fake it till you make it

Tami says this a lot when we're talking about work, and I think it a lot when I'm interviewing patients. The only way I get through patient encounters is to pretend like I know exactly what I'm doing and what I'm talking about. I'm pretty sure if I acted as nervous or clueless as I usually am, the patient would panic and not trust me with a thing. So I smile, shake hands, ask questions with confidence, and try to look at competent as possible.

It doesn't always work. Yesterday I was trying to take a blood pressure, but I was doing it sort of awkwardly, and my preceptor was like here....let me show you how to make this less awkward. lolz lolz lolz. At least I had my stethoscope in my ears in the correct direction!

Yes, that has been a problem before.

It's also interesting having to ask your preceptor for certain things you want to get out of your experience. We saw some patients and I took notes and did a few menial tasks to help her out, but when she listened to hearts and lungs I never got to take a listen. Afterwards when we were summing up I told her that it would be better if I actually got to practice some of the physical exam myself - I mean, how am I supposed to know what a murmur or rales sound like if I never hear them? Anyway, for some reason I was nervous to ask her to let me do more stuff, but she was like "of course, of course."

I think it's that real doctors intimidate the **** out of me. Seriously. You have no idea how much stuff they know. I have probably been taught a lot of it, but I can barely remember any of it. It's embarressing and stressful and motivating. When am I going to be the repository of knowledge that they seem to be? Answer: not for many, many years. Le sigh.

ANYWAY. You would think I'd end this post with something like "and now I'm going to go study so I can be more like them." Well, it's Friday, and I'm stressed out, and I'm going to happy hour instead. I will count it as a win if I get some good studying in sometime later this weekend.

Side note: I get to go see Buzz Aldrin tomorrow! what what. Exciting. At a book fair! Also exciting. I do love me some books, and some space, and some wanna be astronauts. Or one, anyway.