Just Days Away From a Baby
October 23, 2011
Seeing as the last time I posted was… forever ago, obviously a significant number of things have happened. The most important of which would be the very soon delivery of the newest Rettig boy – whose name is still unknown to everyone except for Amanda and I 
. The apartment has certainly been taken over by the many items apparently needed to take care of a baby, but we’ve managed to organize it to a point that it doesn’t appear as if we live in a garage sale. I posted a video a few days ago on facebook.com of his room -> http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=66601862#!/profile.php?id=66601862. I think Amanda is ready as well – and now that we’re past the days that our OB is out-of-town, we can exhale.
In the realm of education, again, I can’t believe medical school is almost over. I’m happy say that I passed all of my required board exams for medical school (Step I and II), and my application for residency is in. Interview season has started and 4th year really seems to be as awesome as people report it to be. I had my first interview earlier this month at Akron General and I really liked their program. My next interview is here in Dayton at the end of the month. My rotations have been enjoyable, emergency and ICU so far. In 4th year you have the experience of 3rd year to know where you fit in and the small amount of medical knowledge and experience to actually suggest plans for patient management. Now - where you are, who your residents are, and your attending’s comfort level – all play into how involved you can get. Fortunately for me, I’ve been able to be quite involved with my patient’s care. Regardless, I’m still terrified, despite my excitement, for that big day – 215 days from now – when they place a funny “hood” around my neck and say “go forth and write orders.”
That brings me to my last topic – my current rotation in the ICU. Coming in I expected to be seeing the sickest patient – obviously it’s supposed “intensive care unit.” I had myself prepared for this and it hasn’t disappointed. The first 2-3 weeks went much as I expected them to be – sick patients, learning to manage/adjust vents, and writing lengthy involved management plans where patient’s had a seemingly endless amount of medical issues to discuss. We responded to all the codes throughout the hospital and I began to see all the end of life issues involved with critical care. One thing I was frequently thinking about was “should we even be coding this person” – now that’s an entire discussion separate from today’s. What is do want to talk about is withdrawal of care – and not in the sense of being right or wrong, but the experience of it. During this rotation I’ve come face to face with it – and I quickly realized it was much different that losing a patient during a code or palliative care on a patient who came to your service as a DNR. Here is a circumstance in which you take away the supportive care that you’ve initiated and been using to keep the patient alive. Then all you can do is sit and watch, as family says their goodbyes, and you stare at a monitor in the station knowing these are a person’s last heartbeats and breaths. You think about things differently when you know that fact – what is this patient experiencing, was there anything else they wished they would’ve done, do they regret something. These are all things you could read about on a cheesy motivational poster in high school or middle school, and I thought I’d grasped them before – but I don’t think I really had. Growing up in a funeral home I saw plenty of cases where life was cut short under tragic circumstances, but sitting there watching it – even in the case of an elderly person - was much different. Either way – it’s certainly had an impact on how I view my life. Not in a way that will drastically change what I do, but how I enjoy and react to the everyday things in life.
Ok, rather than continuing to ramble on, I’ll let you get back to your life – just remember not to take it too seriously or you might enjoy it as much!
