First Day

Today was my first day shadowing a surgeon. I can't wear jeans or casual clothes to the hospital (I have to live by the dress code), so I woke up and pulled on nice pants and a shirt. I arrived at New London Hospital (NLH) at 8:15 and went straight in through the staff door to Pegs Lucarelli's office. She is one of the administrators and was helping me orient myself for the first day. I took a quiz about the hospital's codes and regulations and bonded with Pegs about Glee (the television show). Then, she took me to the General Surgery area of the hospital and handed me over to the Patient Care Coordinator, Peggy Prew, who I was going to spend the rest of my day with. Dr. Bears (the surgeon) had scheduled surgeries all morning so I couldn't see him at all. I spent the day with Pegs in her office. I learned about all of the systems in the computer for the hospital and how confusing it all gets having to schedule multiple surgeries with multiple members of the staff. I also learned about a sentinel node procedure. Radioactive dye is injected into the patient and the sentinel node shows if there is cancer in all the rest of the lymph nodes. I can't go into surgeries or patient rooms so there was a lot of down time in which I talked with Peggy about different aspects of the hospital and her job. I also learned about her dog, Sally, a half lab-half terrier. The day was very fun and I am excited to get a chance to talk with Dr. Bears more tomorrow.