Thursday, October 11, 2007

Days 3 and 4: Meat and Potatoes

The past two days have been extremely information-full. Yesterday we had a Neurology morning with a lot of A&P as well as a lot of things that could go incredibly wrong. We were also introduced to the concept of ICP, or Inter-cranial pressure, how to measure it, and what happens when ICP and MAP, or mean arterial pressure, meet. It's bad - you die. And they should be nowhere close to each other.

The speaker was Hartmut Gross, MD, one of the physicians in the ED at MCG. He has a strong neurological background and was very impressive in talking with us. It was more of a discussion than a lecture, and I feel as though I learned quite a bit from it. Very heavy on neurological assessment, and as I had already said, strong on the concepts of ICP, MAP, and CPP or cerebral perfusion pressure. A lot of emphasis on dealing with ICP, especially in flight.

The afternoon was about GI/GU/Renal considerations and Dialysis. Tim Weaver, RN, CCEMT-P, was the speaker. He was good, but not as good as Dr. Gross. The first part was about the different systems, their Anatomy and Physiology, and the different types of problems one can find and deal with. The second part was a really good talk on Dialysis, how it works, and why people in Chronic Renal Failure or End Stage Renal Failure are so sick. I have to say I have a whole new appreciation for dealing with our patients who are on dialysis.

This morning was all Aeromedical subjects, including altitude physiology and flight stressors as well as air operations and an overview of air medical transport objectives. The afternoon was infection control and AICD's. both were good lectures, if maybe a little dry. The morning lecturer, Tim Caldwell, FP-C, it turns out is someone I've met before. He was interviewing at DHART about 4 months ago, and I met him when I ran into one of the people I know that works there. We recognized each other - small world.

Tomorrow is a clinical day for me. I will be in the Surgical ICU. It should be interesting, and I suspect it will bring back flashbacks of when I was in Paramedic school doing my ICU rotation. At the same time, I think it will be interesting because I have a better handle on things now than when I was a medic student. At the same time, I am a bit intimidated; this is a bigger, busier place, and I won't get to do much more than watch. But I'm sure I'll learn some things; I always do.

I'll post about it once I'm done. For now, I'm off.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey - sounds like things are going well down there..just want to make sure you know I check in often to see what kind of wild stuff you are learning. I'm leaving tomorrow to go to a use conference in San Diego...not quite as exciting as what you are doing. 3 days in a hotel talking about software. :) Anyway, keep up the good work, learning and writing. I will be checking for updates. Jay

Unknown said...

You got it, bro - more since I last wrote, going up today.