As I was riding the shuttle to The Hospital today, I was consumed with my own melancholy thoughts about how emotionally draining these last months have been. But of course, there's nothing quite like riding a rickety shuttle bus with people who have more apparent problems (drug abuse! Broken limbs! Unfilled prescriptions! No insurance!) to give me an attitude check. When I finally smiled at the thought of my own ridiculousness, a man who sat in the row across from me said, "With a pretty smile like yo's, you can make the world go 'round." Thank you, sir. I tried to be as gracious, patient, and accommodating as I possibly could my entire shift. It was exhausting, but I'm better for it.
These three weeks, I'm training volunteers in the Emergency Department. You'd think that after five trainees already, I would have mastered the art of imparting technical knowledge to new volunteers. Wrong! Things are unpredictable in the ED every single shift, so I've never trained the same way twice. It's inevitable that when I'm explaining the pneumatic tube system, I'll get interrupted by a nurse to do a patient transport, or that when I'm showing my trainee the orthopedic supply room, a trauma will get called in. It's really quite exciting. I've made it a point to teach my trainees things beyond the official training checklist because I always hate getting caught in situations that caused me to fumble. While it's inevitable for unexpected things to come up, I feel slightly protective of (or at least responsible for) whoever I train, and want my trainees to do well on their own. One of my trainees today was really sweet and bought me a balloon from the gift shop as a thank-you. What the! It says "Congratulations on your baby boy!" Hahaha.
Today was a good day after all.
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