Hand cramps & Happiness

It's great to hear how excited everyone is about their first week of extern. We are really out there spreading our wings. :) I'm hoping that as you read this that you too have ice on your arm & hand as I do. Super sore from scanning sooo much, but I'm loving the pain.

Needless to say I've been staying super busy at UCDMC. I've been doing only in-patients. Basically I complete the Parasternal long and short portions of the exam and then the tech I'm with for the day does the rest. I've been getting used to my new Phillips, its really user friendly and has some amazing functions. We just got a new GE Vivid VE and I can't wait to use it next week :). We don't do any history or phy eval on our patients so two of my columns are completely blank but it sure does make my job easier, lol. But I do have 30 completed exams and I've scanned on all of them.

I hardly ever see a normal echo. Every patient has some kind of pathology. Today I got to scan an aortic aneurysm that measured 4.9... WOW. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen, but I felt bad for the patient because he couldn't even speak English (That happens a lot at UCDMC). We see tons of AS and MR. Effusions are super common also. I've already been fighting the bulge with some patients. Many 400 and 500lbs patients :(, after Ive been pushing with all my force I feel as though my hand might fall off. We usually end up using definity on those patients. And the cool thing is we get to make the call if we want to use contrast and we inject it too. I have yet to get my hand stuck under a pancake boob but I feel that its coming in the near future.

I absolutely love everyone in my department. We have many different personalities and different styles of scanning. Some of the ladies have 30 years of experience and some are new graduates. I'm really hoping I will get hired on because they feel like family already. The cardiologists are amazing and very welcoming. Today I got invited to a lunch conference with them (I am very honored). I'm starting to teach one of the fellows how to scan... who would think that I would teach something to a doctor, weird, but super cool.

Well, I better get to bed and get some quality rest, I've been getting up at the crack of dawn all week and I cant wait to sleep-in tomorrow morning. :D

-Ash G

Day 3 at Renown!

I've been doing a ton! My ci has barely spent an hour with me but I've been super busy with all of the techs in the echo/vascular lab. Anna and I get to spend quite a bit of our time together in between scanning(lunch breaks and write-ups). My first two days I did all of the patient set up. Bringing back the outpatients and asking about why they are there(symptoms and history), hooking them up to the ecg and taking preliminary images for the tech.

Today was a lot more exciting because I got to do two exams completely by myself. The tech watched and made sure my images and measurements were up to her standards. She kept saying how perfect I was doing and how impressed she was :D

I scanned an in patient with a history of near syncopal episodes. When I scanned her psax@ao I found a large mass in her RVOT. I pointed at it with the tech watching over me, she said "uh huh" but apparently she didn't notice what I was pointing at, she thought I was pointing at "junk" in the pericardium(apparently possibly coagulated fluid from a prior infection). So when we were going over the exam later back in the lab I asked her what she thought it was. And she hadn't even noticed it. She was quite bothered that she missed something that big because we only got it in that one view so we could 100% say that it was a mass. We asked around the lab though and everyone agreed that there was definitely something in the RVOT. We added a note to the cardiologist that a TEE was recommended. I'm interested to follow up on that patient because one of the tech said she had something similar last week in a different patient and it turned out to be cancer.

Later on today, we had a patient that needed a bubble study. She was post-stroke and we needed to rule out a PFO or ASD. The tech was so impressed with my scanning that instead of calling up another tech to help her she had me do the imaging while she pushed the agitated saline. It was amazing and I did a really good job getting images. Plus the pt did not have a PFO or ASD so we were able to rule that out. I finished the rest of the exam while the tech watched and made sure I did everything right.

All in all things have been really exciting and fun. Everyone I work with loves to included me and teach me. I already feel like I'm improving immensely and it is only day 3!

I'm Exhausted!

So I just survived my second day :) I rode my bike to work, wiped the sweat from my forehead, changed into my scrubs and started scanning! I scanned yesterday too, one of the tech's handed me the probe and said, "show me what you can do." Then he drilled me on tons of stuff and I had major mental overload. I've seen one pediatric patient, two open-heart surgeries, two ER cases, one code blue, and a whole lot of ICU patients. I've scanned a cancer patient as well. I've seen stress, TEE, and saline injections. I wheel the machines everywhere in this really confusing hospital and am introduced to tons of people that I can't for the life of me remember! It's been really fun though :) I come home, talk to people on the phone, work-out, eat and sleep. I'm too tired to do anything else lol. Anyway, that's my experience so far. Hope all of yours are great too!

