Volunteered in the ER again. Making more friends. Enjoy working with the people during the nightshift.
A lady I had met earlier in the ER was walking outside the hospital when I was leaving, and she warmly thanked me for having helped her family deal with the long wait.
It felt... nice? I don't know much, but I certainly know more about customer service than any of the doctors in the ER ever will.
2.10.2010
1.26.2010
spinal tap
Volunteered in the ER again last night.
Had the chance to observe Dr. Watts perform a lumbar puncture on a psych patient. Mmm, CSF.
Tried to speak Cantonese AND Mandarin to a patient's relative trying to explain to them that when the bone broke in one direction, you have to push it straight and then pull it in the opposite direction to over-correct it.
Delivered blood, CSF samples to the lab, some patient info to the 9th floor, where these nurses were surprised that a volunteer would work until midnight.
All the Asians and Hispanics down in the ER are SO nice to me!
Enjoyed the graham crackers, cranberry juice, apple juice, and orange juice in the break room.
Last night was also the night I have seen so many patients' underwears. It's like college all over again. Unpleasant, uncomfortable, and blinding to my vision.
When it rains, there seems to be a lot more patients in the ER. Don't know why.
Body is still sore from the accident Friday. Maybe my body's getting out of shock. My left temple hurts, the right side of my body is sore, and I'm more tired than usual. Aye.
Going to sit in on a class tonight. It's just one meeting- the rest will be online, which may not be such a bad thing.
Had the chance to observe Dr. Watts perform a lumbar puncture on a psych patient. Mmm, CSF.
Tried to speak Cantonese AND Mandarin to a patient's relative trying to explain to them that when the bone broke in one direction, you have to push it straight and then pull it in the opposite direction to over-correct it.
Delivered blood, CSF samples to the lab, some patient info to the 9th floor, where these nurses were surprised that a volunteer would work until midnight.
All the Asians and Hispanics down in the ER are SO nice to me!
Enjoyed the graham crackers, cranberry juice, apple juice, and orange juice in the break room.
Last night was also the night I have seen so many patients' underwears. It's like college all over again. Unpleasant, uncomfortable, and blinding to my vision.
When it rains, there seems to be a lot more patients in the ER. Don't know why.
Body is still sore from the accident Friday. Maybe my body's getting out of shock. My left temple hurts, the right side of my body is sore, and I'm more tired than usual. Aye.
Going to sit in on a class tonight. It's just one meeting- the rest will be online, which may not be such a bad thing.
1.25.2010
starcraft
Yes, that's the name of the shuttle.
Thursday 01.21.10.
During most of the day, people were using the microscope room with the lights on, so I wasn't able to start taking any fluorescence photos until 6 PM at night. In addition, my friend/lab mate wanted me to attend the Eric Kandel lecture at Mission Bay because she didn't want to go alone. What's up with girls always needing a companion to go with them somewhere so that they don't feel lonely? Well, his lecture was pretty interesting, and he was comical, although a lot of people seemed to fall asleep. Most of his research was biochemistry stuff, and I enjoyed the connections his work makes from the molecular level to the behavioral. I was a little envious of how his findings looked so effortless.
So traveling to the other campus took up about 2.5 hrs out of my day, and I ended up taking pictures until around midnight. Then I had to start prepping my powerpoint for lab meeting. The week before, my lab manager had asked me to switch places with him, for reasons unknown but most likely due to his brother coming into the City to visit. Big mistake.
Friday 01.22.10
At midnight, before I went on to pasting the images into my powerpoint, I had to extract them from the microscope. Still, I felt dirty so I walked back to my apartment to take a shower. I was laying in bed for a while before showering, taking out my contacts, and returning to lab, which turned out to be 1:30 AM. In lab, I extracted the photos from our Leica microscope (awesome), setting the red and green exposure to 125 ms, DAPI channel to 5 ms, and the picture quality as JPEGs of 88%.
It was a mistake to place data on before working on the rationale, but I was in lab, the heaters had turned off, and mucus was flowing out of my nose. I pretty much didn't care at that point. Cropping pictures to 25% or 15% its size, depending on if I placed 4 or 8 images on one slide, I put them all into my work, even the data that wasn't relevant to the project. My body lost thermal homeostasis, so I was wearing my hoodie from American Apparel along with a windbreaker, the only two jackets I brought to lab. I was like this until about 8 or 9 when people started trickling in, turning on the lights, hurting my eyes. Around 9:20 I left with my postdoc to get dim sum for breakfast.
10 AM. 24 hours without sleep, and time for lab meeting. Totally unfocused. Such is the theme of my life.
Anyhow, sleep-deprived, went to the VA, took the shuttle back, and got hit by a car from the other side of the road. More deets on this later.
Thursday 01.21.10.
During most of the day, people were using the microscope room with the lights on, so I wasn't able to start taking any fluorescence photos until 6 PM at night. In addition, my friend/lab mate wanted me to attend the Eric Kandel lecture at Mission Bay because she didn't want to go alone. What's up with girls always needing a companion to go with them somewhere so that they don't feel lonely? Well, his lecture was pretty interesting, and he was comical, although a lot of people seemed to fall asleep. Most of his research was biochemistry stuff, and I enjoyed the connections his work makes from the molecular level to the behavioral. I was a little envious of how his findings looked so effortless.
So traveling to the other campus took up about 2.5 hrs out of my day, and I ended up taking pictures until around midnight. Then I had to start prepping my powerpoint for lab meeting. The week before, my lab manager had asked me to switch places with him, for reasons unknown but most likely due to his brother coming into the City to visit. Big mistake.
Friday 01.22.10
At midnight, before I went on to pasting the images into my powerpoint, I had to extract them from the microscope. Still, I felt dirty so I walked back to my apartment to take a shower. I was laying in bed for a while before showering, taking out my contacts, and returning to lab, which turned out to be 1:30 AM. In lab, I extracted the photos from our Leica microscope (awesome), setting the red and green exposure to 125 ms, DAPI channel to 5 ms, and the picture quality as JPEGs of 88%.
It was a mistake to place data on before working on the rationale, but I was in lab, the heaters had turned off, and mucus was flowing out of my nose. I pretty much didn't care at that point. Cropping pictures to 25% or 15% its size, depending on if I placed 4 or 8 images on one slide, I put them all into my work, even the data that wasn't relevant to the project. My body lost thermal homeostasis, so I was wearing my hoodie from American Apparel along with a windbreaker, the only two jackets I brought to lab. I was like this until about 8 or 9 when people started trickling in, turning on the lights, hurting my eyes. Around 9:20 I left with my postdoc to get dim sum for breakfast.
10 AM. 24 hours without sleep, and time for lab meeting. Totally unfocused. Such is the theme of my life.
Anyhow, sleep-deprived, went to the VA, took the shuttle back, and got hit by a car from the other side of the road. More deets on this later.
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