started crying and stopped taking lessons before the first recital. Then she tried to set me up with piano lessons. The only problem was no teacher wanted to teach me because they didn't think I knew the alphabet or would sit still long enough to learn anything. Until she found my first teacher who was willing to teach me because I knew the alphabet. She was the best teacher and I remember every time I finished a lesson, she would let me throw a tennis ball to her golden retriever before my mom and I left. Sadly, I had to stop taking lessons because we were moving. Of course I found a new teacher and continued taking lessons until the eighth grade. I had gotten bored with playing the piano because I had seen all my other friends learning songs I wanted to play even though they were on lower levels than I was on and yet my teacher wouldn't let me play them. My first piano teacher always thought that I had great potential and would become a great and famous piano player someday. She even gave me a music composition book so that I could write my own songs and told my mom to keep her in the loop with any awards or competitions I won. I sometimes regret the fact that I stopped taking lessons and wonder where I would be with my piano playing if we hadn't moved. Nevertheless, I will still sometimes sit down and play some of the songs that I always enjoyed.

Badge count: 20

Lifescouts: Performing on Stage

Hello!

I hope all is well in your life! Since I'm almost two months behind in my lifescouts badge, I decided to try and catch up. This badge is for performing on stage which I have done on many occasions because of piano recitals, concerts for chorus, and speech and debate. I don't really have an extremely funny or embarrassing story to tell you because luckily I don't suffer from any extreme stage fright.

However, one year during my annual spring piano recital where all of the students who took lessons with my piano teacher played one or two pieces to show off what they learned that year. I think it may have been my third or fourth recital with this teacher at this venue and yet I didn't quite understand how she decided to assign our seats in the church where our recital was held. See, when we walked in before the recital began, we were to go to the middle section of reserved pews where the recital programs were placed on the seats. Each program had one name circled which signified that that was your seat. Logically, I thought that we would be seated in order of the program so that when the person next to you returned from playing his or her piece, you knew that it was your turn to go. This recital didn't work like that. I was way in the back and students were getting up from random areas in the reserved section, so I didn't know when to go. Of course, if I knew who the person was that was to go before me I wouldn't have any problem, but I didn't. Therefore in an attempt to count the people who had gone and thus figure out where we were in the program, I assumed that I knew when I was supposed to go. I even waited a bit to see if anyone else was getting up to play. Since I didn't see anyone go, I went ahead and got up to play. Once I sat down, my piano teacher made an announcement that I was not the person whose place I had taken, and that now we were back on track with the program. To this day, I still don't know how I was supposed to know when I was to get up and play, but whatever.

Badge count: 19