the underdog

For some reason I can't help but feel like it's just getting more competitve at our unit. It's not like our college has a limited amount of diplomas to hand out to the nursing students. I think what it is, is that the unit I'm at is a rehab unit. There is very limited amount of "acute" care patients for us to practice our nursing skills. Nevertheless, the moment there is one every pounces on the patient once we get a chance.
So I'm beginning to relate alot to George O'Malley from Grey's anatomy. He is BY FAR one of my favourite characters and I swear to you that after the character's tragic death on the show, Grey's Anatomy has not been the same. Anyways, he was seen as the underdog, the one who was weakest but deep down he had the utmost strength, knowledge and potential out of all of them. He is usually taken for granted because of his pasiveness. He proved EVERYONE wrong by performing an emergency open heart surgery in a stuck elevator. After being hurt and disappointed he became a hard ass and started standing up for himself. And that's what I started doing, when someone even the other nurses or my teachers say anything to me that is tge slightest of putdown I talk back, stand up for myself and jokingly and/or politely say what I've done to point out my contributions. I realized you have to show that you want it and push yourself out there. But why such competitiveness? Some may be motivated to better themselves whereas others might get robbed of a learning experience. BUT if you truly want it I guess you have to fight for this crap.
Anyways here's my story. My friend and I stepped in to watch a wound dressing on a patient. Me and her kind of arranged it amongst ourselves that "okay you get this patient as your new patient, while I do the wound dressing for her the 2nd week" I left the room briefly to let my teacher know we were in X patient's room watching the procedure. So we finish up and now we're in our post clinical conference meeting. My friend was talking about patient X. Now patient X, is a nursing student's gold mine. Not only does she have bear minimal weight bearing, she's got an extensive wound and IV, AND she's a sweet lady. I mean don't get me wrong, her story is heart-wrenching to listen to. But I mean for the sake of our learning experience she's an amazing patient to work with. So as we speak, you see one of my peer's hands go up. She was anxiously waving her hand up and down because she didn't want to seem like she's interuppting to talk. Anways finally she talks and asks the teacher if she can get he patient! I looked over at my friend like this :| and my other friend who was sitting beside her goes I swear you were going to take her. My teacher agrees to my peer's request and goes see you guys have to step up and take it. Then she looks at me and goes (my name ), you are always out there trying to get experience but you have to step up. I then responded: Oh I was going to do her wound dressing, I just assumed that ____ (my friend's name) wanted her as her patient for the next 2 weeks so I didn't say anything to take that oppurtunity away from. But it's like WTF?! did I know my peer was going to jump out like a ninja and the girl who did ask for the patient is set she knows her shit, she has some pretty good hands on experience from her past clinicals, she's the know it all of the class and has a shit load of my teacher's respect. Jealous? maybe a little. But it's like everytime we have to do something she jumps first. After me saying that to the teacher, our teacher wrote down all our names and jumbled it in a hat. AND SADLY the girl who volunteered to do it first was the name drawn out of the hat. C'est la vie.