School has been getting pretty darn intense the past few weeks! I had been coasting along, thinking it's boring and easy and that I was way overqualified, until all of a sudden, BAM!

We now have hundreds of instruments to know, thousands of skills to master and billions of tiny pieces of information to remember- ALL by next week!

Our Learning Curve is EXPONENTIAL! 

We've had some political/social/psychological unease go on within our program over the past few weeks that resulted in our lab coordinator leaving/being fired. We also had this -I'm embarrassed to even say- "talk therapy session" where all of the students in our program were able to air their grievances about each other in front of everyone a la the movie, Mean Girls. Apparently there had been a lot of vicious gossiping going on among the ovaries in our class. (Unbeknownst to moi because I live in Erin Land where I still don't know half the people's names...)

This is my literal video interpretation-

I. AM. NOT. KIDDING.

I'm all about therapy -I am a psych major after all- 

-but there were literally 45-year-old women in my class *bawling* because they had heard from one of the girls that another girl said that she talked too much during a certain lab exercise two weeks previously. (Granted- the woman does talk a lot...) A total of 5 women flat out cried that day. I was so uncomfortable with all of the emotions and the situation had become so ridiculous that I felt like I would burst from holding in my laughter.

My body ached it wanted to laugh so hard. And I was pinching the inside of my arm so forcefully and thinking about death and morbid things to distract myself from the hilarity that I almost didn't hear when my teacher honed in on me and demanded, "ERIN, we never heard anything from you! Do you have anything to add?" I looked that woman dead in the face and told her that I had no friggin idea as to what was going on. So *no* I had absolutely nothing to add.

Anyway, now we have a new lab coordinator and we all have to change seats every day so that we can all bond.

..........

Yes, we literally have to change seats in our lecture room. So now I can no longer sit next to Ylena, the Ukrainian woman who doesn't talk much, and instead I have to...bond...with my fellow peers. Am I in Middle School again?

Anyway, besides that whole fiasco, we've really been working hard towards preparing for our mock surgery. Mock surgery is when each person goes through everything we've learned in front of our teacher and gets graded. If we don't pass the mock surgery, we can't continue on in the program...

Mock includes:

Putting on appropriate attire (scrubs, mask, shoe covers, head cover, eye shield)
Setting up the room (basin set, back table, mayo stand, anesthesia carts, prep stand, instrument tray)
Opening the room (opening all packs onto appropriate places in the correct order/way)
Scrubbing (3-min. scrub at sink)
Gowning/Gloving Closed Method
Organizing Instruments and Counting with the Nurse
Setting up our mayo stand

A Mayo Stand with what looks like: a Richardson retractor, 2 Kochers, 2 forceps,  a Metzenbaum, a Kelly, a straight mayo, 4 criles, 2 curved mayos and some lap sponges...correct me if you can!

Gown/Glove the surgeon
Pulling it all up to our OR table
And then passing instruments to the surgeon

And we have to finish all of that, on our own, in one hour. Ahh! It may sound easy but it's sooo not that easy! And I won't lie- I went into this program thinking I'd sweep in there and show everyone how it's done...since I've been to college and I think I'm smart...but that has totally not happened. Everyone is way better at being techs than I am and I'm constantly asking for help. But, I'm starting to get it now!

Mock isn't until the week of October 17th, but by next week we're going to be doing "mock" mock surgery and I don't want to look like a fool, so this weekend is study. time.

Also! Within all of the craziness, we're also going to the hospital to shadow the week of the 10th!

That means Hallelujah in Jew...

I can't wait to get back into the OR and see some blood and guts!!!! ...I mean...see some medical miracles :)

That first day in the OR for me was like a pre-alcoholics first taste of whiskey. I want more! And I'm excited because we'll be going to a really beautiful, new hospital this time!

Can't wait!! And after I *pass* mock surgery in a few weeks, I'll get to start our clinical rotations which will be AWESOME. Just have to go memorize 600 more instruments....