Week 12

This week was such a blur it wasn't even funny. First was the pathophysiology test, I was aiming for a 96 but didn't quite get it. So for the last test I will have to get a 92 to receive an A in the class. The pressure is on now. Plus it is my favorite subjects (female reproductive, pregnancy and neonates). Hopefully the stuff we are learning in Anesthesia will help. Then it was the statistics final. I think I did well, but I will have to go in and see the Professor to figure out what my final grade is. Also I had another clinical this week. It was pretty good. I was with a CRNA who was pretty intense. He taught me a lot though. I found out that if you can get a milligram of dilaudid on board 15-30 minutes prior to induction you don't see them have a hypertensive response, although it did seem as though we were fighting them on the hypotensive end. But it didn't really knock out their respiratory drive, which was surprising, and the patients woke up with relatively low pain scores. We also extubated a patient deep, just to try it out. I didn't really like it. It seemed as though I was holding the airway the whole time, which was a real bugger trying to get the bed down to the PACU. They say you take the things you like form all of the CRNAs and form your own practice and now I really see what they are saying. As for next week another anesthesia test and then back to the research paper. Will it ever end???
Oh I almost forgot. The BIS monitor rep came into town this week and a bunch of CRNAs and a couple of students went to dinner at a golf course. The food wasn't that great but the rep had a CRNA that spoke to us about increased incidence of Alzheimer's and breast cancer metastasis and how it might be related to our volatile agents (anesthesia gases). It was super interesting and I can't wait to see the studies that come out in the next few years. It should shape anesthesia practice in the next several years!