Can I just go to the library and read?...

Sometimes I ask certain questions… when I really have other questions on my mind. This happened to me yesterday at work. I am currently doing a transfusion medicine rotation, which is more like transfusion chart reviews. I say that because there is very little medicine involved, and by very little I mean about as much as you’d see doing your taxes or playing video games. Literally, there have been several days where the entire work day consisted of 20-25 minutes of looking over already filled out documents and verifying that they’re right. Because redundancy annoys me, this rotation is like reading about where all the money from the stimulus package is going (i.e. it gets worse the further into it you get).

Having said all that, there are good days. These days are the ones that make the bad days bearable. Like yesterday for instance, I went into work at 9:30 AM and waited to begin the charade… Because I knew it would be a long hard day, I brought a book. I spent 2 hours trying to work through 1800’s British slang to learn about Pip’s crazy adventures in Great Expectations. At 11:30 AM… We (me and the other student) got a call from our attending. She said, “I am so sorry but things have gotten really busy in the hospital. So I'm not going to make it over to the office to go over the paperwork. So… ummm…” At this point, she clearly wants to send us home because we aren’t going to be doing anything. However, she knows that I'm actually paying to be there and doesn’t want to disappoint me with her lack of devotion to my education. So I preempt her guilt with the medical student’s best friend, “Can I just to the library and read about transfusions?” (The implication being that even though there aren’t any learning activities on the agenda, I'm still going to learn something.) She of course answers in the affirmative, and I get to go to the “library.”

The real question on my mind was, “Are you freaking kidding?” although “Why did you even make me come into the hospital in the first place?” was a close second. I keep these questions to myself and file them under the category of questions I wish I could ask. They’re right next to, “How old are you,” “Are you going to eat that?,” “Is that a birthmark?,” or “Are you gaining weight? or do you just buy clothes that are too small?”