I Want to Be a Doctor

Dr. Robin: Welcome back to I Want to Be a Doctor or Something. I'm Dr. Robin and I'm here with my friend Jill, a registered nurse.

Jill: Hi friends.

Dr. Robin: We're two healthcare besties sharing the real wild and funny side of medicine for anyone who's thought about a healthcare career. Ready? Let's go. So Jill, I have a food one for you. Did you ever take some food, maybe like cookies or a sandwich or something that was like not meant to be in your pocket and just like wrap it in a napkin and shove it in your pocket, save it for later?

Jill: I did and I'll never forget it. It was a cupcake. [Laughing] And it was like the worst thing, but it looks so good. Somebody had brought it in on day shift. Actually we were taking care of someone who worked at a bake shop and so they would bring things on day shift and this was night shift and there were just like two or three of them left and I had my whole med pass to do and so I'm like, oh, that one with chocolate icing looks so good. So I wrapped it up in a napkin, put it in my pocket, thought, you know, just be really careful. Well, as the night went on, as I was going in to take an IV, I bumped into the wall and like it just, it crushed all over my scrub pocket. Yeah, so it was really messy. I can't say that I didn't try a bite or two before throwing the whole thing away though.

Dr. Robin: You know, I probably would have eaten the whole thing. So that showed a lot of reserve to be able to like just let it go.

Jill: It was pretty much crushed up. So I didn't have many options, but the chocolate icing was delicious. What about you?

Dr. Robin: You know, my very first rotation in medical school was surgery. When I was on the surgery rotation, it's so different, you go from classroom to clinical. you know what that's like. Suddenly you're having to do all this clinical stuff and you're seeing these patients and you like don't know what's going on. And the intern in charge of us on the surgery rotation, he was kind of crazy. He was very high energy and very unpredictable. And I mean, surgeon, right? Like future surgeon, but very, very nice. And he knew we were brand new, didn't know what was going on. We were walking past this nurses station, there's cookies, like just on the counter or something. And one of the nurses was like, hey, so and so, whatever his name was. A patient brought these by, you want one? And he was like, quick, put them in your pockets. And you just started like putting cookies like loose in his pocket. And we're kind of like, Oh no. Because there's three of us, we'd never done that, and we're like, okay, so like we grabbed napkins at least and put them in our pocket. And he's like, you're gonna be so glad you did that. And we were, we were so glad we did that.

Jill: Oh, definitely.

Dr. Robin: It was still so confusing having never been there. And just suddenly you're walking, and they're like, put in your pocket. And you're like, cookies? I put cookies in my pocket? Okay. It's so silly how things like that mean so much. Whatever you're on a shift like that, that's gonna take hours and hours, you know? And if we were at home and we saw cookies like that, it's like, hey, you know, just get one whatever we want it. But yeah, it is, you have to have something to get by for sure. Well, and then there were so many times it was, you know, I'd be like between surgeries and we'd be going from one to the other and you can't eat anywhere in the operating room or anything, right? Or near it. But we'd go into like the lounge to like dictate I guess as medical students, we couldn't dictate. We'd have to like write notes or whatever. So we'd be in there and we'd be like breaking off little pieces of cookie from our pocket. Like a toddler eating out of their like little cup or whatever, so.

Jill: Yeah, yeah. So when you had like long surgeries and things, I guess, you know, you had to go a really long time without eating. Did you feel hungry or is your adrenaline just going so much that you don't even think about it?

