Grad ceremony today! I get loads of ridiculous looking bling and the hunter green cape/trim thing plus a funny hat and everyone's all "She's a doctor" and I'm all "that's right".
Something like that. Gotta be better than Davis graduation in the rec center with minimal air conditioning and a tortilla fight. I think I get to keep my robes too, so I'm thinking of just wearing them for the foreseeable future, except for a South Carolina summer, it'll probably be hot.
In other "is she a real doctor yet?" news, I got my South Carolina limited license approved today! Wheeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!
Showing posts with label NYC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NYC. Show all posts
Jun 11, 2011
May 30, 2011
Never fear, the crippled doctor is here
So I'm crashing with my mom for a while until the big move... She's a nurse, for context, which keeps my doctor god complex in check while allowing for all the other complexes to seep in.
As you know, I injured myself and have been transitioning from full crutches to one crutch to "f- it; I hate crutches" so I was hobbling around on a camwalker, which was hurting a bit, but not enough to put me back on a crutch. Since I was too cheap to justify buying a cane for myself, mom got me one.
OMG you guys, I'm House. It took four long years, and I didn't get a cane when I sprained my ankle because it's Grenada, but now I have one, and I already feel more curmudgeonly and like I can hit people on the subway in the shins with it. Not because they've done anything... just cuz.
Helps too.
Anyway, I was on my way to dinner in the city when my train refused to leave the station because while the people on public transportation have been awesome to me, the public transportation itself has been almost purposely screwing with me lately.
I thought this unscheduled delay was due to a fairly aggressive panhandler on the train being hunted by the conductor who was on his radio and going up and down the stairs leading off the platform, so I moved to the window to get a better gawking view and saw... horizontal legs. Sigh.
So I said to my mom "Someone's down" and we wandered off to see what we could do. Different homeless guy was seizing so my mom moved him onto his side and I knelt behind him to stabilize. Mom was like "I'm a nurse; she's a doctor" to the conductor and I considered making that wishy washy "sort of" hand motion. An off duty police officer kept people from stepping on us, because they were certainly trying to, while I tried to get a history from the dude who was coming around because during clinicals, I was told (re: yelled at) many times that a good history is the most important part of being a doctor. I overheard the conductor say into the radio "Yeah, we have a doctor as a good samaritan".
Two things. One, I outranked my mother sufficiently to bump her from the billing, despite that she's been a nurse of over 35 years, despite being a greenhorn that's entering a specialty that has less patient contact than a hospital janitor. Two, the whole 'good samaritan' thing that kept me feeling warm and fuzzy back when I could do CPR with impunity is now mildly terrifying since it can have different implications for doctors.
Another thing I learned is that medical conditions are far less terrifying when you've studied them and seen them before. Quick! What do you do when a man near you has a seizure??? Panic! Hold them down! Put something in their mouths! Call an exorcist!
Or roll them on their side and if they're really thrashing, try to keep their head from hitting anything solid. Wait. Hope they breathe shortly. They almost always do. Talk to them as they come out of it. Collect data. Ask about conditions, medications, and previous events. Make sure they're oriented to time place and location. Ask if they hit their head when they fell or if anything hurts. Standard stuff. Mostly it's just waiting around and trying to get bystanders not to step on your patient.
About that last thing... I've been concerned that New York has turned me into more of an asshole than I previously was, which is no small feat. I have, at times, seen someone down but that was surrounded by paramedics that looked like things were under control, and kept right on jogging. I have used my ipod as a defensive weapon since I got it.
However, I have yet to argue with a police officer (he put his badge around his neck) about train schedules while attempting to step over a large half conscious sick guy and two kneeling women. Oh, for and the next person that hassles me for not being more understanding about moms dragging strollers up the stairs, a couple lifted their stroller over this guy to avoid using the other stairwell, while the cop was yelling at them. Family bonding? "This, Jimmy, is how you ignore the homeless. They're not real people, and you must never let them divert you in your quest for killer Thai food. Try not to hit the lady that has the cane on your way over, because she may smack you in the shin with it like that mean man on television."
As you know, I injured myself and have been transitioning from full crutches to one crutch to "f- it; I hate crutches" so I was hobbling around on a camwalker, which was hurting a bit, but not enough to put me back on a crutch. Since I was too cheap to justify buying a cane for myself, mom got me one.
OMG you guys, I'm House. It took four long years, and I didn't get a cane when I sprained my ankle because it's Grenada, but now I have one, and I already feel more curmudgeonly and like I can hit people on the subway in the shins with it. Not because they've done anything... just cuz.
Helps too.
Anyway, I was on my way to dinner in the city when my train refused to leave the station because while the people on public transportation have been awesome to me, the public transportation itself has been almost purposely screwing with me lately.
I thought this unscheduled delay was due to a fairly aggressive panhandler on the train being hunted by the conductor who was on his radio and going up and down the stairs leading off the platform, so I moved to the window to get a better gawking view and saw... horizontal legs. Sigh.
So I said to my mom "Someone's down" and we wandered off to see what we could do. Different homeless guy was seizing so my mom moved him onto his side and I knelt behind him to stabilize. Mom was like "I'm a nurse; she's a doctor" to the conductor and I considered making that wishy washy "sort of" hand motion. An off duty police officer kept people from stepping on us, because they were certainly trying to, while I tried to get a history from the dude who was coming around because during clinicals, I was told (re: yelled at) many times that a good history is the most important part of being a doctor. I overheard the conductor say into the radio "Yeah, we have a doctor as a good samaritan".
Two things. One, I outranked my mother sufficiently to bump her from the billing, despite that she's been a nurse of over 35 years, despite being a greenhorn that's entering a specialty that has less patient contact than a hospital janitor. Two, the whole 'good samaritan' thing that kept me feeling warm and fuzzy back when I could do CPR with impunity is now mildly terrifying since it can have different implications for doctors.
