I will miss it a lot, but luckily I am doing two weeks of elective there in March. The last weekend was crazy! I was on 3-2 all week, except tonight I was on 12-10 so I could get some sleep before catching the train to Boston in the morning.
On Friday we had so many dogs come in hit by car, we ended up doing CPR on 6 dogs in one night (only one came back, but that is pretty standard odds). At one point THREE hit by cars came in within 10 minutes, two were getting CPR on different gurneys, and one was with me, very very sick, (her owners decided to euthanize in the end).
After midnight the ER tends to slow down a lot, with only about 1-2 cases an hour (the usual is 4+ cases an hour), so things get a little loopy after midnight. The last couple days were SO silly. Russell was in charge of the MP3 player and was rocking it out playing air drums, next thing I know we start our own little kareoke night with the ultrasound probe serving as our microphone, singing anything from Elvis to Britney spears, my stomach hurt from laughing so much. The jokes get MUCH more raunchy. Russell was walking around aimlessly for a while when Dr. Skovira asked him what he was doing, and he just said "conveniently crop-dusting in front of all the dog's cages". I couldn't stop laughing.
Then Travis came back from the ER conference he was at all week tonight. It is interesting when you find someone that you work well with perfectly. Travis and I just click when on clinics together, and we are the perfect pair. I took all his cases tonight, (he actually kept seeking me out to make sure I was the student on his cases). And like always we just rocked them. It's neat when you find someone that you are totally in sync with at work and the two of you can just keep trucking along, always one step ahead of the other and picking up mistakes done by the other so things work out great.
I have learned a lot in the last 3 weeks. I learned I should have more confidence in myself then I did too. And one of the neat things I learned was about client communication. In addition to learning all about medical things on ER (and belive me, the doctors at Tufts are brilliant, so they taught us lots), you get to observe the doctors in the exam rooms talking to clients about tough things. I have learned a lot about client communication that way, and know how I want to talk with clients. I respect all the doctors at Tufts, but I have noticed some are better at talking to owners then others. The best bring it down to such understandable terms and make sure to NEVER treat an owner like crap. It is kind of true that if you are good at communicating you can convince a client to do anything. Well, some of the doctors are not so good, and I was bothered that one did not even mention euthanasia on a dying dog, just came in with a $2000 estimate for owners whom she knew had little money. I felt euthanasia was a GOOD option in this dog since it had a POOR prognosis, but if the owners had lots of $ and wanted to try they could easily shell out $5000 in treatment to try to save the dog, but the chances of saving her even then were probably only 30%. I was pissed that this doctor did not tell the owners that you should euthanize if you do not want to pursue treatment. She just went in the room and told them your dog is really sick with this and needs $5000 of treatment, and when the owners started crying and said they didn't have that money, she said "well, I will leave you to think about things, and come back when you make a decision." She made them tell the doctor that they wanted to euthanize on their own, which bothered me, since it was so hard for them, I think she made them feel guilty, whereas I would of told them straight up front that euthanasia was not a bad option for their dog.
Another doctor seemed to get defensive with owners and talked down to them. The owners would get mad back and not want to pursue treatment since she did not give them options and did a poor job explaining why their pet was so sick.
But several of the other doctors were GREAT. They were compassionate, kind, smart, articulate, and explained things and ALL the options SO well. They never made an owner feel guilty for their decisions, and I think they never had to cause they did such a good job explaining the options to owners and helping them make the right decision. It is so easy to judge owners, but I truly feel they all have different situations going on in their lives, so it is not fair to tell them they are wrong if they make a decision that I wouldn't of for my pets. I hope I can communicate well with clients like these doctors in the future.
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