In The Adventure Known As Life: Graduation and Shananigens

First Day of CRNA school!!!

Finally Finished!!

My last week of CRNA school went off without a glitch. We were required to do a full 12hour (code for 14 hour) day Wednesday and Thursday but Friday was our day of fun. The tradition at St. E is that the Senior students come in at regular time on Friday and start the day's cases for their room and the then the Junior students relieve them, with the passing of the blade, at 9 AM.

That Friday morning Maggie and I met in the garage and she helped me carry in the cake we bought to thank the OR staff for putting up with us for the last 21/2 years. The whole way in, I was picking on Maggie because the way her day was scheduled she was going to have to start two cases before she got relieved and I would be lucky if I even had my first one started by 9, because the surgeon I was to be working with is so so slow. Little did I know that there was an emergency appy put in my room, and scheduled to start at 6:45. Anyway, the emergency appy went fine and to my surprise we actually started our scheduled cases on time, and I ended up doing the most work in the morning out or our whole group. =/

The Juniors came in promptly at 9 AM, and little did they know we had planned to tell them to come back at 9:30, and to go eat bagels and coffee that we had waiting for them in the classroom. So at 9:30 Justyn Muzic, came to relieve me. This was extra special because Justyn worked with me in TICU at UK. So, at 9:30, under the OR lights I passed the laryngascope blade to Justyn, symbolizing I had just graduated and Justyn was now a Senior. The whole thing is kinda silly but we have fun with it. Jeff (our clinical instructor) then followed us, taking many pictures along the way, as we greeted our classmates when they exited their room.

Later that night we had the most amazing graduation party. Our class, plus significant others all went to Jeff Ruby's steakhouse. It was all pretty fancy for our budgets but well deserved. To our surprise Jeff and Jeff (two CRNA's we trained with), called ahead and placed a 300$ bar tab for us to use at dinner. My brother even came to shoot some professional pictures for the occasion.

After dinner we headed over to Bartin's and partied all night. Many CRNA's and MD's from various hospitals showed up and helped us celebrate. The whole night was so amazing. The true genuine joy from my class as well as the people we have met along the way warmed my heart. I am so happy and thankful that I signed on to work with such amazing people.