40 days left

Happy Easter everyone! When my niece came from church we asked her what she learned- she said, "That he's coming for me." Ah, easter- the second zombie holiday of the year.

I got through 1 chapter of chemistry yesterday, after working, preparing for Easter, and doing household chores. I had to unexpectedly work today too, so I'm hoping to get through another chapter, plus the relevant questions.

I'm hoping this blog keeps me on track for studying, and I'll post my scores as I do practice problems and tests.

41 days of studying left

I started studying again yesterday. And I'm having as much trouble concentrating as I thought I would. In fact, I'm procrastinating from studying right now as I blog this. Who'd have thunk it, hmm?

I'm whining today. I have to go into work again, on what's supposed to be my day off. I'm still working a ton- in fact, I've never worked this hard to feel so freaking broke since I was in college when I worked full-time in fast food. I'm working on average about 50-55 hours a week, and still making about 2/3rds of what I used to make. The hubby is still batting a zero in the job prospect department and the weather is G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S today, making concentrating all that much harder. Whine whine whine. Ok, enough of that.

41 days left. Panic is settling in.

Proof professors don't pay attention

Me as I'm handing in my final: "Have a nice retirement, Prof!"

Prof without looking up from his computer: "You too!"

MCAT. Study. Rinse. Repeat.

Classes are winding down, the quarter is wrapping up, things are settling down, and its time to start gearing up. (Was that enough ups and downs?) I decided to only take one class next quarter, a fun class in my opinion- astronomy. (At least I think it was astronomy. I hope it isn't astrology. But that may be better...) I'm getting my two jobs' schedules finalized and I'll know exactly how much time I'll have each week for studying, so it's time to start all that crap up again.

Bleh. I'm not looking forward to this. I'm really good at starting studying, but horrible at following through. But this will be...My. Last. Time. Studying. For. The. MCAT. EVAH. The test is scheduled for May 11th and that will be the third and final time I will ever take this stupid test. I have one full week of classes left, finals in two weeks, and then after that I will take one or two days to rest and mentally prepare. I think a lot of tv and beer may be in order.

First day of the last MCAT prep period: March 22.

I'm such an 8-year old sometimes

Image shown out of order during a lecture:

Lecturer: "Oh, sorry, that's coming."

I didn't stop snickering for about 10 minutes.

Douchebag residents living the stereotype

I would have to say that 98% of the residents, fellows, doctors, nurses, aides, volunteers, janitors, and cafe baristas that I work with are awesome (well, maybe not *that* nurse over there- she's a total bitch and needs an attitude adjustment). The plastics residents are not money-hungry, ortho docs are not meatheads, trauma surgeons are not adrenaline junkies, and nurses are not sex-hungry sirens fishing for a sugar-doc. So in an almost disappointing way, none of the medical personnel lived up to their hyped stereotype.

Except anesthesiologists.

I have worked with about 7 different anesthesiologists, and at least 2 of them were complete and utter douchebags. Why is that? How is it that out of about 100 medical workers, the only 2 negative encounters I've had were both with anesthesiologists (granted, these were residents- all the attendings or fellows were awesome).

The first time I was introduced to shitty behavior was when I was acting as a go-between from the blood bank to the anesthesiologist- I would grab the blood and literally just pass it to the anesthesiologist. After doing this for about 4 hours with the attending, I was pretty sure I had the routine down. "You need two RBCs? Roger that! :::rummage in fridge, hand paperwork to lab tech::: Here you go!" So when the attending took a break and his resident popped in, I was feeling pretty confident that I knew what I was doing, and that the resident would understand my role of robotic vending machine (my hospital has very large ID badges that scream our title, like TRAUMA DOCTOR, or REGISTERED NURSE, or in my case, PISSANT). Needless to say, that didn't stop (or maybe even it encouraged?) this douchebag from treating me like gum on his shoe. I got yelled at for not doing stuff I'm legally not allowed to do. Now I don't know about you, but I'd rather keep my future than get fired just because you have a Napoleon complex and want me to be your paperwork slave.

The second time at least wasn't aimed at me, but at the resident surgeon during rounds when she was presenting a case. Maybe it was a brain embolism, or a suppressed fart or something, but the resident anesthesiologist (a different one from before) decided it was the perfect time to grill and drill her on her chosen method of treatment, in-spite of the fact that the director of her department was also joining on rounds. He was berating her about her decisions, saying she didn't take *this* into account, nor did she consider *that*, etc. It was all very uncomfortable for everyone, except the anesthesiologist, I'm sure. That is until the director stepped in and started answered his questions instead.

Every now and then I would catch a small wry smile from the surgery resident and I'll bet I know what she was thinking.