Well, after weeks of rigmarole, I finally started my clinical rotation at Harlem Hospital today. The process of getting “clearance” was arduous. It took a month of emails and phone calls before I even heard back from the woman who was supposed to set up the process, and when I did hear from her, it was in the form of a terse email that simply told me my appointment was for 8:30 the next day. My appointment for what? It turned out it was for a physical, which involved taking titers to make sure I’d had all my immunizations, a drug test, and a chat with a kind of bitchy PA who was like, “You studied English? You should become a teacher.” Seriously, lady?
After the physical, which somehow involved like 3 hours of waiting around in between different people seeing me, I had to go to the volunteer office and fill out a stack of paperwork for a background check. This involved listing every address I’ve had for the past TWENTY EIGHT YEARS. Of course.
I finally got all this done and then had to wait a week before I could pick up the ID that would actually allow me to start clinical. But when I went to pick up the ID during the time window the volunteer office gave me, they were mysteriously closed. I called, and the person I talked to (who answered the phone while they were closed…) told me I’d have to go to an orientation, which was of course during my midterm the next week.
Writing all this out, it sounds really dumb.
Anyway, I decided I would just show up on Monday and see what I could accomplish. At every step of the way, it seemed like the people I talked to suspected that I was somehow trying to be sneaky and subvert their process, when really I was just doing what I’d been told I needed to do. After sitting through like half the orientation (because I needed to learn how to wash my hands, right?) they decided I would be allowed to get my damn ID. Phew!
So I started today. I’m working with a doctor who quizzes me on prenatal stuff! Crap! I explained that my sometimes stupid answers are because my focus is more on family planning than pregnancy, and then I started getting his questions right. Ha. Look at me, I know about Rhogam.
And to put it all in perspective, I saw two patients today who’d been the victims of female genital mutilation. I’d been kind of aware that I might see this, because I knew that there is a study being conducted about this at Harlem Hospital, but it didn’t hit me quite how common it is. They were both pregnant women who had moved here from West African countries. One woman’s clitoral hood had been removed, and one didn’t have a clitoris at all.
Suddenly nothing that I’d been bitching about seemed important at all.
