My first 2 shifts!

So I've been in Ohio at Wright-Pat AFB for 3 days now and I've had 2 ED shifts. Overall, they're been pretty good. The base hospital where I'm rotating is not a big place like I thought it was. There's no real trauma or real emergencies for that matter. The people that come to the base medical center are either retired military or active or they're dependents. Also, there are very few actual emergencies that come to the ER here. Most of the complaints are things that can be handled by a family med doc as an outpatient. That's just how this small hospital is set up :-/

That being said, the residency program here is actually quite awesome. As an intern/resident you actually don't spend anytime on this base hospital and you're out in the civ world at the big trauma hospitals around the Dayton area, so that's cool.

I have met some crazy awesome docs though. Although the actual flow of real emergencies is relatively low, I'm learning LOTS and getting to basically make the decisions for my patients, write the orders, and much more! So it's been great so far.

The other thing I'm learning is how different the medical side of the Air Force is from the operational side. I would NEVER think of calling a Col by his first name, much less a nick name, and here it's expected...crazy. I guess because of the team dynamics of the ED with nurses, techs, and docs, the relationship is closer and more laid back. I like that it's laid back and informal, I never really liked the whole "power hungry salute me because i'm higher ranking than you" thing that goes on.  Some people might argue that its a bad thing for the enlisted and officers to be on a first name basis when the rest of the AF is not, but trust me, everyone still knows who is the doctor and who is really in charge...regardless of the rank.  So it all works out.

Things I have learned so far:
- Don't assume that military members/dependents are less crazy than the average population...the crazy is still there, it just hides better in the military.
- I despise decisions based on pure politics, well this i already knew
- I hate being called ma'am
- How to remove a foreign body from an eye with a TB needle
- still not a fan of the pelvic exam despite my female-ness


It's 2am, and i'm falling asleep so better and more well put togther posts are coming soon!