Shadowing Dr. Natalie Belle

I will have the distinct opportunity and pleasure to shadow Nat over the Christmas holidays. I am looking forward to this so that I will get a chance to meet her in person as well as expound on my knowledge by learning from her. I will definately write a follow-up post in January.

Sounds like loads of fun! I only wish Dartmouth were not so uptight about pre-meds shadowing residents/staff. With all of the HIPPA crap as yet poorly defined in the courts, they are hesitant to allow pre-med shadowing - in fact, I’ve not even heard of it being done at all. To even do a rotation here as a visiting med student is highly competitive.

A little update…I will be shadowing Nat tomorrow(12/19) at Fairview Hopsital here in Cleveland. Fairview is a part of the Western Region for the Cleveland Cliinic and, I’m really looking forward to observing and learning from one of the best of the best. She will be covering all surgical patients, plastics, peds(my personal interests lie in Pediatric anesthesia and critical care medicine), and any emergencies that comes along so, I will definately make sure and write a follow up post soon.

Kim,
Can’t wait to hear about your experience. What an awesome chance.
Kathy

I shadowed Natalie for a week in May when she was working at the VA Hospital in Salem. It was an amazing experience! I’m sure the Cleveland Clinic will be awesome too! Have a great time and I look forward to your posts about it.
Love,
Stacy

Hi folks,
It was a total pleasure having Kimberly Adams shadow me yesterday at the hospital. There was a snowstorm with bitter cold temperatures but Kimberly braved the snow, cold and Cleveland public transportation to arrive at the hospital fairly early in the morning.
It was a pretty quiet day with only a couple of hits from the emergency room. We did get a code every two hours on the same patient so no fun there. We watched the Cleveland Browns shut out in the snow of Browns stadium and we had some great discussions about hemodynamic monitoring. Kimberly has her hemodynamics down cold which is great for a budding anesthesiologist.
I hope she had a good time even though there wasn’t much happening. Cleveland folks tend to stay home when it snows or drive a bit more responsibly than the folks in Virginia. We didn’t have any traumas more than a fellow who chopped a couple of fingers off while trying to unclog his snow blower and a cat bite that had become infected.
Natalie

Best of the Best? Hmmmmmm?

Whooopeee!

I apologize that it has taken me so long to give info about my day shadowing Dr. Belle but, I started my student RT position at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital this past week and, even though this was Christmas week, we were extremely busy so, I figured I’d tackle this today before heading back to work tomorrow.
As Nat said, that Sunday was quite the bad weather day here in Cleveland so, the emergencies did not come in as usual but, I got a heavy dose of rounding and teaching which for me is always good. Hemodynamics teaching was prevelent because one of her most serious cases involved a lady that had to go to surgery for a perforated bladder wall due to other circumstances. Due to this perforation, she became septic and required very close monitoring. One pice of equipment used in close cardiac monitoring is a Swan-Ganz catheter which is placed directly in the Pulmonary Artery. With this monitor, you can do true mixed venous arterial blood gas sampling, fluid monitoring, etc. The effiacy of the “Swan” is being questioned these days and you really are not seeing it placed as much as it used to be due to the fact that placement is quite challenging but it definately can be useful in certan cases. In any case, in RT school, we covered placement of Swan-Ganz catheters, hemodynamic readings, troubleshooting, etc in my Hemodynamics class so, questioning me about it’s fundamental uses was quite interesting and proved that I stayed awake in class!!!
The other interesting case we saw was a young man that experienced a 50% spontaneous pneumothorax. He was basically asymptomatic when we saw him but, he had experienced chest pain a couple of days before coming back to the Peds ED. Apparently, he had this happen before but, it resolved itself. With spontaneous pneumo patients, we were taught in RT school that young men that are thin and tall can be predisposed to developing spontaneous pneumothoraces. They get these areas called “blebs” that can subsequently collapse the lung. Treatment of a pneumothorax of greater than 30% is usually chest tube placement as well as O2 therapy and constant monitoring to facilitate lung re-expansion if this is the first case of the patient experiencing a spontaneous pneumothorax. However, if this is a recurrent condition, the CT surgeons recommmend the VATS(video assisted thoracic surgery) procedure to seal the blebs causing the pneumothoraces which is the definitive cure. The young man and his family decided on this procedure and hopefully I will be able to see one of these done in the near future.
Dr. Belle is an excellent clinician and teacher. Even though I did not get to see her perform surgery, I’m quite sure that she is excellent in that realm as well. I wouldn’t say that she has discouraged my interest in surgery, I would actually like to do a surgery internship before embarking on an ansethesiology/critical care medicine residency. It would only seem natural to understand what happens on the other side of the drape to get a better appreciation of what is expected of you as an anesthesiologist.
If my school and work schedule permit, I will definately take Nat up on her offer to shadow again. All of the residents were receptive to my spending the day with her and even offered advice as well as encouragement. It definately was a good day!!!