Another thing I learned is that medical conditions are far less terrifying when you've studied them and seen them before. Quick! What do you do when a man near you has a seizure??? Panic! Hold them down! Put something in their mouths! Call an exorcist!
Or roll them on their side and if they're really thrashing, try to keep their head from hitting anything solid. Wait. Hope they breathe shortly. They almost always do. Talk to them as they come out of it. Collect data. Ask about conditions, medications, and previous events. Make sure they're oriented to time place and location. Ask if they hit their head when they fell or if anything hurts. Standard stuff. Mostly it's just waiting around and trying to get bystanders not to step on your patient.
About that last thing... I've been concerned that New York has turned me into more of an asshole than I previously was, which is no small feat. I have, at times, seen someone down but that was surrounded by paramedics that looked like things were under control, and kept right on jogging. I have used my ipod as a defensive weapon since I got it.
However, I have yet to argue with a police officer (he put his badge around his neck) about train schedules while attempting to step over a large half conscious sick guy and two kneeling women. Oh, for and the next person that hassles me for not being more understanding about moms dragging strollers up the stairs, a couple lifted their stroller over this guy to avoid using the other stairwell, while the cop was yelling at them. Family bonding? "This, Jimmy, is how you ignore the homeless. They're not real people, and you must never let them divert you in your quest for killer Thai food. Try not to hit the lady that has the cane on your way over, because she may smack you in the shin with it like that mean man on television."
May 22, 2011
Bandwagon
Blah blah blah Rapture.
Yes, I laughed a lot. Yes, I'm going to a Left Behind BBQ tomorrow (it's a place that serves *amazing* Cajun food, so there's no way I'm missing that), and yes, I drank a beer at 6 PM (my last drink ever was going to be Singha; is that sad?). I'm easily amused, and jump on any meme but lolcats with impunity. I should probably insert a picture of Sad Keanu here with Kanye West's "Imma gonna let you finish" over it to make my point.
Graduation is coming up, and I got my dad's ticket forwarded from Christmas to apply to this one because back in December, one of Orbitz's employees in India spent 45 minutes on the phone with me, Delta, and his manager to apply a refund to my ticket even though it was nonrefundable, because he's frigging awesome and he felt bad for me.
Speaking of human compassion, I tend to be fairly skeptical, and I tend towards social awkwardness as a default, plus I deliberately isolate myself in public places by the enthusiastic use of electronic devices. I'm currently living in the supposedly scariest borough (Brooklyn is gradually being gentrified beyond recognition, so it doesn't really earn me any street cred) of one of the cities in the world that's most known for being populated by rude, miserable people. All that being said, I'm learning if that you ever want a "faith in humanity" refill, crutches.
I know I mentioned this before, but I've been rocking these murder stilts for over a week now, and I'm still astounded every day by how out-of-the-way compassionate EVERYONE is. A guy in Long Island flipped his car around across a double yellow line to give me a ride to work in the rain. A woman drove me from the train station on another day. My coworkers fairly regularly get my coffee from the breakroom, which requires not only making it, but throwing in an extra shot of espresso. I have gotten a seat on trains, subways, and buses EVERY single time. Today, I was rocking the one crutch so I could carry a bag from Target, and had people opening doors left and right, even turning around to go back to help me, and coming up the subway steps, had a guy grab my bag and go all the way up with it without ever taking his ipod off (my kinda guy). People smile at me, chat with me, etc. I'm honestly not sure if that last part is because I'm gimpy or because this is the first time I've made eye contact with strangers deliberately since I moved here, but it makes me feel warm and cuddly.
In other news, being a foreign grad gives me extreme paperwork paranoia, though possibly to my favor. One of the worst things about being an IMG is not 'the stigma', and it's not having the same "Where is Grenada?" conversation with *everyone*, it's the degree of red tape you have to cut through to get anything done. Taking the licensing exams? Costs more money AND you have to be approved through the ECFMG with subsequent paperwork. Graduating from school? Still need that ECFMG certificate. Everything needs backup confirmations, our transcripts still have to be mailed directly and verified for everything. Through the years, you have to manage travel documents, student visas, airfares, apartment leases in other states, weird tax forms, residency applications, loan paperwork, etc. None of the stuff that needs to get done is really in the same place, too. And getting all your health stuff? Good luck. Drug screens? Some hospitals have it, some don't, how it's set up can be difficult. You have all your initial stuff at a hospital; you may have different requirements when you go to different hospitals... argh!
So then you get a residency, and you get sent a package that contains a brick of paperwork, and you're thinking that this process is going to be exactly like school. Half of it won't make sense, most of it will have to be self arranged, and a third of the stuff you send out will not make it to its intended destination. Threats will be held over you. I recall madly faxing paperwork from Canterbury because my loans hadn't been processed because of the hyphen in my name, only to arrive back in Grenada to discover they still weren't through and I was borderlining a leave of absence if I couldn't get this stuff straightened out by way of panicked phone calls to New York from the Chancellery.
But... they tell you the timeline. You send in your application for licensure. You send in the benefits package... I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have a set appointment for my physical, titers, and drug screen. I thought I was going to need to scramble to find a BLS class, but they handle that. I keep thinking I've forgotten something and I'm going to show up and they're going to say "Oh, we canceled your residency because we emailed you form L14-A0987 and you never responded, so we assumed you weren't interested anymore." But nope, so far, the coordinator's just emailed me in response to my "DO I NEED _______? OMG" forms with pleasant missives that she's looking forward to meeting me.
It might be time to relax :) How often do you hear that pre-residency?
Yes, I laughed a lot. Yes, I'm going to a Left Behind BBQ tomorrow (it's a place that serves *amazing* Cajun food, so there's no way I'm missing that), and yes, I drank a beer at 6 PM (my last drink ever was going to be Singha; is that sad?). I'm easily amused, and jump on any meme but lolcats with impunity. I should probably insert a picture of Sad Keanu here with Kanye West's "Imma gonna let you finish" over it to make my point.
