And so it begins...

Ugh. I hate the first day of clinical. I hate it. With as much passion as... passion fruit. I know that makes no sense whatsoever, but I think you can understand. I hate clinical in general, all faithful readers of my blog know that. I especially hate the first day of clinical, though, for a variety of reasons which include (but are not limited to) the following:
1. I'm in a new hospital.
2. I'm on a new floor.
3. I have new clinical-mates.
4. I have a new clinical instructor.
Probably #4 is the greatest stressor because one's clinical instructor truly makes or breaks one's clinical experience (assuming, of course, that one is generally well-prepared and somewhat professional). My frustration with this new lady is that she's kind of batty. I mean, really out there. She has page after page of expectations, and tacks on more and more as each minute ticks by... but jumbled in among all of those expectations are contradictions and a great deal of mind-changing. And good gracious, please don't ask for clarification! You end up hammering out exactly what it was that she has already said, so she is sure of what she thinks you thought she said, but that might not be what she meant for you to think about what she said, in which case she'll have to think about what she might say to get you to think along the same lines as she, and eventually arrive at the conclusion she intended. Good freakin' luck.
The kicker is that the woman is kind of anal, and definitely wants you to understand that she's quite particular and strict. Ugh! You can't be both scatterbrained and strict; I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way! If you want to be strict, you must make your expectations clear. Otherwise, it's just not fair.
Just one more thing: the lady teaches pharmacology. Yeah. So even more so than with all the other instructors, she wants you to know your drugs inside and out. Not just what they're taking, when and why... but what is the onset of the drug, peak, half-life, mechanism of action, interactions with other drugs the patient may or may not be taking, when is the best time of day for the patient to take this drug, yadda yadda. That doesn't sound like too much, I guess, but you always have two patients and they each take about 15 drugs. It's a lot.
And so it begins. I'm team leader tomorrow, we'll just have to see how it all shakes down.