more firsts...

A few new developments this week: I gave my first injection at my preceptor's office. When my preceptor told me in the hallway that I'd be giving a Vitamin B12 injection to a patient, I was a little startled and whispered "But I've never given an injection before!? Don't I have to practice on an orange first or something?". He just smiled and said, "Well, you have to start sometime." Yikes, I'm hoping he doesn't do the same with digital rectal exams. :) Anyway, the patient was a very good sport (and her granddaughter is in premed which I think made her more sympathetic to my cause) and held her arm out for me to poke. She didn't even mind when my initial run at it was far to light and I bounced back off her skin without even making a dent. (Key takeway: Skin is tough.) She was very gracious after my second, successful attempt - saying that she didn't feel any stinging or anything. Whew, one down, many 1000's more to come. The clinical skill we focused on this week was doing a chest/respiratory exam. I spent time being extra preoccupied with how to make sure my hands were at precisely the right temperature to make it comfortable for the volunteer patient we had. My hand temperature seems to naturally hover at around -2 degrees C which I don't think would be particularly pleasant for a patient to experience as I check for a broken clavicle or something. Since sinks with hot water aren't going to be everywhere around me, I'm going to have to start using some of that alcohol wash combined with some Vicks vaporub in order to achieve the optimal temperature pre-exam. :) I found out this week that I'm heading to Ottawa on Feb 16-19th for a conference put on by the Canadian Federation of Medical Students on leadership and lobbying. We get a day of media training and learning how to lobby (I'm curious about this and figure it will be a good skill to have) and then we meet with our own MP on the Monday and go to Question Period. I'm looking forward to it and REALLY looking forward to seeing all of my Ottawa buddies!! Can't wait. Another perk of being here in Vic vs. Vancouver? This week as I was walking on a nature trail into school, I saw my first ever owl! He was hanging out in a tree, eyeing the ducks cruising around on a small pond below and when I came around the corner, it flew across the path to another tree. Definitely not a sight I'd see in Vancouver, and it was 100 feet from the med school building no less! That's the scoop with me this week. Stay tuned for the next installment...