Graduation is coming up, and I got my dad's ticket forwarded from Christmas to apply to this one because back in December, one of Orbitz's employees in India spent 45 minutes on the phone with me, Delta, and his manager to apply a refund to my ticket even though it was nonrefundable, because he's frigging awesome and he felt bad for me.
Speaking of human compassion, I tend to be fairly skeptical, and I tend towards social awkwardness as a default, plus I deliberately isolate myself in public places by the enthusiastic use of electronic devices. I'm currently living in the supposedly scariest borough (Brooklyn is gradually being gentrified beyond recognition, so it doesn't really earn me any street cred) of one of the cities in the world that's most known for being populated by rude, miserable people. All that being said, I'm learning if that you ever want a "faith in humanity" refill, crutches.
I know I mentioned this before, but I've been rocking these murder stilts for over a week now, and I'm still astounded every day by how out-of-the-way compassionate EVERYONE is. A guy in Long Island flipped his car around across a double yellow line to give me a ride to work in the rain. A woman drove me from the train station on another day. My coworkers fairly regularly get my coffee from the breakroom, which requires not only making it, but throwing in an extra shot of espresso. I have gotten a seat on trains, subways, and buses EVERY single time. Today, I was rocking the one crutch so I could carry a bag from Target, and had people opening doors left and right, even turning around to go back to help me, and coming up the subway steps, had a guy grab my bag and go all the way up with it without ever taking his ipod off (my kinda guy). People smile at me, chat with me, etc. I'm honestly not sure if that last part is because I'm gimpy or because this is the first time I've made eye contact with strangers deliberately since I moved here, but it makes me feel warm and cuddly.
In other news, being a foreign grad gives me extreme paperwork paranoia, though possibly to my favor. One of the worst things about being an IMG is not 'the stigma', and it's not having the same "Where is Grenada?" conversation with *everyone*, it's the degree of red tape you have to cut through to get anything done. Taking the licensing exams? Costs more money AND you have to be approved through the ECFMG with subsequent paperwork. Graduating from school? Still need that ECFMG certificate. Everything needs backup confirmations, our transcripts still have to be mailed directly and verified for everything. Through the years, you have to manage travel documents, student visas, airfares, apartment leases in other states, weird tax forms, residency applications, loan paperwork, etc. None of the stuff that needs to get done is really in the same place, too. And getting all your health stuff? Good luck. Drug screens? Some hospitals have it, some don't, how it's set up can be difficult. You have all your initial stuff at a hospital; you may have different requirements when you go to different hospitals... argh!
So then you get a residency, and you get sent a package that contains a brick of paperwork, and you're thinking that this process is going to be exactly like school. Half of it won't make sense, most of it will have to be self arranged, and a third of the stuff you send out will not make it to its intended destination. Threats will be held over you. I recall madly faxing paperwork from Canterbury because my loans hadn't been processed because of the hyphen in my name, only to arrive back in Grenada to discover they still weren't through and I was borderlining a leave of absence if I couldn't get this stuff straightened out by way of panicked phone calls to New York from the Chancellery.
But... they tell you the timeline. You send in your application for licensure. You send in the benefits package... I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have a set appointment for my physical, titers, and drug screen. I thought I was going to need to scramble to find a BLS class, but they handle that. I keep thinking I've forgotten something and I'm going to show up and they're going to say "Oh, we canceled your residency because we emailed you form L14-A0987 and you never responded, so we assumed you weren't interested anymore." But nope, so far, the coordinator's just emailed me in response to my "DO I NEED _______? OMG" forms with pleasant missives that she's looking forward to meeting me.
It might be time to relax :) How often do you hear that pre-residency?
May 13, 2011
Ends like it began
Naturally, since having a diploma, an ECFMG certificate, my transcripts, my paperwork in (minus my benefits package, which I have to overnight) is not enough to really *end* the process of being a student at SGU, I figured I'd do what I did when I entered medical school... which is... be on crutches.
Shit. For reference:
One of my earlier posts from the island
I would have said, prior to ripping my plantar fascia, that being on crutches in Grenada is one of the biggest pains in the ass on the planet. Now, I will correct that notion and say that being on crutches in NYC is one of the biggest pains in the ass on the planet. Do you have any idea how many stairs there are in this city? It's obscene.
It's giving me a few perspectives though.
1. While crutches do a great deal to alleviate the pain in your actual foot/leg, they make your upper body feel like you've been rock climbing while an obese child rides you piggy back and periodically kicks you in the stomach.
2. Spring in New York feels like summer in the Sudan to your foot when you have a brace on it.
3. In the NY metro systems, crutches trump visibly pregnant ladies trump old people. Seriously, in a place known for the general malignant nature of its populace, I had crackheads leaping out of the way to surrender a seat to me. It doesn't make me any more of a fan of the Bhutan death march that is getting from the R train to the LIRR at Atlantic terminal, but it still gives me the warm fuzzies.
4. If you're wearing anything with a lower cut than "overalls" or "mom jeans", you have to stop, move your crutches to one hand, and haul the pants up and your shirt down every 10 feet.
5. Dude, you can't carry *anything* with these stupid things. Coffee? Gotta hoof it like Tiny Tim with a caffeine addiction. Purse? Gets caught. Groceries? Yeah frigging right.
6. Handicap bathrooms... so THAT'S what those bars are for.
7. I'm a good little newly minted doctor, thus I don't ride the crutches with in my armpits because I don't want to lose the use of my hands. The result? Extreme rib chafing.
So that's my whine.
