I always tell you all that I'm going to try to do better about writing my blog. My goal is to write one after I complete each rotation. Tonight, I'm writing my blog from the couch in the residents lounge, as this is my last night of the night shift. I have completed two long and quite hard months of nights. While it was taxing on me and my little one, it was undoubtedly one of the best experiences I've had since I started residency. As I said in my last blog, our night team consists of 4 people. The chief (me), two second year residents and our staff. The chief is the captain of the ship, or the junior attending as our night staff calls us. The chief is in charge of the ENTIRE hospital. Everything that happens is supposed to be run by them and they are involved in every aspect of patient care from the basement to the top floor of the hospital as well as consults. There is a second year on labor and delivery and a second year in our urgent care. The second year in urgent care is also responsible for answering floor calls and consult pages.
Nights are very unpredictable. There were a few nights where we weren't very busy at all. However, most nights we were extremely busy and bursting at the seams with inpatients and urgent care patients. There were even quite a few nights where we had two emergent surgeries going on at one time in addition to a full complement of patients. We had to do all of this with FOUR people covering the entire hospital. With nights, either you sink or swim. I prayed for us all to be able to swim before I started and we did just that. I am so grateful to my staff for allowing me to have so much autonomy. He allowed me to steer the night shift ship and make decisions on my own. I really feel like I matured and grew my wings over the last few months. I am much more confident and feel much more prepared for the outside world than I did when I started. It has been a WONDERFUL experience.
I also had a GREAT team of people at night. The night nurses are fantastic. They work well in critical situations (we had our share) and were always on top of things. I love them even more now than I did when I completed my 2nd year night shifts. I also could not have asked for a better set of 2nd years to work with. They are smart, efficient, thoughtful, self-sufficient, hard working and they make sound clinical decisions. They each have their own separate strengths and recognize weaknesses (while they are few) and always try to work on those things. They are great people AND great physicians who I would gladly allow to care for me or my loved ones. It was an absolute joy to work along side them and teach them.
I've worked closely with them since they started their residency journey in July of 2014, so I've had an opportunity to really watch them learn, grow and mature. They have really made me proud. It has been very interesting to watch them interact with patients because I find that they manage patients very similarly to the way I do and they even speak to patients and use the same wording as they have heard me use throughout the years. For example, they both talk patients through cervical examinations like I do. Also, when a patient is pushing, I always say "hold a little pressure on that baby between pushes because they're like little turtle heads, they try to sneak back in there because it's cold out here" and I noticed that one of them has now added that to their arsenal of things they say to help the patient through that process.
As I noticed this, it made me think about what my residency legacy will be and ultimately what my life legacy will be. When I first started residency, all I wanted to do was stay afloat and try to become the best doctor I can be. Now, I not only want to be the best doctor I can be, but I also want to help those that are under me become the best that they can be. I'm not perfect, but I try my best to lead by example. You can't ask someone to come to work and give it 110% when you are barely giving 80%. A lot of what we learn and subsequently do comes from what we see the people leading us do. Just like with parenting, what matters most is not what you say, but what you do; the example you set. It is my prayer that these girls, and anyone else I work with, will look back on their time with me and be able to say that they enjoyed working with me and that they learned something from me. I think we all want to leave the world a little better than we found it. Teaching others, who subsequently teach others is a good way to do that. I hope that I leave an indelible mark on the people I work with and on the program as the chief resident.
I did my end-of-the-two-months feedback with them yesterday and allowed them to give me feedback at the end. They both said that they want to "be a bad ass like Keisha Bell when I grow up" then they cited some examples. I laughed and shook my head, but I was quite flattered and incredibly humbled by the fact that anyone would want to be like me and that God has allowed me to be an example that others would even want to follow. All I could do was take a moment to thank God, as it is because of Him that I am. I never want to forget that. It's very easy to get caught up in compliments and positive affirmations and start to think that YOU have done something with God has done EVERY THING. I'll never be able to thank Him enough.
As this journey as the night chief comes to an end, tomorrow I will embark on a new journey at the day chief which comes with it's own set of obstacles and learning/teaching opportunities. I will now be working with interns and it will be their first time in the role of the labor and delivery intern and OB I. While there are more people in house during the day, the responsibility to just as great, but in a different way. I have a little anxiety, as I always do, but I know that God will carry me through. I hope that when these next two months are over, I will look back on them as fondly as I am able to do for nights.
As for life outside of work over the last few months, it's been quite a roller coaster. I chose to do nights first because my daughter would be on summer vacation 6 of the 8 weeks. However, it was still hard on her to be away from home 6 nights a week. It was also hard for me because I only got to see her a few hours a day. In order to spend time with her I had to wake up much earlier than my night counterparts, which made me one sleep-deprived mama. Thankfully, it's over now. As always, we survived and will live to tell the tale. She started 2nd grade 2 weeks ago and is loving every second of it. She always has an ear full for me when I pick her up. She is such a joy and continues to be the light of my life.
We have 2 months down and 10 more to go (290 days to be exact)!! I pray that they go by quickly, but that I also enjoy the ride. I ask that you all continue to keep me and my family in your prayers. I am going through something pretty significant right now. I don't want to say specifically, but I just ask that you pray for my situation and that I continue to do well in residency in spite of everything else that going on outside of it. I ask that you pray for my baby girl and that she does well in school this year and that she comes out of this last year of residency unscathed. I also ask that you pray for my job search and that God will lead me to the exact place that he wants me to practice and that I know it when I see it.
I thank you all for your continued support. I have appreciated every encouraging comment and am thankful for every prayer. I hope you all have a good September and October. I plan to write again when I complete my two months of days.
Until then,
Your Favorite MD, Keisha B.
Mahogany Pearl: "Legacy is not what's left tomorrow when you're gone. It is what you give, create, impact and contribute today while you're here that then happens to live on." - Rasheed Ogunlaru
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| The #1 Night Team :-) |
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| Doing her daily reading |
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| First day of 2nd grade! |
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| Our annual post-first day of school dinner at Primos :-) |
