Week 14

Well this week has been the calm before the storm. We had our class on Tuesday and had the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving. It was pretty awesome. I didn't really get much done so I have a lot of studying to do tomorrow for the test coming this week. The following week will be finals and I will be done with the first semester. Well nothing interesting happened so I won't bore you with the details. Phil

Week 13

This week in clinical's was so awesome. The first day I was in a room and we were doing some lap chole's and an inguinal hernia repair. While we were prepping for the hernia repair the MDA asked me if I wanted to do the spinal. I said sure and he taught me how to do it and I assisted him placing a spinal. It was totally awesome. The people at the hospital are really nice and willing to work with students. The second day we were doing a bunch of lithotripsies. By the second and third case, I had things under control and the CRNA basically let me run the show. It was fun to be able to make some decisions and see them through. He also told me at the end of the shift that I did a really good job and that I caught on really fast. That made me feel really good about myself. Well I gotta run. Phil

Week 12

This has been such as lazy week for me. If I were a writer I would have a severe form of writers block. The unfortunate part is that I still have a test on Monday. I am hoping that it will pass and tomorrow I can study hard. One interesting thing did happen this week, I was able to go to the interview luncheon. I am so glad that I was not in that position again. They had 34 interviews and only 12 will be admitted to the program. There were three interviewee's that came from Utah. Heidi had me speak to one applicant who I guess I spoke with while I was traveling at LDS. I met another one at the luncheon and we'll see about the other one. Well, it should be fun this week with the test and clinicals. I gotta run. Phil

Week 11

Well, it has been quite an eventful week. we had our two test week and I was able to pull an A on both of my tests, which was a relief. It gives me added hope for finals week when I have 4 tests in 3 days. We also went as a class down to the NDANA conference in Bismark. I was inadvertently voted to be the class Representative for this year, which was exciting. It only meant that I had to go to the Board meetings. It was really interesting to see how the board was run. I found out that there is a lot of participation in the ANA for the state, but that not many people wanted to serve as board members. Hopefully, the participation will grow in the future, because it would be nice to see the board function autonomously without the need for another company. It will also give me the opportunity to go to DC during and watch legislation and lobbying in regards to the profession. It will be a really good expereince. Well I gotta go play with the family. Phil

Week 10

The school week went really well. I did really well on my anesthesia test and took the week pretty easy. This next week is going to be very interesting. We have a test in patho and in anesthesia this week. The amount of material that was covered in patho is insane. There is just too much content for that class and the teacher isn't the best either. Then we have to take a PAL's class on thursday and do the medatrax training. Finally on friday and saturday we have to be in Bismark for the NDANA fall meeting. Ahhhh! The fun, the games, the life! Well I will let you know how it goes next week. Till then, Phil

Week 9

So this week's test went a lot better than the first test in pharmacology. We finished our lecture for our second test in 507 and lets say there is almost 75 pages of notes to study, wow! If you calculate it out that only leaves 1 question for every page and a half. It should be interesting. I was a rock star on the IV station in clinicals this week. I got 16 out of 20 starts. Using lidocaine totally sucks, but it is easier for the patients. You find you vein and inject the lidocaine and it totally disappears. The second day in clinical I was able to do a total care day. It was awesome. Our first case was a sternal wound debridement. It was a known difficult airway so they did the fiber optic scope. But the patient had a snaggle tooth that cut the ETT cuff on the way in so they had to change it out. Then in the middle of the case the plastic surgeon looks over the drape and kind of frantically says "we are going to need blood." There was blood all over his face sheild and the guys chest was full of blood. All of the sudden there were MDA's, CRNA's and RN's all over the place. They were starting IV's, hanging albumin and getting blood. I hope I can move that fast someday. Another case was a septoplasty, they were taking a hammer and a chisel to some guys nose. I guess it really isn't that different from construction work after all. Oh, well it was fun. Phil

Week 8

So we had the in-laws come into town this weekend and I never got around to writing in the blog. It was a pretty good week. I was able to pull a pretty good grade in my pathophysiology class, amazingly enough. Supposedly that was the hardest test, so it should be down hill from here. I took my father-in-law to the football game, which we lost. It was our first loss for the year and I am sure we will drop the #1 rank now. But we all went to the hockey game and watched our team demolish Michigan State 6 to 0. It was so fun and the stadium is amazing. There was a student dressed in a banana and he was heckling the penalty box the whole time. Well I guess I better call it a week and write about this week. Phil