At 11:00 am, we headed down to the auditorium and listened to Dr. Kyle Morgan, an anesthesiologist at St. Jude, give a talk on acute and chronic pain management in trauma patients. Though I did not fully comprehend everything he was talking about because I am not familiar with most of the medications used at the hospital, I found the talk very interesting and insightful. Dr. Morgan was making the point that children who are on opiates for prolonged periods of time are at a greater risk of becoming addicted to specific drugs when they are older. Throughout the talk, Dr. Morgan discussed his love for medications such as ketamine and methadone and his desire for seeing these medications become more popular in the hospital. He also discussed which medications he would like to be seeing used on certain patients, and he explained why certain medications would be more effective in treating pain.
After the hour long talk, we headed down to the event space of the hospital and grabbed a piece of cake that was being offered to celebrate Le Bonheur's birthday. Next, our afternoon consisted of visiting a patient who was about to have a surgery performed on his heart. Naudia allowed me to use her stethoscope to listen to this patient's heart murmur, and she explained to me what you listen for when trying to decide whether the heart has a murmur or not. After visiting with this patient, we were finished for the day, so Naudia allowed me to scoot out while she finished up filling out her charts.
After the hour long talk, we headed down to the event space of the hospital and grabbed a piece of cake that was being offered to celebrate Le Bonheur's birthday. Next, our afternoon consisted of visiting a patient who was about to have a surgery performed on his heart. Naudia allowed me to use her stethoscope to listen to this patient's heart murmur, and she explained to me what you listen for when trying to decide whether the heart has a murmur or not. After visiting with this patient, we were finished for the day, so Naudia allowed me to scoot out while she finished up filling out her charts.