Meanwhile... I saw a Broadway show (not Spiderman), which was on my NY bucket list, by taking my mom to see Phantom of the Opera. There was quite a bit of drama on obtaining the tickets, because the ticket broker is operated by imbeciles and the theater doesn't really care since they're not really going for the repeat business. But I managed to get them, and so it was actually really cool. I may have the bug for it, though next time I get tickets, I'm going to see if these bad boy crutches earn me a front spot at TKTS so I can forgo the whole online ticket thing. We also ate at Sardi's, because we had a Groupon and that place is expensive. I discovered my ability to recognize celebrities based on their caricatures is even less impressive than my ability to recognize them when I walk by them (I have poor facial recognition).
What else? Yadda yadda rooftop bar. Yadda yadda endless paperwork for starting residency.
Shit. For reference:
One of my earlier posts from the island
I would have said, prior to ripping my plantar fascia, that being on crutches in Grenada is one of the biggest pains in the ass on the planet. Now, I will correct that notion and say that being on crutches in NYC is one of the biggest pains in the ass on the planet. Do you have any idea how many stairs there are in this city? It's obscene.
It's giving me a few perspectives though.
1. While crutches do a great deal to alleviate the pain in your actual foot/leg, they make your upper body feel like you've been rock climbing while an obese child rides you piggy back and periodically kicks you in the stomach.
2. Spring in New York feels like summer in the Sudan to your foot when you have a brace on it.
3. In the NY metro systems, crutches trump visibly pregnant ladies trump old people. Seriously, in a place known for the general malignant nature of its populace, I had crackheads leaping out of the way to surrender a seat to me. It doesn't make me any more of a fan of the Bhutan death march that is getting from the R train to the LIRR at Atlantic terminal, but it still gives me the warm fuzzies.
4. If you're wearing anything with a lower cut than "overalls" or "mom jeans", you have to stop, move your crutches to one hand, and haul the pants up and your shirt down every 10 feet.
5. Dude, you can't carry *anything* with these stupid things. Coffee? Gotta hoof it like Tiny Tim with a caffeine addiction. Purse? Gets caught. Groceries? Yeah frigging right.
6. Handicap bathrooms... so THAT'S what those bars are for.
7. I'm a good little newly minted doctor, thus I don't ride the crutches with in my armpits because I don't want to lose the use of my hands. The result? Extreme rib chafing.
So that's my whine.
Meanwhile... I saw a Broadway show (not Spiderman), which was on my NY bucket list, by taking my mom to see Phantom of the Opera. There was quite a bit of drama on obtaining the tickets, because the ticket broker is operated by imbeciles and the theater doesn't really care since they're not really going for the repeat business. But I managed to get them, and so it was actually really cool. I may have the bug for it, though next time I get tickets, I'm going to see if these bad boy crutches earn me a front spot at TKTS so I can forgo the whole online ticket thing. We also ate at Sardi's, because we had a Groupon and that place is expensive. I discovered my ability to recognize celebrities based on their caricatures is even less impressive than my ability to recognize them when I walk by them (I have poor facial recognition).
What else? Yadda yadda rooftop bar. Yadda yadda endless paperwork for starting residency.
Apr 22, 2011
Please refer to me as Dr MD... btw, I'm a doctor...
Oh wait... but I said I was going to talk about other stuff.
Fair enough. I'm starting to feel so far removed from medicine (actually studying it, not rabbiting on about it) that it's kind of frightening.
Stuff I've done in the last few months:
Watched: Usual Suspects, Super Troopers, Run Lola Run, Requiem for a Dream, Lolita (Jeremy Irons version), Sweeney Todd, the Birdcage, the King's Speech, Gattaca, the first season of the Walking Dead, nearly all of Cowboy Bebop and I'm restarting the X-Files. All on the train. I'm thinking of writing a slow ballad dedicated to my iPhone called "I love you more than I've ever loved anything (club remix)".
I'm also just now realizing that my list of recently watched media is kind of disturbing fired off like that. King's Speech may be the sole source of "Not weird". I like Modern Family. That's normal, right? Why am I thinking about this?
Marched through Times Square in search of student rush tickets for Broadway shows fruitlessly. If someone can score me 30 dollar seats to Book of Mormon or American Idiot, I'll... seriously... don't ask. Walked past the Spiderman theater and snickered.
Eaten: Cuban, Mexican, Ethiopian, South Indian, North Indian, Indo-Caribbean, vegan kosher Indian (I have a problem).
Attended: Baby shower, comedy shows, burlesque, several birthdays, few music places.
Studied for Step 3.
You'd think I could crack a book somewhere between the first half of Kick-ass (couldn't do it; audio didn't sync and I still want to punch Nicolas Cage in the mouth any time he's onscreen) and episode 17 Inuyasha but nope. Hoping that instinct to learn *anything* kicks back in. I balk when someone tries to teach me any factoid at this point. "Hey, you know that movie was based on a true story about..." "NO LEARNING!!!!! MUST MAINTAIN IGNORANCE SPIRAL!!! MUST TYPE IN ALL CAPS!11!11!!omglol"
But the title... I got my residency contract today (woot!) which not only gives me a paperwork to-do list, but it's the first time (aside from my diploma, which rocks) that I've seen my for-real name with abbreviations and prefixes and such other than a few mistakes with the USMLE letters and a few interview invites.
And the best thing is that while I don't know if it's standard for contract language, because let's be honest, none of us have read a contract since you were able to click the "I Agree" button on your computer in 1996, but it's written out insanely often. "Dr. Ishie, MD. Contract for one year of being a physician, a PGY-1, a doctor, at our hospital, which employs doctors, where she will be doctoring the doctor stethoscope white coat malpractice DEA license."
Incidentally, do I need a DEA license? I can't imagine a scenario where I could use it that wouldn't end with a ride in the back of a police car. I'm similarly curious about the ACLS training.
Fair enough. I'm starting to feel so far removed from medicine (actually studying it, not rabbiting on about it) that it's kind of frightening.
