Peace out, classroom!
Posted by Amy in Baptist NAP, Didactic, SRNA Life on April 28, 2011
Oh Anesthesia Classroom. We've had some good times, you and I. We've laughed. We've cried. We've made memories. Like the time Dr. Rieker unintentionally drew an inappropriate figure on the overhead in his attempt to explain dermatomes. Or when, during a break from lecture, Dave tightened the cap on Courtney's soda so that she couldn't open it or consume it's caffeinated contents, thereby slowing her rate of speech and allowing us students to keep up with her teaching points.
But it hasn't been all fun and games. You taught me that earning a "B" isn't the end of the world. You taught me not to pay attention to speedster Laura during exams, that one apparently can sit in a balmy 100 degree hot box for 8 hours at a time, and that no instructor, regardless of their intelligence or teaching ability, is safe from Anne Marie.
That's right, classroom: You've raised me from a naive ICU nurse into a master's prepared almost-CRNA. When I first began this journey in August of 2009, I had no idea what a Miller blade was. I slept soundly at night, unaware that pKa even existed. I had never heard of arytenoids or malignant hyperthermia, and I just assumed that "tubing the goose" was a really difficult snowboarding trick. The only thing that amazes me more than my lack of knowledge coming into this program is how far I've come in such a short time. The video below reminds me of my first few weeks as an anesthesia student, since anesthesia terminology made about as much sense to me at the time as the following words spoken by the Derrick Comedy troupe. (Warning: rough language at the end... though if you've been in a surgery where the patient's bowel was accidentally nicked, you've heard worse.)
Now, twenty one months later, I know how to respond to a suspected venous air embolism ("Cue the bone wax!!") and can recite the components of Wood's Metal with ease - and I owe those feats to you, classroom. But, our time together is coming to an end. I sat for my final final exam yesterday and presented our capstone findings with my group members this morning. Now, there is nothing left for me to do but graduate with my Master's in Nursing degree from UNCG next week and continue my clinical training through the end of summer. Did you notice how I didn't mention anything about didactic obligations?
Classroom, what I'm trying to say is this: We had our fair share of shmorkle-blinxx, but our quimbles are diverging. I think we can both agree that our blorkiffability is just not what it once was and we should probably spimple before our S.P.E.E.M Rating suffers.
