Winding Down and Orientation

It's really hard to embrace the fact that my vacation is winding down. This morning I had a meeting with the midwifery practice to learn more about my schedule, the practice and what's expected. Early this week, my main preceptor emailed me and said that for Monday (my first day on the L&D floor) I needed to "bring a lab coat and wear comfortable shoes." Today I found out why. Busy + poorly designed. Here are the stats:

L&D rooms: 10
A multiple room triage cluster
PP rooms (unknown, but two floors)
A Birth Center Suite (this is awesome, by the way)

Now, this isn't a very large maternity ward (well PP is kinda large, but still) However, it's a very busy practice... in fact the practice has multiple offices. I would say that at sometimes 100 births a month, they qualify as high volume. So, although there aren't a lot of rooms, there are a lot of patients, and the layout is kinda all over the place (different corridors, part of PP is on a different floor, etc) There are a lot midwives on the schedule for this month, and they provide 24/7 coverage to their patients. My schedule for this month is usually two 12hr call shifts and one and a half clinic days per week. Sometimes I have a 24hr call shift and one clinic day. I have never done a real 24hr call shift before... this will be interesting (I have been on call for 24hrs before, but not required to be in the hospital all that time) I like the fact that to be "on call" is to show up for a full shift. No waiting for the call, no getting up in the middle of the night- just show up at 8am for your shift. Period. Because it is so hard to learn and adjust to different midwives schedules, I am trying to stick with 2, maybe 3, midwives during integration, but of course it may not work out that way. I also think this is important because you want to have stability and someone who can accurately measure your progress every week. I am also going to try to stick to one main clinic because the private office and county clinic have different procedures and honestly it's hard enough learning one set. 

I got a badge this morning and a list of required tasks (HIPPA, etc) to do this weekend. My badge says "Ivy1 Medical Student" which really made me cringe. Now not only will everyone know what school I go to, but they will think I'm a med student. sigh. I have a drug test scheduled in two weeks.

Things I Left Feeling Good About:

• The midwife that oriented me was really nice and wanted to put me on her own schedule for the next few weeks
• I will get plenty of experiences both in clinic and on L&D
• Waterbirth (woohoo!)
• The midwife call room- very cozy and all ours!
• Plenty of hours to choose from when making my schedule

Things That Left Me Hyperventilating:

• The 34hr work week
• The fact that this is it

I guess it's good that the good list is longer than the omg! list.

The plan is to study very casually this weekend... all weekend.