Stuff I've done in the last few months:
Watched: Usual Suspects, Super Troopers, Run Lola Run, Requiem for a Dream, Lolita (Jeremy Irons version), Sweeney Todd, the Birdcage, the King's Speech, Gattaca, the first season of the Walking Dead, nearly all of Cowboy Bebop and I'm restarting the X-Files. All on the train. I'm thinking of writing a slow ballad dedicated to my iPhone called "I love you more than I've ever loved anything (club remix)".
I'm also just now realizing that my list of recently watched media is kind of disturbing fired off like that. King's Speech may be the sole source of "Not weird". I like Modern Family. That's normal, right? Why am I thinking about this?
Marched through Times Square in search of student rush tickets for Broadway shows fruitlessly. If someone can score me 30 dollar seats to Book of Mormon or American Idiot, I'll... seriously... don't ask. Walked past the Spiderman theater and snickered.
Eaten: Cuban, Mexican, Ethiopian, South Indian, North Indian, Indo-Caribbean, vegan kosher Indian (I have a problem).
Attended: Baby shower, comedy shows, burlesque, several birthdays, few music places.
You'd think I could crack a book somewhere between the first half of Kick-ass (couldn't do it; audio didn't sync and I still want to punch Nicolas Cage in the mouth any time he's onscreen) and episode 17 Inuyasha but nope. Hoping that instinct to learn *anything* kicks back in. I balk when someone tries to teach me any factoid at this point. "Hey, you know that movie was based on a true story about..." "NO LEARNING!!!!! MUST MAINTAIN IGNORANCE SPIRAL!!! MUST TYPE IN ALL CAPS!11!11!!omglol"
But the title... I got my residency contract today (woot!) which not only gives me a paperwork to-do list, but it's the first time (aside from my diploma, which rocks) that I've seen my for-real name with abbreviations and prefixes and such other than a few mistakes with the USMLE letters and a few interview invites.
And the best thing is that while I don't know if it's standard for contract language, because let's be honest, none of us have read a contract since you were able to click the "I Agree" button on your computer in 1996, but it's written out insanely often. "Dr. Ishie, MD. Contract for one year of being a physician, a PGY-1, a doctor, at our hospital, which employs doctors, where she will be doctoring the doctor stethoscope white coat malpractice DEA license."
Incidentally, do I need a DEA license? I can't imagine a scenario where I could use it that wouldn't end with a ride in the back of a police car. I'm similarly curious about the ACLS training.
Apr 6, 2011
Apr 5, 2011
Adjusting to life outside the hospital...
Wow, it's so bright out here in the light of day... no hospital; no digging my ID card out frantically as I race up the escalators with the 15 second window I've given myself, it's like... it's like a new world.
Either that, or this winter is ending, which is spectacular, because I was beginning to think that I was going to end up on The Road with Viggo Mortensen and he is way better at rocking the hobo beard than I am. Plus I'm worried I'd go cannibal too fast.
Oh to all of you happy clickers, thank you!!! You all are the best.
My future adopted city is sending me enough literature on it to make me think they're going to elect me mayor. I'm also getting a lot of correspondence from real estate agents who seem to be drastically more optimistic about my credit score than I am. I just need a car. Perhaps one I can live in.
I'm also in a car vs motorcycle debate with myself.
Car: Pro: It has a roof. Palmetto bugs can't fly into my face. I can take stuff home from the grocery store in it. Cons: Expensive. Gas sucks.
Motorcycle: Pros: 75 miles per frigging gallon! Are you kidding me??? Looks badass. Easy to park. Cons: No carrying capacity. Will probably smear me across the pavement like an oddly shaped butter knife.
Our runner up, Vespa: Pros: Hipster street cred. Seems safer even though there's no reason it objectively would be. Cons: Still expensive, can't take on freeway, more embarrassing death.
6 speed BMW wagon: Pros: have you been in this thing? It's like being in the space shuttle. And it keeps your butt warm. Cons: Selling both my kidneys wouldn't cover a down payment on this thing. Plus I'd need dialysis.
I'm feeling my NYC countdown more and more. There's so much stuff to do here that it's just reminding me of all the stuff I missed. Broadway show is on the list, though to be fair, I've tried that one, but can't score a ticket for under 70 bucks. Sigh. Groupons are directing me, so I'm getting a bit more bang for my buck, and my mom seems to have read my Christmas List from... forever, and got me a groupon to Evolution. This is a store filled with articulated rat skeletons and 5000 dollar dead peacocks. If there were a food court with a dosa guy and some Butter Lane cupcakes, it would just be called the Ishie Emporium.
Incidentally, some of those skeletons cost as much as my desired car (I'm actually thinking of seeing if I can score an Elantra. Thoughts?). How much does an attending make? I want something practical to shoot for, like a chimpanzee skeleton. The secret to success is setting realistic goals, so I think I'm improving.
Sometime, between working, geeking out over deceased fauna, and grouponing my way through Manhattan, I managed to attend my first baby shower. It probably says something about my friends that I was 30 before this milestone. It also highlighted how immature I am, because it's still strange that one of my friends is having a baby. That's like... something grownups do. I was going to pair my first baby shower with my first surfing excursion (bad Californian! Bad!) but couldn't squeeze my NYC pizza butt into the thick wetsuit, so I'm going to have to learn to surf out the Jersey Shore on another day.
Either that, or this winter is ending, which is spectacular, because I was beginning to think that I was going to end up on The Road with Viggo Mortensen and he is way better at rocking the hobo beard than I am. Plus I'm worried I'd go cannibal too fast.
Oh to all of you happy clickers, thank you!!! You all are the best.
My future adopted city is sending me enough literature on it to make me think they're going to elect me mayor. I'm also getting a lot of correspondence from real estate agents who seem to be drastically more optimistic about my credit score than I am. I just need a car. Perhaps one I can live in.
I'm also in a car vs motorcycle debate with myself.
