Drip drip drop. Drip drip drop. The sound of a hung IV bag as it echoes through the hospital floor. A sound I often hear as I make my way through the oncology floor in the morning, making sure all the patients are comfortable. Entering the room and seeing the patient’s face brighten; I am filled with mixed feelings. Can something as simple as providing reading material or warm blankets bring that much joy? This is only partially the case; partly from knowing that someone cares and partly from having any sliver of human interaction. Most patients I see are terminally ill and stay at the hospital for extended periods of time. Many of them have outlived the majority of their friends and family and lack visitors. My time volunteering has influenced
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Given that Long Beach is the 5th largest city in California, I have exposure to a wide array of patients from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. Long Beach Memorial is also a level 1 trauma center and sees a large amount of high acuity patients. One thing I have noticed in the trauma room is that surgical and trauma PAs have an incredible amount of autonomy, often, the trauma physician allow the PA to “run the show.” In addition to having a rigorous training course involving medical terminology and electronic health record (EHR) charting, necessary for working as a scribe, I also benefit learning from the physicians. Long Beach is a teaching hospital and I have the benefit of listening in on presentations when residents and PAs discuss cases with the attending physician. I have definitely matured from the time I began scribing in the ER. Some valuable skills I learned while working in the emergency department are: working is stressful situations and multitasking. Working in the ED can get busy, with the physician seeing up to 5 patients an hour. Charting can become more and more hectic and having a strong memory is important to not mix up important details of patients with similar presentation. Another benefit is that working as a medical scribe, I am utilizing and and integrating medical terminology in charts as opposed to a student who may only learn the term and definition in a classroom setting but does not know the
Given that Long Beach is the 5th largest city in California, I have exposure to a wide array of patients from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. Long Beach Memorial is also a level 1 trauma center and sees a large amount of high acuity patients. One thing I have noticed in the trauma room is that surgical and trauma PAs have an incredible amount of autonomy, often, the trauma physician allow the PA to “run the show.” In addition to having a rigorous training course involving medical terminology and electronic health record (EHR) charting, necessary for working as a scribe, I also benefit learning from the physicians. Long Beach is a teaching hospital and I have the benefit of listening in on presentations when residents and PAs discuss cases with the attending physician. I have definitely matured from the time I began scribing in the ER. Some valuable skills I learned while working in the emergency department are: working is stressful situations and multitasking. Working in the ED can get busy, with the physician seeing up to 5 patients an hour. Charting can become more and more hectic and having a strong memory is important to not mix up important details of patients with similar presentation. Another benefit is that working as a medical scribe, I am utilizing and and integrating medical terminology in charts as opposed to a student who may only learn the term and definition in a classroom setting but does not know the