FCCS

Today was day 1 of 2 of my FCCS course. FCCS stands for Fundamental Critical Care Support Course. It started at 7:30 this morning, so that meant that I needed to be up by 5:30 a.m. Whenever I have to get up early, I don't sleep well - I worry in my sleep. This has resulted in me waking up many times in the middle of the night, in the shower about to turn the water on to begin my day. Fortunately 75% of the time I wake up before I turn the water on. (I tend to go back to sleep better if I'm dry.) Last night I was having dreams about patients with subarachnoid hemorrhages and was up at 1:30 this morning trying to get ready for the day. I woke up thinking my alarm had gone off and then I turned it off. I realized it was the middle of the night reset my clock and went back to sleep. So I reset my clock, but I didn't turn the alarm on. So I needed to get up at 5:30 and leave my house no later than 6:40. I woke up at 6:49. I got to school at 7:25 - class started at 7:30. I was freaking out. If we were more than 10 minutes late to the class, then we got kicked out - so I barely made it. It took me a while to settle down.

So the FCCS course was fast and furious - what else is new?? From 7:30 until 1:00 we had 10 30 min lectures straight. We covered a lot of topics very quickly. The afternoon was comprised of 4 labs. The labs were a lot of fun. Two were simlabs with patient scenarios. So we had manequins and they both crashed and we had to save them and give them drugs and intubate them and everything. It was fun and they both lived and so it was good stuff. The other two labs focused on mechanical ventilation. We talked about vent settings and played with some of the ventillators. One of the two labs we had a pair of pig lungs in a jar hooked to a ventillator. We turned them up and down and watched the pig lungs inflate and deflate. It was really neat and I enjoyed it a lot. the instructor for the lab station was an Indian doctor from the SICU and he was hillarious. We had a really good time with that.

Tomorrow, on day 2, I have to take a test at the end of the day. I have to pass with a certain percentage in order to become FCCS certified. I really hope that I do well, but the pre-test I had to turn in by 7:30 on day 1 was very hard. It was 15 multiple choice questions and took me about 2 hours to answer. Tomorrow I have an hour for 60 questions. I'm hoping to be faster and do well. If I don't get certified though, then it'll be okay.

So overall I really learned a lot today and had a really good time. I look forward to tomorrow and really hope that I don't turn my alarm off in the morning.