Greetings from Parliament II

OK, I dunno about you guys, but I had my first medical student encounter where I actually was responsible for one, instead of just working with them. I think he thinks I'm retarded. So here I was in the emerg, minding my own business, about to do call, when I get paged, "Uh, are you the resident on? I'm so-and-so, I'm the medical student on with you this evening." I hang up, and think, GEEZ LOUISE, what am I going to do with him? What on earth did my senior do on team? Am I supposed to see a patient briefly beforehand and triage them to determine if they're stable/simple/educational enough for the student? Am I supposed to let the student report to the staff, or am I supposed to do that? Oh crap, that means I have to teach them something educational... in French... right....
So this lady comes in with a fib and a TIA. I figure, geez, that's probably educational. Go off, young student, go learn on a patient! Page me when you're done... figuring, of course, that maybe he'd finish taking the history and physical and also have written the orders in about an hour. Meanwhile, I find a computer and desperately read up on a fib and TIAs so I'll
have something intelligent to say besides, "Well, what's the target INR?". Meanwhile, the student takes 2 hours and 45 minutes to see the patient, and then comes with half done orders, after which, having reviewed his history and physical (now that was a total laugh, if you were watching me, trying to look all intelligent and asking what else he may have forgotten to ask about or what physical signs he should be looking for...), I had to intelligently explain what else had to be put in there and then CO-SIGN them! After teaching a bit about a fib (which really just came down to telling him what the target INR was
anyways...) and getting that all in order, and making sure that her CT head and CxR were OK, that case took, from when I sent him in to when I was finally free to go see my next consult: 4 1/2 hours. Unbelievable. I don't understand how on
earth our senior residents did it.

Greetings from Parliament I

I didn't realize that this would turn into such a huge chronicle of the many adventures of medical alumni.... :)
Anyways, I'm busy speaking franglais to everyone... and either confusing the francophones or amusing the bilingual patients... Still haven't actually made it to Parliament Hill (figures with all the Canada Day celebrations, Tragically
Hip in town, etc etc and I'm busy admitting non-Q MIs...)
On a more serious note, one of the interns in Ottawa made a very serious suicide attempt over the weekend and is currently in ICU. It's kind of cast a pall on residency as a whole. So, PLEASE guys, take care of yourselves, it's not the first one that I've been kind of connected to, but I would hate for it to get anymore personal than that...