Orientay-shun.

So, I survived Day 1. All in all, a pretty good day, though I admit that I am quite tired and was happy to take off the "professional" outfit and don my usual sweats once I got back to my room.

The morning was rather slow...presentations about HIPPA (I'm not supposed to talk about anything, ever), fire safety (xylene is flammable AND a health hazard - yay for MSDS!), and infectious diseases (MRSA is bad, kids). We then received our highly official-looking badges and took a tour of the campus, though of course we forgot everything and got ourselves promptly lost once they turned us loose this afternoon.

After lunch we had an "OR Skills Lab," which was easily the highlight of the day, if not the most useful thing I've experienced in many months. The hospital did something very smart when they built their new OR suite: they kept the old suite for teaching and converted the rooms into surgical skills labs. There's a ton of fun things to do in the labs...my favorites were the laparoscopy tasks. The guys really liked the colonsocopy simulator. Best part? We're allowed to practice on anything we like. I definitely plan to go back later in the semester when I have some free time.

After a quick tour, we watched videos about scrubbing, and then we headed into the new OR suite and practiced for real. It was quite exciting. I don't think I've paid such rapt attention to anything for a long time, so the steps are currently burned in my mind, but I'll record them here for posterity, for my own future reference, and just because it's cool:

1) Change into scrubs.
2) Don appropriate hair covering, face mask, eye protection, and shoe coverings.
3) Enter OR. Introduce self; tell scrub nurse glove size (6, it turns out for me) and offer to grab gown; exit OR and find scrub sink.
4) Select appropriate scrub soap pack. Open and place on sink edge.
5) Wash hands and arms to 2" above the elbows with regular soap from dispenser on wall.
6) Clean fingernails with pick provided in scrub pack. Dispose of pick in trash can.
7) Run double-sided scrub pad under sink to activate surfactant. Wash left hand as follows:
a) 20 strokes on palm with foam side
b) 20 strokes each fingernail with brush side
c) 20 strokes each finer (5/side) with foam side
d) 20 strokes back of hand with foam side
e) 20 strokes first third of arm with foam side (5 strokes/side)
f) 20 strokes second third of arm with foam side (5 strokes/side)
e) 20 strokes final third of arm to 2" past the elbow (5 strokes/side)
8) Repeat Step 7 for right hand.
9) Rinse, keeping hands above elbows and allowing water to drip away from the hands.
10) Enter OR. Get sterile towel from scrub nurse. Dry left arm with top half of towel and right arm with bottom half. Discard in garbage.
11) Scrub nurse unfolds gown and holds it open. Carefully, without touching anything else, place arms in armholes and work hands down until tips of fingers emerge.
12) Scrub nurse will tie strings in back of gown and will then assist in donning gloves. Shove hands in gloves quickly to prevent contamination. Gloves should ride up several inches over sleeves of gown; gown cuffs should extend a few centimeters inside the glove to create a good seal.
13) Ties in front of gown are attached to a piece of thin cardboard. Break the left tie from the card, hold it in the left hand and give the card (still attached to right tie) to the scrub nurse. Spin once in a circle to the left, then rip right tie from scrub nurse (still holding card) and tie gown TIGHTLY on the left.
14) Hooray, you're scrubbed!

Taking the garb off is slightly easier:
1) Rip front tie on gown.
2) Pull gown forward off body by ripping the two closures in the back, preferably without ripping the gown. Discard inside-out in garbage receptacle.
3) Remove gloves with appropriate technique. Discard.
4) Hooray, you're un-scrubbed!

Writing is out makes it seem insanely complicated. It's really not. I admit, however, that I was rather pleased when I was the only one who properly ripped off the gown on the first try - Kyle's gown tore a bit and Nick got stuck after breaking the first set of back ties. I'm not going to look at it as a sign...but I'm rather excited about my first surgery day. :)

The rest of the day was just more orientation-y things. I think I've found a decent research project...it's about osteomyelitis diagnosis; the physician seems quite nice and there aren't mountains of data to sort through, so it shouldn't be too taxing. He wants everything done by mid-March, which cuts a month from the original time frame, but I think it should be okay.

Anyway, tomorrow is more orientation, and then rotations start Wednesday. I've got internal medicine first, which will be okay - I think the physician is a former Scholar, so that will hopefully work out well. On day at a time, though...