Wally World and Fresh Free Coffee, oh yeah and some AI too, who could ask for more?

After hitting the snooze a couple times and getting up early I thought about getting me some Dutch Brothers, but figured.. NAW, I'll just drink the day old coffee and head to Wally World to pick up a notebook. I figured if I am going to make it today, I might as well see if I can make it like I would any other day. I have been so nervous for this day. I mean today is the beginning of me being what I want to be when I grow up. No turning back and no whimping out, but man this place is humid and every building is hot inside, and I sweat like a pig already... while walking around Wallys trying to find that dang school section, I almost stopped and started looking at stuff until I realized how much I really did hate it there and just needed a notebook, because go figure I forgot.... at that moment I would do anything to avoid going to the hospital. Its like getting ready for Tanyas tests, you know you need to study, but you start chores, craft projects, dying your hair, etc etc anything but studying... but what is a girl to do... so I parked the jeep and started the walk to the hospital during the best day of the Summer here so far, and I realized something... if I can make it through Wally world on day old coffee at 7:30 in the morning, then anything is possible :) So I went to work a little nervous had the tour and got to observe 3 echos today. They have Echos all day, which makes me happy, don't do TEEs too much, but have several a month and several pacemaker placements that I'll be going to. I'll also be observing some nuc med studies and nuc med stress tests, I can't wait to see how their myocardial perfusion studies are done... my CI just got back from back surgery, but the girl (all girls in my dept) that will be helping me is REALLY good, so that excites me. I am a little nervous to deal with the patients, they REALLY want to know what is wrong with them.... but I made it, and what was even better about the whole day, I can use my meal card at the coffee shop so looks like I moved up in the world today in more ways than one :) I hope you all are enjoying your experiences, I literally thought of you all today at some point :)

My first days as a paperwork slave

Hey everyone! Glad to see people are settled and are having a great time on extern. :)
I was a little worried at first because i wasn't sure how friendly the staff would be at a hospital like Good Sam, but everyone is so nice. They're always smiling and love their jobs. I haven't had any time scanning yet, mostly just filling out my paperwork, and filling out the worksheet for the tech i'm shadowing that day. It keeps me entertained though and feeling important. Lol. I took some blood pressures today too. I'd write more but i'm going in early tomorrow to watch a surgery. Should be good fun.

What a Crazy Day!

Today was my first day and it was so crazy! Salem hospital is SO much bigger than any hospital I've ever been in and was getting lost and confused constantly. Definetly saw yeast in a boob today and after wiping it off I got to scan her...lucky me :) I also observed a TEE study with saline contrast today for a 26 year old patient who had a stoke, it was both sad and a little exciting. During this procedure the particular cardiologist I guess is a little impatient during TEE's and has a tendency to put the probe down while the patient is still pretty awake, because of that I had to hold the girls arm so that she didn't take a swing at the nurses face. Other than that I saw and got to scan a little on some inpatients in ICU. The hospitals computer system is confusing beyond belief so I am the most worried about learning how to use that.

I am commuting to Salem, it takes me an hour but luckily it is a beautiful drive. I miss you all
and hope everyone will have as much fun as I did today!

Loving Life in Sacramento

So I've been busy setting up the house here in Sac. Things are going great, our house is super cute but the neighborhood is kinda sketchy. Sometimes "professional women" stand our street corner and conduct their business. lol. But the house is close to the hospital and all the freeways so I'll put up with a little late night entertainment.
The trip down here was such an adventure. I got in a car accident right before we got to Sac. Some lady hit me at 60 Mph. But thankfully I'm okay. I hurt my ankle and I've been walking around on crutches for the past week, tomorrow I will not be bringing my crutches to work with me. My car on the other hand needs some attention. Hopefully it will be getting fixed here soon. It's still drivable but doesn't look to cute.
Tonight I went to my 1st SEVS (Sacramento Echo & Vascular Society) meeting. A peds cardiologist gave a lecture on Tetralogy of Fallot. It was really interesting and fun. I got to meet all the Echo techs from all over the city. These meetings are every other month so they will be good for my education hours.
Well, hope everyone is ready for tomorrow morning. It's time to start a new chapter in our life's. Good luck :)