Overachiever

I'm done with the semester! And I definitely am an overachiever, I even got an A in my pass/fail class. Oh well. I learned Advanced Patho really well, sure that will come in handy. And here's something else that's cool -- I figured the skills I acquired in Advanced Health Assessment was just nice-to-know, but a classmate who currently works as the nurse-manager of a psych unit said that the NP's and psychiatrists also do full physical assessments on admission and bill for them. I need to get a fuller understanding of what my new role will entail & what I will be able to do. For example, I'm not even sure if the collaborating physician that I am required to work with has to be a psychiatrist or not. Over the break, this is something that I plan to investigate. Along with some fun - hey, never forget the fun - I went to see Ken in Houston last week and we took some wonderful long walks. He lives in the museum district, right by the zoo and Rice and the medical center. One morning we walked thru the medical center - that place is breath-taking for a medical professional. Ha. It's a beautiful park around the zoo - they have a pathway thru oak trees that I swear, is almost as beautiful as Oak Alley in Louisiana. Here's a few shots of that.

We also visited the King Tutankhamun exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts - wow. http://www.mfah.org/ It's well worth the time and cost. They don't have every single item from the tomb, but what they have is lovely, including the iconic funerary mask that was placed over his mummy. I particularly liked the enormous statues that were in place around the tomb. We need to get Nile back to Houston to see this -- maybe interest in Egypt is genetic -- I mean, we did name him Nile for a reason. Ha. Speaking of my man/boy son, he had to go to school dressed as though for a job interview today. We went to Dillard's last night and bought him some dress clothes - that's right, he didn't own any. In the Men's Department, too. We bought this lovely deep-crimson (Roll Tide) dress shirt by Michael Kors and he looks great. I said, gee, you may find you enjoy dressing up. Nah. But it was worth a try. It did prompt me to have those predictable "gee, he is growing up" feelings. Don't have those for Dani. She's already a grown up -- just ask her.

I go back to work tomorrow. I'll be working two days a week on the break, exactly what I wanted to do (aren't they sweet to me?). So I should have some interesting thoughts and experiences for the blog while there. I definitely will be looking at the psych ward with different eyes - even though the focus of this semester wasn't yet on the nitty-gritty of psychiatric disorders (but we did cover the basics in Patho), I learned an enormous amount about the role of a "provider" as they say, which refers to the person making the care decisions & writing the scripts - whether that's a physician, a Nurse Practitioner, or a Physician's Assistant. NPs and PAs are often called "mid-level provider", which means we're between an RN and a physician. Recently I found out that some of us don't like that term -- thinking that mid-level means the care we provide is somehow reduced from that of a physician -- I can see that viewpoint, but I don't mind the term. I mean, graduate school for me is only 2 years, I just can't equate that with medical school and residency for a psychiatrist. Studies show that NPs provide equal-quality care, and that's what counts.

We covered the H&P (history and physical) to the nth degree in class -- so I plan to make time to read over those in the charts for my patients and see how practice relates to theory.  I also want to talk to the psychiatrists more about what they do. And if I get a chance to talk to the single Psych NP that is employed where I work, I'll talk to her (they're not very progressive with that. Maybe that will change). I'm also going to look more at the meds - I take Pharmacology next semester, so my head will be crammed full of that data soon.

I just finished Jeffrey Eugenides' new novel The Marriage Plot. He wrote Middlesex, which my book club in NJ introduced me to & I loved it. It aggrieved me greatly that Mr. Eugenides came to Austin to give a talk on his new book and I couldn't attend because I was taking a mid-term exam right at that time. It was the time of the semester when I thought, good god, this is just too hard, what was I thinking? And I have no life, I can't even go see one of my favorite authors! Anyway, I survived and imagine my surprise about this book -- this wasn't even in any of the reviews I read -- it's basically about mental illness. Bipolar disorder, to be exact. And I found the portrayal realistic. One of the things I think he really "got" was how wonderful manic phases can be (and yes, eventually, how destructive). If  you talk to someone who's bipolar, you often see this expression come across their face when they talk about what it's like when they're manic -- you're so verbal, so energized, so positive, so up -- who wouldn't love that? The expression says Oh god, it was just the best thing in the world and I miss it terribly. The book really nails it.

I've been thinking about my post last week ranting about what people do wrong at the gym. Specifically, why does what other people do bug me so much? Who cares if they wear a visor and sing along to their ipod, right? I really am an open-minded, bed-wetting liberal type of person -- I actually had a conversation recently with my dad (ok, an argument) about why I like gay people so much -- it's because they are interesting, brave and different. I so admire that. So why am I intolerant of the people brave enough to wear their visor to the healthclub? I guess it's because I spent many years using only my home gym with workout DVDs from my guru/idol -- http://cathe.com/ -- going back to the gym is a relatively recent thing for me, and going back to school has enabled me to go there every morning. I'm having a social-adjustment thing, learning to share my toys and space. So please be tolerant of my intolerance. I'll get it eventually. Then you'll see me running barefoot on the treadmill, singing tunelessly to my ipod, with my bright-yellow visor on. Oh, and my muddy shoes by the side. Ha!