Car: Pro: It has a roof. Palmetto bugs can't fly into my face. I can take stuff home from the grocery store in it. Cons: Expensive. Gas sucks.
Motorcycle: Pros: 75 miles per frigging gallon! Are you kidding me??? Looks badass. Easy to park. Cons: No carrying capacity. Will probably smear me across the pavement like an oddly shaped butter knife.
Our runner up, Vespa: Pros: Hipster street cred. Seems safer even though there's no reason it objectively would be. Cons: Still expensive, can't take on freeway, more embarrassing death.
6 speed BMW wagon: Pros: have you been in this thing? It's like being in the space shuttle. And it keeps your butt warm. Cons: Selling both my kidneys wouldn't cover a down payment on this thing. Plus I'd need dialysis.
I'm feeling my NYC countdown more and more. There's so much stuff to do here that it's just reminding me of all the stuff I missed. Broadway show is on the list, though to be fair, I've tried that one, but can't score a ticket for under 70 bucks. Sigh. Groupons are directing me, so I'm getting a bit more bang for my buck, and my mom seems to have read my Christmas List from... forever, and got me a groupon to Evolution. This is a store filled with articulated rat skeletons and 5000 dollar dead peacocks. If there were a food court with a dosa guy and some Butter Lane cupcakes, it would just be called the Ishie Emporium.
Incidentally, some of those skeletons cost as much as my desired car (I'm actually thinking of seeing if I can score an Elantra. Thoughts?). How much does an attending make? I want something practical to shoot for, like a chimpanzee skeleton. The secret to success is setting realistic goals, so I think I'm improving.
Sometime, between working, geeking out over deceased fauna, and grouponing my way through Manhattan, I managed to attend my first baby shower. It probably says something about my friends that I was 30 before this milestone. It also highlighted how immature I am, because it's still strange that one of my friends is having a baby. That's like... something grownups do. I was going to pair my first baby shower with my first surfing excursion (bad Californian! Bad!) but couldn't squeeze my NYC pizza butt into the thick wetsuit, so I'm going to have to learn to surf out the Jersey Shore on another day.
Mar 6, 2011
Everyone's leaving :(
Since I'm January class, people are finishing their clinicals at vastly different times since you can do anything from back to back everything and finish by December 31st or stretch the pain out until the beginning of June if you want scads of time off.
Everyone's also running really low on cash since all that extra time gives us loan check-less windows, so people are gradually dispersing back to their respective homes, which is sad. I know I'll see them again at graduation, but still. It's Grenada all over again; I get busy for a few days and then three people have left and I'm like "Wait... you're... gone? For reals? Oh..."
As of March 25th, I'm done with school. Forever. That is extremely frigging weird.
Less than two weeks until Match Day now. There's just really not much to say.
So what have I been up to then... I got to make and bottle my own beer for the first time, so now I'm the proud owner of 20 22oz bottles of dark beer, an amsterdam style and a wheat beer. I was part-creator of the wheat beer.
I'm doing radiation oncology, which is hitting me in the face with a whole new realm of medicine I knew absolutely nothing about, barring the words "prostate cancer". Usually I can BS along when being pimped, but this week's question was "Do you know what a linear accelerator is?" In what was probably the most intelligent answer, I've *ever* given, I cleanly stated "No." Not even going to try, homeboy.
I've gotten to be in the room where they actually give the radiation (not *while* they give it. In contrast to most of the giant intimidating machines in radiology, this one not only says "Danger" on the door, but "GRAVE Danger". Yikes). In fairness, the patients come out of it with little to few symptoms. In set up, it looks like a room where someone would try to kill James Bond.
This rotation has its own physicist... like PhD only, locked in a dark room surrounded by books with more diagrams than words and computers physicist.
I think this also may be the one field of medicine I genuinely couldn't do. While pathology is my life's love, I feel like with appropriate training, I *could* be a proficient surgeon, internist, dermatologist, hell, even pediatrician, but if you stick me in a room with the hard sciences and ask me to run quality control on a computer that is calculating frequencies and wavelengths on gamma rays that are being aimed at genitals, I am absolutely one hundred percent going to kill someone. I can't even divide a bar tab.
On a related note, anyone know anything awesome going on in NYC for Mardi Gras that's cheap? And no, $40 isn't cheap.
Everyone's also running really low on cash since all that extra time gives us loan check-less windows, so people are gradually dispersing back to their respective homes, which is sad. I know I'll see them again at graduation, but still. It's Grenada all over again; I get busy for a few days and then three people have left and I'm like "Wait... you're... gone? For reals? Oh..."
As of March 25th, I'm done with school. Forever. That is extremely frigging weird.
Less than two weeks until Match Day now. There's just really not much to say.
So what have I been up to then... I got to make and bottle my own beer for the first time, so now I'm the proud owner of 20 22oz bottles of dark beer, an amsterdam style and a wheat beer. I was part-creator of the wheat beer.
I'm doing radiation oncology, which is hitting me in the face with a whole new realm of medicine I knew absolutely nothing about, barring the words "prostate cancer". Usually I can BS along when being pimped, but this week's question was "Do you know what a linear accelerator is?" In what was probably the most intelligent answer, I've *ever* given, I cleanly stated "No." Not even going to try, homeboy.
I've gotten to be in the room where they actually give the radiation (not *while* they give it. In contrast to most of the giant intimidating machines in radiology, this one not only says "Danger" on the door, but "GRAVE Danger". Yikes). In fairness, the patients come out of it with little to few symptoms. In set up, it looks like a room where someone would try to kill James Bond.
This rotation has its own physicist... like PhD only, locked in a dark room surrounded by books with more diagrams than words and computers physicist.
