Rural Town, USA, Part II

I figured I should take advantage of my last night in rural town, USA for the week (Hallelujah!) to get a little blogging done! I am currently reading The Hunger Games though (I know, I know... that is so March of me!), which makes it hard to blog, or, you know, work or study or sleep... or eat (just kidding on that last one... I know there's a terrible pun to be made involving the title, but I will resist).

I video chatted with my loves earlier this evening. If anyone can hear me outside of my hospital room, (which they almost certainly can, because I can easily hear noises and voices coming from the hall), they may think I'm crazy. How often do you hear a grown woman alone in a hospital room repeatedly and excitedly singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," "If You're Happy and You Know It," or the ever-popular Laurie Berkner hit, "Moon, Moon, Moon"*? I wonder if the people in the hospital think that this room, set off by itself, with a sturdy, metal key pad is actually the world's tiniest psych ward? And that I am a patient in this hospital, dutifully eating the hospital's cold ham and Kraft single sandwiches for dinner**, trudging around in the evenings in baggy gray sweatpants because I got vinegar on the only pair of jeans I brought to Sallisaw (don't ask)***, and singing children's songs. They must be terrified, though, if they do think this, to see me in the early mornings and late afternoons, because I pull a pretty impressive Frank Abagnale, "playing doctor" just down the hall from my room! For several days this month, my attending physician is the town's hospitalist...which means I am seeing my own hospital patients, writing my own orders, and dictating my own history and physicals. Truth be told, hooray for rural medicine! It's been a great experience getting to dictate and write orders. My preceptor has already shown a lot of faith in me, and, while still overseeing my work, has allowed me a lot of responsibility and autonomy, which has been very educational and empowering.

I have also been blown away, yet again, by how nicely students are treated out here. This one middle-aged woman, who's the charge nurse (supervising everything), and knows much more medicine than me at this point, I'm sure, insists on giving me her seat and workspace every morning. I always try to refuse, but she is adamant. After I was done working on notes this morning, I tried to give it back to her.

"I'm not even working anymore! Please take it back!" I said, rising.

"No, no," she said, "You just sit and visit (with the attending physician, who was sitting at that same work area) and learn. I'm old school. Nurses should show respect to doctors."

"But I'm not even a doctor yet!" I protested, "Please sit!" as I pleadingly motioned to the now vacant chair.

"Well, you are almost a doctor!" she said, "And you'll stay right in that seat!"

I wanted to tell her I was old school, in a way, too, because I respect age and experience... but her mind was made up, and, let's face it, no woman likes hearing about her age ;-)


Umm... this post was supposed to be about Easter, but now that I got distracted and blogged about randomness, I just want to get back to my book. It is the octave of Easter, after all, so I should probably celebrate by indulging myself in my fiction, don't you think? I will write an Easter post soon... the book is a quick read. In the meanwhile, happy Easter and God bless you with joy during this celebration of Jesus' glorious resurrection!

Warning: if you thought the above was random (read: pointless), it only gets worse. Read on at your own risk.

* I wanted to share a link since the "ever-popular" part was somewhat tongue in cheek. Julia has loved the Laurie Berkner CD she got from Aaron's uncle, aunt, and cousins when she was really small, and we've enjoyed a lot of the songs along with her. I'd never seen a video of the band, though, until searching for a link. And now I'm officially frightened. I'm also thinking that I may sound even crazier than I'd initially thought I might for singing that song.

**This was my dinner two nights ago (pictured below).

Nothing like a cold sandwich, stale potato chips, and warm Jell-O after a long, hard day of work.**** It reminded me a lot of the graphic below.

Last night, they just set out a huge serving bowl of tuna tetrazzini and a metal vat of cooked carrots. Basically, I got all of the hospital cafeteria's dinner leftovers. I took a large spoonful of each, and confused, left the rest out? For other people to maybe eat, too?? I was conflicted as to whether I should have tried to find a fridge to put it in, but with no message to me (not even a "Student Doctor" label) it was hard to know if the food was even for me, if they wanted it refrigerated, if it was destined for the trash, etc. Tonight, there was nothing for me. Either that, or maybe the large, white tupperware containers of beans and salsa were left open for me? Or were those left out from lunch? So confusing. To make a long story longer, I skipped the suspicious looking ice cream tub of salsa and grabbed some fast food (which looked equally like the government myplate, I assure you).

***I know, I know. By saying "don't ask" about my vinegar jeans, you're just dying to know how it happened. [Or not. But, if not, you certainly didn't have to go to the trouble of finding the set of three asterisks at the very bottom of the page. Just saying.] I washed and dried some green spearmint gum into my white coat pocket last weekend. So, this weekend, I naturally hit up the interwebs to find out how to get it out. Some sites suggested ice and scraping, so I tried it, with only marginal success. Then, I tried the warm vinegar trick, melting it off, which worked better. Meanwhile, I also spent some time with good old soap and water, trying to work on some ink stains I have on my pocket (I think I'm going to have to go geek soon and get a pocket protector). Anyhow, by the time I was ready to put my white coat in the wash, the crotch of the jeans I was wearing was wet. As I thought at the time that it was water from working on the ink stains and as I wear my jeans a few times between washings, I just set them to out to dry before folding them up for my stay in rural town, USA. But, when I went to put them on after work on Monday evening, the smell of the vinegar crotch almost knocked me out. I like pickles, salt and vinegar potato chips, and easter egg dying, but this was a little much... hence the gray sweatpants.

**** Lest anyone think I'm an ingrate, I do want to acknowledge that I'm just kidding around about the food. I am grateful to God for not going to bed hungry, something much of the world rarely experiences. Thanks be to God for the countless blessings in my life!