SI-- WEEK THIRTY FIVE

February was such an awesome month! It felt so good to have time away from work to pursue some other passions. T and I volunteered of lot of time this month working with the full-time missionaries of our church (including keeping them well-fed!). People laugh when I explain how rewarding the work is - they laugh because they ask why working in a hospital all day isn't enough service to "get my fill"? I always answer - you can never do enough! T and I are happiest when we aren't focused on ourselves and are instead helping others. We have plenty of time in the future to be selfish... right?

This week in school I had a few memorable lectures:
+ I gained a lot of insight during an Intimate Partner Violence workshop -- it's one of those subjects you wished you could ignore because it's horrific but unfortunately it's some people's reality! It broke my heart to learn that Douglas county issues 300-400 protection orders each month. We also learned how difficult it is to prosecute abusers and how our medical record can be one of the very important pieces to the trial. For example, you can quote patients in the medical record and that can be read in court and not considered hearsay -- that's huge! It really made me think twice about if I am screening enough patients for these safety concerns and if my documentation whether my documentation would be helpful if it were to be used in court..

+ My favorite lecture of the week was 3 hours of less-than-thrilling material that ended with an hour Q&A of the physician that runs our Biocontaiment Unit. It was fascinating to hear how the unit came to be and all the logistics of treating our 3 patients (so far!) with Ebola. The team of healthcare workers that run the unit are incredibly well trained and have been completing quarterly drills for 10 years(!) before the unit ever had a patient that necessitated it's use. I loved hearing about the logistics of caring for these patients - including the changes they made to the unit between patients. You would expect that the workers would have taken much-needed breaks between patients but instead they worked to create a lab within the unit and develop a process to be able to offer dialysis. Amazing people! The most shocking statistic of the session was the amount of waste that was created per patient per day -- about 1,000 pounds! That is all the of personal protective gear, bed sheets, hospital gowns, etc. All of that wasted has to be disinfected before it leaves the hospital so they are run it through an autoclave before it goes to a specialized waste facility. It's actually the limiting factor to how many patients our unit can handle at one time --> there are 10 rooms in the unit but 1,000 pounds of waste takes 12 hours to autoclave.. so we can only really handle 2 patients with Ebola at one time. Who would have thought that trash would be the issue?!

Let's end  this with some pictures! T and I spent our Saturday night with medical school friends at a wedding reception. Our friends had a destination wedding (unfortunately we couldn't afford to join them!) and then finished the celebration this weekend at Blue Sushi:

Now it's back to reality with a couple busy months ahead! For the next month I'll be in the Intensive Care Unit at the VA. I have a lot to learn about critical care so this will be a good month. It will also be a tiring month as I will have those long overnight shifts "q4" aka every 4th night. Not fun. BUT, in better news, I get to wear scrubs to work everyday! That gives me a solid 10 extra minutes of sleep each morning which is much appreciated :) Love you all! 

xo,

Krista