I think this also may be the one field of medicine I genuinely couldn't do. While pathology is my life's love, I feel like with appropriate training, I *could* be a proficient surgeon, internist, dermatologist, hell, even pediatrician, but if you stick me in a room with the hard sciences and ask me to run quality control on a computer that is calculating frequencies and wavelengths on gamma rays that are being aimed at genitals, I am absolutely one hundred percent going to kill someone. I can't even divide a bar tab.
On a related note, anyone know anything awesome going on in NYC for Mardi Gras that's cheap? And no, $40 isn't cheap.
Feb 13, 2011
Apologies to the MTA
Only for the stuff I was saying about them today. That whole part where they jacked up the unlimited pass price by twenty dollars while continuing to cut service? Drastically uncool.
So here's a thing... I was going out to Jersey today to meet some friends to brew beer, because the interview season was so frigging exhausting that I have to start making my own hooch (I'm not adding centipedes to it like the moonshine in Grenada)... We're supposed to catch a train out of Penn Station at 10:11.
900: Home station closed because f- you, that's why.
900 - 915: Walk to next station
920: Board 2 train.
930: Why aren't we moving?
935: No seriously, why the f- aren't we moving?
936: Attention passengers. This train is being held due to a police investigation at Times Square. Atlantic Avenue is the last stop on this train. All passengers leave the train.
936-937: WTF? What police investigation? If this is someone leaving a GD Macy's bag under a GD bench and that sets off a GD bomb scare, I'm ballisticizing on someone. Why is stuff at Times Square sufficient to shut down service in Brooklyn?
938: Let's take the Q train!
939: Q train closes door in face; takes off.
939: *&(*&(*&#)&(*&!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
950: Q train arrives. Maybe we can still make it.
952: Q train running local. Profanity ensues.
1010: Let's get off at WTC and take the PATH train.
1015: Due to track work, the PATH train is running on a 20 minute schedule. Please plan extra travel time.
We made it, thanks to the willingness of one of our benevolent Jersey-side drivers to be willing to book it to Newark to pick us up, but naturally the 2 hours it took to make what would have normally been a 45 minute trip led to my attempting to think of any service that regularly ticked me off more than the public transit. Possibly whoever was responsible for clearing the roads after the Boxing Day blizzard.
While we were on the way out to the brewery, we were googling any possible justification for shutting off access to some of the busiest train stations in the world, and came across the early breaking version of this:
Suspect in Brooklyn Stabbing Spree Is Captured
So apparently, we couldn't take the train going uptown because while we were sitting on our train, they were taking down a guy that was, among many many many *many* other things, stabbing train patrons.
Okay, MTA. Good call.
So here's a thing... I was going out to Jersey today to meet some friends to brew beer, because the interview season was so frigging exhausting that I have to start making my own hooch (I'm not adding centipedes to it like the moonshine in Grenada)... We're supposed to catch a train out of Penn Station at 10:11.
900: Home station closed because f- you, that's why.
900 - 915: Walk to next station
920: Board 2 train.
930: Why aren't we moving?
935: No seriously, why the f- aren't we moving?
936: Attention passengers. This train is being held due to a police investigation at Times Square. Atlantic Avenue is the last stop on this train. All passengers leave the train.
936-937: WTF? What police investigation? If this is someone leaving a GD Macy's bag under a GD bench and that sets off a GD bomb scare, I'm ballisticizing on someone. Why is stuff at Times Square sufficient to shut down service in Brooklyn?
938: Let's take the Q train!
939: Q train closes door in face; takes off.
939: *&(*&(*&#)&(*&!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
950: Q train arrives. Maybe we can still make it.
952: Q train running local. Profanity ensues.
1010: Let's get off at WTC and take the PATH train.
1015: Due to track work, the PATH train is running on a 20 minute schedule. Please plan extra travel time.
We made it, thanks to the willingness of one of our benevolent Jersey-side drivers to be willing to book it to Newark to pick us up, but naturally the 2 hours it took to make what would have normally been a 45 minute trip led to my attempting to think of any service that regularly ticked me off more than the public transit. Possibly whoever was responsible for clearing the roads after the Boxing Day blizzard.
While we were on the way out to the brewery, we were googling any possible justification for shutting off access to some of the busiest train stations in the world, and came across the early breaking version of this:
Suspect in Brooklyn Stabbing Spree Is Captured
So apparently, we couldn't take the train going uptown because while we were sitting on our train, they were taking down a guy that was, among many many many *many* other things, stabbing train patrons.
Okay, MTA. Good call.
Jan 21, 2011
Unusual plug
Okay, I don't usually just flat out post links, but all the subways are wonky in my neck of the woods (including a shutdown of one station which fortunately isn't mine), and this post was too funny for me to pass up. I wish I'd written it:
FIPS dislikes the new standard
Yes, that's the name of the actual blog. Know it, love it.
FIPS dislikes the new standard
Yes, that's the name of the actual blog. Know it, love it.
Jan 3, 2011
Am I violating some kind of law?
Happy New Year!
Few things...
1. I spent a great deal of my impressionable youth watching a channel known for putting Music on TeleVision film parties at various locations and was convinced I would never be as cool or as in-crowd as the people at those parties who were always screaming, always having a good time, for HOURS.
2. WAY less fun than it looks.
3. Good god, being 18 is boring. I'd forgotten.
4. Cheering actually less spontaneous and more "we're going to do this again until you bastards get this right. Then, we're going to turn the music back off and go back to standing for forty-five minutes with the kind of silence usually reserved for art museums and funerals."
5. Disclaimer: *Crowds may include children, small dogs, and grandparents who wandered by to see who was making sporadic bursts of noise.
6. No alcohol. You monsters. If I weren't doing this partially as some kind of half-ironic, fun with friends, vaguely hipster New York representer, you would have ruined the entire point of going.
7. This town makes Davis look like Miami. Seriously, where the heck can I get some food?
8. Oh good... the next town over has food. Oh man... do not eat fat sandwiches while sober. Scratch that, do not eat fat sandwiches.
