Orientation Again

One advantage to doing my residency and fellowship at the same place I did my undergraduate years was knowing the hospital. This was a stark realization as I started orienting for my job. The simplest things I took for granted - where to park, how to get to the anesthesia workroom, the numbering of the ORs - I had to relearn. None of it was a big deal, but it adds a veneer of stress as I started my job.

It's a strange realization. The medicine is not scary or hard. I am not worried about my ability to resuscitate a patient, intubate, or put in an epidural. Rather, it is the context that challenges me. How do I get these drugs? Where is the difficult airway cart? Which epidural solution do we use at this hospital? Unfortunately, I cannot anticipate all these questions, and so much of it is learned on the job.

Orientation day focused on getting me access: keys, passwords, fingerprints. But learning how to use everything is something I will learn in the next few weeks. I can get onto the electronic medical record, but the first time I have to look up an old echo report, I will have to dig through the chart. The tour was a whirlwind; soon I will slowly have to figure out the shortest paths from place to place. It is similar to meeting all these new people; I've been introduced to them all, but only with time will I get to know them. I think orientations always are like this, a blur, a whirlwind, and for me, it conjures equal parts stress and excitement.