A big bad second year!

In case you haven't heard - I am now an upper level resident.  Say What?!  Yup that's right - I've graduated from my internship and have moved on to my second year.  That means I'm 1/3 of the way done.
There are 8 new interns who will be under me starting tomorrow, except for that I am out of town on an away rotation, again.
I'll be working in the Emergency Department for the next several weeks.  I disappeared off the face of my blog because I was working night shift for multiple nights prior to leaving for Tuba City.  And let me tell you - we were busy.  I had nearly 4 admissions every night for the first few nights on, with multiple patient's in the ICU.  It was great experience.

Sarah and I at our promotion dinner!  yay!

At the promotion dinner as 2nd years, we introduced the incoming interns to the department and in the process we passed on a "pearl" to them.  A "pearl" is just a small piece of wisdom we picked up along the way.  My pearl was that even at the end of your day, or in the middle of the night when you are woken up from sleep, if a nurse calls with a concern or issue with a patient - think to yourself, if that was my grandmother, or father, would I want someone to go evaluate them?  Usually that's enough to get me off my bum to see the patient.  Sadly, it's rather easy to become jaded and calloused to many complaints and common problems and easy to lose perspective.  Asking myself that question usually takes the frustrated, tired, stressed me out of the picture and puts it all back into perspective.  Does it mean I'm happy about going to see the patient all the time? heck no - but should I, probably.

Driving, driving, driving....nearly 6 hours!

Pretty sunset!