Wednesday, February 10, 2010

needle stick

The stormy Tucson weather must be quite a site. I wouldn't know. I've been in the hospital over 16 hours everyday for the past two weeks.

Today, my miserable general surgery rotation got a whole lot worse when I stabbed myself with a dirty suture needle in the operating room. I proceeded to get yelled at by the surgeon (no surprise...it was when he was yelling at the nurse that I jumped and stabbed myself in the first place)...then 5 hours of paperwork, blood tests, and educational counseling on the risks of such a thing. It wasn't until my 3rd hour sitting in the emergency department listening to another nurse rant about HIV did I start crying.

I was crying. In the emergency department. We don't know if the patient has Hepatitis or HIV or whatever. Bummer.

I think this classifies itself as a bad day. I sorta wish I had this crazy cute band-aids to slap on my arm instead of the flesh-colored one I'm currently sporting.

5 comments:

  1. I'll keep you in my thoughts. Tomorrow is a new day!

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  2. Oh no! I really hope that nothing was passed over to you. =[ Please update when you know!

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  3. I hope they drew blood to test the patient! I can't believe they wouldn't be willing to find out if the patient is + for any of the nasties-that's odd.

    I was stuck for the first time ~9 months ago...by a surgery attending. He didn't like how I had my wrist crooked, and reached to reposition me without warning-and he left his dirty instrument and needle in his hand when he did it. It really does make for a sucky day-fortunately, after a couple of days I got notice that the patient was negative for the big 3 viruses. Made undergoing those subsequent "window period" tests a lot less nerve wracking.

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  4. well, it's against the law to subject people to blood tests....so this patient has to sign a waiver for his blood to be tested for those icky things AND a separate waiver to let ME know if he does have those things.

    frustrating.

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  5. So sorry, Jes. Praying that the blood tests come out clean.

    You're going to make it...more than make it...through medical school. You're going to shine as a doctor. I just know it.

    stephanie@metropolitanmama.net

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