My journey into Med-Fet began at age 17, in the mid-summer. My mother was in the final stages of her battle with terminal cancer. Barbara, a young nurse, was taking care of mother and she taught me how to take a pulse and blood pressure, what she listened for with her stethoscope and where she would place it, demonstrating on me with her ‘scope in my ears. One night, I watched Barbara carrying an empty syringe from the room of a young woman on the near my mother and later, I noticed the woman unconsciously rubbing her backside as she walked in the hall.
The following summer, after my first year at college, I was working at a small inner-city hospital back home. Although most of my work was performed in the lab, I was trained in the proper way to collect, label and store those samples. By the end of the summer, after doing several blood draws under supervision, I was sent out to do venipunctures on the floor. The following summer, I went back to the same hospital, working in the operating room. By the middle of the summer, I had assisted in over fifty operations in several different disciplines, but the majority of the cases I was assigned to were in GYN surgery. Two docs — one, an OB-GYN surgeon and the other, the chief resident — seemed to take a liking to me and would take time to teach me anatomy and surgical technique. They also taught me how to perform a physical examination.
One night, when I was on call, during the surgical procedure, the surgeon ordered a dose of pitocin. The anesthesiologist prepared it, but he couldn’t leave his seat to administer it, so he handed me the syringe, pointed to the patient’s hip and told me to “put it in right there.” I was a bit nervous, but I pushed it in and then he told me how to pull back on the plunger to check for blood before steadily injecting the medication. I had just given my first injection. There would be more.
During the summer between my junior and senior years, I saw Patti Jo, a college classmate who lived in the same city, and her mother coming out of the admitting office. She told me that she was going into the hospital for a minor surgical procedure in the morning. I told her that I could visit with her later that day when I had a moment. A little before 10 pm, I took the elevator down to her floor. When I entered her room, Patti Jo was lying on the bed on top of the sheets, wearing a light blue nightgown; her arms and legs were tanned from the summer sun. She looked happy to see me. We had been talking for about five minutes when Pam, her evening nurse, came into the room. She said that she had to give Patti Jo a penicillin shot. When Patty Jo turned over and lifted up her blue cotton nightgown, I couldn’t help staring while the nurse gave her the shot. Patti Jo must have forgotten that I was in the room because she didn’t notice me again until the nurse was already out of the room. I was standing by the doorway. As she reached back to rub her sore cheek, she bravely tried to smile, while her nightgown rode up and uncovering her backside once again. We talked for a little while longer before I had to go back upstairs.
I was hooked. Over the years, my interest and participation in med-fet came and went, as my life and residence changed, but that was the beginning.