CMC Union

Things are still going well at CMC Union. It's a special week to honor employees at the hospital, so I've been getting lots of special treats. Today we had an ice cream social, and tomorrow we get to wear jeans and attend a cook-out. Don't worry though, there's some work going on too. Yesterday I started speaking with patients for the first time. The first visit the dietitian went with me, and the next visit she let me go on my own. I've seen a few patients to ask them about their appetite, and I've talked with a few patients about using supplements like ensure to increase their calorie intake. I've helped write some TPN orders, which I think are really fun. I'm still just shadowing on all of the harder cases, but I'm learning a lot. I feel like I'm getting a better understanding of things that were tricky for me to understand in class. For instance, in the past two days we've talked a lot about the relationships between albumin, BUN, and calcium. If calcium looks normal but BUN is low, calcium might really be high. Also, if albumin is normal but BUN is high, albumin will probably drop when BUN normalizes. These things make lab values seem difficult to interpret because there are so many things to consider, but I'm learning :)
Lastly, for those of you who knew about the email I got about wearing certain colors each day of the week, I'm sorry to report that I received that email in error. That is apparently NOT happening at the hospital but rather in the long term care facility, so I was the only person in purple on Monday. Needless to say I now choose my own color shirt every day!