Aphasias and Dysphagias and Laryngectomies, oh my!

Working at the UofA Hospital is like nothing I've ever done before. I'm going non-stop from the minute I get into whichever supervisor's office is home base for the day (I'm doing Neurosurgery/Neurology and Craniofacial Surgery on alternate days), things are firing past me and it's all I can do to write them down in my scribbler, and my brain is constantly spinning to try and think of responses to the questions they're asking me. And I absolutely LOVE it.

Granted, it's only my second week; I'm not doing too much actual therapy (yet; I just finished a prototype treatment plan for a patient with global aphasia), and am essentially riding shotgun, but the stuff I am doing right now - chart reviews, assisting with bedside swallowing assessments, trying to seem competend during staff and patient meetings - is exciting and I only want to do more of it. We'll see how much I agree with that statement in another five weeks, but still: after my near-paranoia about my first day, it's good times.

There are just so many interesting things that I'm coming across in the course of the day-to-day goings on in the hospital, but I can't talk about any of the intricate details due to the obvious privacy agreements. However, I can say that a nurse mistook me for a patient's family member on Friday before I got my ID badge. "This area is for nurses only." She was really apologetic afterwards, but she was so stern in her initial reprimand there was a moment that I thought, "Huh, maybe I shouldn't be here after all."

Since I'm doing so much supplementary reading right now, I might not have a lot of time for my moderately interesting observations. I'm going to put up something at least once a week, rain or shine, but the forecast is for high mental congestion for the next three months, with chance of heavy brainstorms. Even if it's just a single inane observation, something will appear here at least once every seven days: that is my promise to you. And also to you. Well, now that I've told both of you, I need to go read a paper titled Deep Laryngeal Penetration as a Predictor of Aspiration. Isn't my life glamorous? How badly do you want to be me right now?