Tuesday was nice, with nothing to do except relax, study at my leisure, and work some more on finding articles for my community assignments. Each one requires at least one journal article. And believe me, trying to find an article that speaks to religion and medicine and how they interact in Bhutanese culture is not that easy.
Besides studying, I spent the day chilling and catching up on sleep. Well, mostly that was the morning, because I slept in.
Wednesday was the first day of Pharmacology with our actual professor. She is from China and has an obvious accent, although her English is better than I think most of the class was expecting. It took a few minutes to get into her rhythm and get used to her idiosyncrasies, but overall lecture wasn't too bad.
I think I was one of few who thought so, though, because a lot of people were complaining afterward about how difficult the class is going to be. Now, I don't think they have the right idea. I think it's going to be difficult because the professor originally had 6 hours per week to teach us, then it was cut to 4, and now it's down to 3. So, with how much the lecture is limited, we have even more to do on our own at home. Yeah, the hybrid idea for this class was not a good idea. I would rather see the community lecture be a hybrid class, because for the most part, what we do feels pointless to spend 6 hours a week on. There is so much downtime, we could donate time from that class towards Pharmacology and still be in good shape.
And, speaking of community health lecture, we had that right after Pharmacology, with another quiz, group quiz, and group activity that took up a lot more time than was necessary. The class concluded a little early (like, 1630) thanks to the guest speaker from the Public Health Department. I felt bad, because I was so far gone by that point that I just could not give her the attention I wanted to give. Interesting presentation, although I don't think public health is for me.
I ran home to take a quick shower before open lab, to try to wake myself up and freshen up for the last hour and half I would be spending at school. I grabbed a small bite to eat and headed right on back. Open lab wasn't too bad. I am getting better and more confident about starting a saline lock (insert the catheter to the vein, attach the pigtail line that is filled with saline, which can then be connected to the IV line). Now, I need to work on hanging the bags.
I did the IV simulator thing, too. The point of the assignment is to take a clinical situation, assess what tools we need, and then practice the entire procedure with a combination of the computer program and the attached fake insertion site with a fake needle insertion thing that detects angle, speed, advancing the catheter part, etc. I sat near my friend, who failed a few times before getting frustrated and letting me sit. I tried and passed on the first go, but I still had to do two more attempts. I let my friend try again, and she took a few more tries before she passed, but she had her minimum of three attempts with one passing. I then did two more attempts and missed the 100% by a hair!
So, all is well with that. We had until Thanksgiving break for that, but I'm glad it's done early!
The night concluded with some studying for the exam in the morning. Blech, very long day. Oh well -- onward and upward!!
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