Communication Breakdown

This past Thursday night was my last night working nights. I was ready for it to be over. Overall it was a good experience I think. But there were a lot of negatives. Working nights completely messes up your schedule. I would come home and more or less sleep all day, regardless of how much I slept the night before at work (which usually wasn't much). You don't do that when you work days - you usually have some time between work and sleep where you can get some other stuff done. I don't know if it's purely psychological or what, but you just seem to need more sleep when you work nights. Besides the change in schedule, the other thing that bothered be quite a bit was the lack of communication I received from anyone about what was going on. This is the first place I've ever worked where there was no hand off between day shift and night shift. I would just show up at 7 and have no idea if anything significant had happened to any of the patients during the day. I would spend the first half an hour or so every night just looking at the roster and seeing who was on the floor and what their diagnosis was. Sometimes there wouldn't even be a diagnosis on the computer or any notes in the chart. I found this to be quite frustrating as it was sometimes difficult to answer questions about patients when you didn't know what was going on.

Overall, like I said, it was an alright experience. I think it was necessary stepping stone in my medical education as it was the first time I have ever been on my own and was making decisions on my own without someone standing right over my shoulder watching. I think for the most part I did pretty well. There were one or two things I probably mishandled but hindsight is always 20/20. I tried to do my best and what was best for the patient and I think it went OK overall.

Changing gears a bit, I picked up the new Kings of Leon album last week and finally have had the chance to listen to it. Kings are one of my favorite newer bands out there. There are few albums that I really like on the first listen, but I think this new album is quite good and I liked it right away. It's a bit calmer than their older albums and I think it was more of a safer album than a risk-taking album. With that being said, it is easy listening and while only one or two songs really stick out to me, the whole album is solid and breezes by quickly. I'd highly suggest it for Kings fans or rock fans in general.




I am a bit sporadic today. The final thing I wanted to mention was this Miller Lite home keg I bought. I've been seeing these things on billboards around Indy for the past several months but they have always been out of stock at the store. Apparently there was an issue with the CO2 system on them and they all had to be recalled. Anyway, I finally got the chance to pick one up yesterday. They are pretty neat. The beer tastes decent, though mine has been a little gassy. It also takes up a lot of space in your refrigerator. It is kind of a neat idea but I think its a little gimmicky and I probably will just stick to cans or bottles in the future. Maybe if we have a get together I'll pick another one up.



I'm off to watch Purdue play Illinois. I am not really sure why I bother any more. But at least I know there is no way they will get spanked as bad this weekend as they did last weekend. That was really bad.