It's Tricky!

For each clinical, the course instructor comes to check out each student at each site. Ideally, they are supposed to observe the student seeing a patient, doing the patient history, doing the physical, presenting the case to the preceptor and formulating the plan. This was not possible at my location, so instead I had to present a case to my preceptor and the instructor. Of course, I wouldn't be me without having a smidge of anxiety over this, but of course, it went fine and my lovely preceptor sang my praises the whole time, making such outlandish claims like, "She actually makes me MORE productive!"



I also attempted my first pap smear today. I saw attempted because I certainly didn't do the whole thing myself. There are a lot of things to coordinate at the same time, not to mention I was a little freaked out because I know first hand how invasive and uncomfortable it is, and knowing I'm making it even worse fumbling around. Let's just say, things don't look exactly text book! Plus, we have old equipement: metal speculums with a free standing light. In class, I learned using a plastic speculum with a light attached which frees up your other hand. I was very concerned about pinching the woman trying to lock and unlock the speculum once it was in place. In addition, the cervical os was a little tricky to find. I also wasn't sure if I was going in at the right angle and was very tentative inserting the speculum, my preceptor had to give me the added push to get it firmly in place. Yowza. Well, next time I'll know all the barriers to doing a successful pap so maybe I can do the swab myself next time.