It’s only 4:00 and today has already been one of the more interesting days of my life. I started a new job today. I still work for the same hospital system that I’ve been with for a while now. But I’ve not only changed departments, I’ve also changed campuses.
Psych services are located in the original building that used to be the main hospital. For decades it was a full-service medical facility. When I first started it was a “real” hospital, complete with medical floors, surgery, ICU… the works. But several years ago the organization decided to move all of it’s medical services to the much bigger, newer facility on the other side of town. Slowly but surely, all that was the hospital left. Except, of course, psych services. We remained – along with an ER and basic imagining services – in what has become known as the “bastard stepchild” of the hospital system.
My new job not only transplanted me to the newer hospital campus, but it thrust me into perhaps the most “hospitaly” part of the whole organization: surgery.
I went from working in an area in which we had no IV access to an area in which I have to change clothes just to enter. Oh yeah… I can’t wear my own clothing or scrubs. I have to change into surgical scrubs every morning at the start of my shift. And I have to spend a great majority of the day wearing a head covering. But not because I’m doing anything surgical in nature.
My new job revolves around a computer system designed to track and manage surgical instruments. In a nutshell, it’s a computer job. Much of that instrumentation is located either in the surgical department or in the sterilization department. Both are sterile, locked locations. And both of them are so vastly different from anything I saw working in pysch that I almost forgot this was the same hospital system that I’ve always worked for.
I saw a robot doing surgery today (controlled by a surgeon, of course). It was quite possibly one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Sure… I’ve seen pictures and even video of surgeries being done. But this was much, much different. I was actually looking at the insides of a human being that I could see on the operating table. Seriously… it was wild and scary and awe-inspiring to witness firsthand. I saw another, more traditional surgery being done without the use of a robot as well. Again… I was amazed.
Keep in mind that about the most “invasive” procedure ever done on the psych unit is the occasional lancing of a boil or other nasty. But today I saw so much more that my mind isn’t even really wrapped completely around it. Every OR that I passed was in use – all day long! I saw tubes flowing with blood (and who knows what else)… I saw surgical instruments that I can’t even begin to picture a use for (and a few that I can… but would rather not)… I saw freezers and fridges filled with blood, bones, and other strange things.
And then it dawned on me – I actually DO work in a hospital now. A real one. And it’s awesome.