Dr. Robin: I felt terrible. I was lucky because my first surgery rotation was at a very small private hospital. And so it wasn't, you know, At the big university hospitals, what happens is you have the surgeon and the first assist way at the head of the table, right? And then everyone else is kind of in a line going down. And so depending on your priority, like you might have like residents and then fourth year medical students and then third year medical students. And like, it's just kind of like a line going down. So if you're a third year medical student who's brand new, you're like, can't see anything. But I got a tip from a medical student ahead of me to go to this other hospital. And they're like, people who want to go into surgery won't go there because you don't get to see like transplants or whatever. They're like, it's just normal community hospital, but you'll be first assist. And it was so cool. Because I was always like right across from the surgeon. And so it was really fun. You know, normally it's super boring, frankly, when you're a medical student in a big hospital because you're like way at the end. But here like I got to do so many things and the first time the surgeon says, all right, we're all done. I'm going to close, go ahead and close up. And then walks out of the room and you're like, wow. And I don't think that's legal anymore. I don't even know if it was legal back then, but it was so terrifying as a medical student to be like, the patient's going to see this. I mean, that's what you're trained. Is it like the one thing they see is the suture line on the outside. So it has to be perfect. And that's how they're going to judge the entire surgery. And so it's like a lot of pressure. And I was just like, oh no. And like you're going so slowly and everyone's like everyone's staring at you. Because this is all that's holding up the surgery at this point. And you're just like, I'm so sorry. I don't know. So much pressure. [Laughing] So the surgeon would have time to like go dictate and rest and do other things. But usually the medical students are expected to like go with the patient to the post-op area, at least where I did my rotations. So you'd close up and then you'd walk with the anesthesiologist and the nurse and the patient down to the post-op and be part of like the handoff because that was an important part of our education. And then you just have to run to the next one because we were also expected to do things in pre-op and see the patient before surgery and do all this stuff. So we didn't get as much of a break as the surgeons, actually. They would like leave and other people would be doing stuff, which to be fair, they're doing the surgery, they're saving lives. They're doing something really important. I want them to have a break, but it was, it would be like back to back to back things, but it was such a cool experience.

Dr. Robin: So.

Jill: Oh, I bet. And I know from personal experience, you taught me how to do sutures. You know, that was something in my nursing school that was not taught. We were taught to remove them, but you've actually taught me and my daughter how to do them. And I know that you know how to do them very, very well. So I'm sure that everyone was quite impressed.

Dr. Robin: Sutures are really fun, but the way it's taught is really badly done, But you know how I taught it, where you like lay everything out and usually they teach it where it's all kind of tangled up and you reach through. I was so confused. I do not have that kind of spatial reasoning. Once I learned to like lay it out and go back and forth to keep everything tidy, which I just did because I was like, I can't see what I'm doing here. And I lay it out and I was like, oh, this is really simple. So that's how I always teach it with medical students now.

Jill: Well, I can tell you're really, really good at it. And it makes sense because you also like to knit and sew and things like that too, which is a really cool talent to have.

Dr. Robin: Well, you play the violin, I definitely cannot do a violin. It's hard because you don't have like frets or anything.

Jill: Well, you know, the funny thing about that, and I know this isn't medical, but a lot of our students who like medical things and science and things like that might also be interested in music. It seems like it goes together, but when you're beginning violin, you add the frets to it, or at least I did. Oh, the tapes. A little tape. Yeah. And so it kind of trains your brain to know where the frets are. And then when you take them off, you're just so used to being in that area that it makes it really easy. So that's kind of the trick that most violinists do.

Dr. Robin: That makes sense. Well, you know, whatever it is people do with their hands, whether it's cooking, cake decorating, violin, or whatever, as a medical school instructor, I really noticed a difference in students who did those things. Because if you can do this kind of, I mean, I can't play the violin. This is my impression of playing the violin. Going like this. I don't know what you guys do. Yeah, I saw it. But you learn how to use your two hands separately to do different things. And you learn how to move your fingers in certain ways. And it really helps when you then go to do stuff with patients, because you know, you know how to use your hands. So yeah, definitely a good thing to have those hobbies.

Jill: Yeah, good dexterity, I guess.

Dr. Robin: For sure. Well, I think we're out of time here. So that's it for today. If you want to be a doctor or something else medical, make sure to head over to docrobinschool.com/podcast for your goodies. That's Doc Robin (like the bird) School dot com.

Jill: Yeah, and remember to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Thanks so much for watching friends. Bye-bye.

Jill: Bye friends.