Not so hot! Lessons learned....

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  New York City, New York, United States
Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Today all in all went well. I signed up, no major porblems, all paper work done and all sorted for my first actual day tommorow. However there were many thing that hacked me off today and what follows is a psychodynamic approach to letting out my stress, or what the layman calls 'a rant'.

Well today they were many lessons to be learned. First of all when an American says 'come to the office for registration between 8.30 and 9.00am' they mean come at 8.30 and stay until 9.00am; yes I was late at 8.45. Lesson two, do not under any circumstance wear a white coat on the streets of Manhattan, NEVER. I was harassed so much on the two-block walk (5mins) home with mine on that I took it off.... 'Doctor, can you please help me with just thirty cents?', was one of many.... Course when someone says 'doctor help' and your in my line of business you tend to stop (reference plane journy). Then what do you do when they ask for money... well you just have to give it dont you? Ha no, you just say no and walk away... I find that works. Lesson three, if you look hard enough you find the right switch that turns the air conditioning on in your room and you can sleep with the window shut and no noise... Lesson four, Do not try to find out the number to ring the automatic Three Mobile balance line to find out your bill from the USA... Lesson five, do not ring it again to see if you were charged to ring it the first time, you were at £3.50 per time.

Lesson six, the life and tribulations of a medical student are the same the world over, culture or boarders are no barriers. It does not matter if you have a placement on the surgical admissions in Derriford hospital, in theatre in Cusco or in pathology in New York, when you announce you are a medical student looking to start an arranged placement to a bunch of slightly annoyed people that you are talking to them you will be met by blank faces, huffing and puffing because they have to pick up a phone, tutting and snarling if they have to get out of a chair and general fuss making to show you up as they run around the department looking for someone to palm you off on to. Its amazing how people can say... 'What here? A rotation? Today? In pathology? A student rotation in pathology, here in the pathology department of the biggest NY teaching hospital? Are you sure? Did you arrange all this? Did they approve you?'...... No love, I got on a bus and went to London and got on a plane and flew to New York and spent about $5000 and rented an apartment and got a visa and got up this morning and walked here in a shirt and white coat in 90 degree sun just to have a laugh with you because I have nothing better to do with my time or money, I'm not even a medical student I'm actually a hairdresser. That is life and that is what I got today, water off a duck's back, well almost. When I found the 'chief' resident (no head dress, I was disappointed), she was nice and did, thankfully, welcome me and tell me what I needed to do (even though she had no idea I was coming).

So there were a few frustrations today, but the upshot of it was that it all went quite smoothly really.... It just so happened quite a few things annoyed me and I was very hot. I turned up then late and met some other students. The registration seemed to go fine and picked up my ID, white coat and got my email (and Emily equivalent Clare). I then paid copious amounts of the Queen's good pound sterling and headed over to sort my visa. Course when I got there (quite a walk in blazing sun and me all dressed smart in a shirt) she wanted the form that they gave me at the airport. The form which they told me to keep until I had the other form from home and then send both off. Complicated. Nope, she wanted it so back home I went for it and walked over again. Now not so happy and hot. Well she took it and said it will all be fine and that I just need to wait until its all processed.

Then we had more paper work to do. I had to read a whole load of US laws about doctor-patient confidentiality. Apparently you should not sell the information you know about a patient to a market research company.... I'm glad I'm all trained up on that or, 'all set' as they say here. Oh then I was tested on it lol. Then we went for computer training yey! Now at my medical school we have computer training every year we go back, except I always bunk it because it's a load of rubbish..... here it was compulsory. Its quite straight forward to look up an X-ray and on the system here its quite modern compared to Treliske :) although they think they are ancient because they are pre-2000. Oh and then I had to learn about ordering blood tests etc on the computer, they didn't seem to care that dead patients don't tend to need that kind of thing. We had the most abrupt women teaching us too and various other people being rude to me today so I was not pleased to find out on top of that that my phone bill is now at £53 since last Tuesday.

Still with the day over, and no pathology yet seen, I fell asleep for a while which is always a good idea. Then I headed down to Bryant's park as they had the last night of the free film festival. They were showing the original superman movie and I watched in the park with a hotdog and a coke. It was good, if odd to have people clapping cheering along to a film whenever superman appeared lol. But it was quite good fun. A woman did decide to cross me, which was mostly a bad idea as I was still feeling a little stressed. She had been shouting at some people to move out of her view.... Then she had made her way to stand behind me. She was about half my height and banged at my arm. When I turned round she looked fuming and just gestured to the side as if to say get out of the way. Now I would have let this go usually but I instead I said 'I beg your pardon?' she grunted something along the lines of 'get out of my way' to which I replied 'no I don't think so, what you do is you say excuse me please, you don't hit someone and say move, now I'll stand where I like thank you'. A measured and effective response from me for once...... Tomorrow will be better, I have decided and thus so it shall be. Hey its not all bad... I have air con in my room! Its wonderful...

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