9. I really have only the faintest idea who this vodka-drenched gremlin is, but she needs to share whatever's in that cup. I mean "WOOO!!! OH MY GOD!! IT'S THE CHICK FROM TRUE BLOOD!!!!! Wait, that's Sookie. Wait, so Sookie's not coming?"
10. "11:59 on December 31st" looks creepily similar to "about 9:30 on a Thursday night".
11. I think SGU actually approximates the parties I expected in my youth twice a year at a shindig called Sandblast. As a jaded fourth year, I'd say those were also "way less fun than advertised", but that's a complete lie.
Few things...
1. I spent a great deal of my impressionable youth watching a channel known for putting Music on TeleVision film parties at various locations and was convinced I would never be as cool or as in-crowd as the people at those parties who were always screaming, always having a good time, for HOURS.
2. WAY less fun than it looks.
3. Good god, being 18 is boring. I'd forgotten.
4. Cheering actually less spontaneous and more "we're going to do this again until you bastards get this right. Then, we're going to turn the music back off and go back to standing for forty-five minutes with the kind of silence usually reserved for art museums and funerals."
5. Disclaimer: *Crowds may include children, small dogs, and grandparents who wandered by to see who was making sporadic bursts of noise.
6. No alcohol. You monsters. If I weren't doing this partially as some kind of half-ironic, fun with friends, vaguely hipster New York representer, you would have ruined the entire point of going.
7. This town makes Davis look like Miami. Seriously, where the heck can I get some food?
8. Oh good... the next town over has food. Oh man... do not eat fat sandwiches while sober. Scratch that, do not eat fat sandwiches.
9. I really have only the faintest idea who this vodka-drenched gremlin is, but she needs to share whatever's in that cup. I mean "WOOO!!! OH MY GOD!! IT'S THE CHICK FROM TRUE BLOOD!!!!! Wait, that's Sookie. Wait, so Sookie's not coming?"
10. "11:59 on December 31st" looks creepily similar to "about 9:30 on a Thursday night".
11. I think SGU actually approximates the parties I expected in my youth twice a year at a shindig called Sandblast. As a jaded fourth year, I'd say those were also "way less fun than advertised", but that's a complete lie.
Dec 26, 2010
Good news
My dad got discharged from the hospital on Christmas Eve; he's doing much better, sounds really positive, and is making all those lifestyle changes the majority of my patients refused to consider, so that's a huge load off my shoulders, and I get to go see him in a couple of days before burning back to NYC just in time to conscientiously avoid Times Square for New Years.
Speaking of Times Square, I was there today, because I was trying to score Broadway tickets but gave up because they're expensive even on discount, and more importantly, scoring those tickets would have involved standing in an outside line during that whole blizzard thing we're having today.
Because on my mom's time off work, I spent a great deal of it either interviewing or lying in my house in a useless deep depression prior to Christmas, I decided we'd go out today to Midtown 'in the snow', maybe ice skate a little, and do it up. "In the snow" is quite different than "in a blizzard". Today while... let's say... fording a path through Rockefeller Center to see the tree, the wind and temperatures were such that my scarf actually froze through solid. I also had the same little faux-fur lined hood black parka that *everyone* in NYC owns, and that caked with snow and froze too.
It was a good reminder that though I typically avoid Midtown, I actually do like Grand Central Station a lot, which is where we ducked for cover for a while to "see the holiday decorations and eat", by which I mean "get out of the 40 mile per hour blinding snow, and was that thunder and lightning, holy crap get inside".
Christmas was nice; my mom came along with two of my friends and I cooked a massive feast thanks to a generous contribution of fake talent both from allrecipes.com, plus Yoshie taking on my roommate's usual role of following me around the kitchen cleaning dishes and trying to keep me from lighting stuff on fire.
The menu:
Spinach salad with mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, red onions, balsamic vinegarette and feta.
Rosemary lamb chops with balsalmic reduction
Yams with sugar and orange peel stuffed inside a shelled orange and coated in a caramel pecan sauce
Cashew broccoli
Ice cream sandwiches from Bierkraft (they're amazing; I can't top them)
This is probably more detail than anyone wants, but my cooking usually amounts to searing a steak or boiling ramen water, so I was pretty pleased with myself. Plenty of Christmas movies, wine, beer, and eggnog too. Traditional route.
Christmas in NYC reminds me of why it's going to be so hard to leave NYC. Well, currently, it would be difficult because I'm snowed in, but yesterday, we managed to procure lamb chops, eggnog, and beer on Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, I was able to snag gourmet macaroons at night. I'm spoiled completely rotten. I kept saying the adage while I was cooking of "If I screw this up, we can get take out." How can I live elsewhere?
I'm off rotations right now for interviews and the holidays but start up again after New Year's. The whole reality of not being a medical student anymore after April keeps hitting me intermittently.
Speaking of Times Square, I was there today, because I was trying to score Broadway tickets but gave up because they're expensive even on discount, and more importantly, scoring those tickets would have involved standing in an outside line during that whole blizzard thing we're having today.
Because on my mom's time off work, I spent a great deal of it either interviewing or lying in my house in a useless deep depression prior to Christmas, I decided we'd go out today to Midtown 'in the snow', maybe ice skate a little, and do it up. "In the snow" is quite different than "in a blizzard". Today while... let's say... fording a path through Rockefeller Center to see the tree, the wind and temperatures were such that my scarf actually froze through solid. I also had the same little faux-fur lined hood black parka that *everyone* in NYC owns, and that caked with snow and froze too.
It was a good reminder that though I typically avoid Midtown, I actually do like Grand Central Station a lot, which is where we ducked for cover for a while to "see the holiday decorations and eat", by which I mean "get out of the 40 mile per hour blinding snow, and was that thunder and lightning, holy crap get inside".
Christmas was nice; my mom came along with two of my friends and I cooked a massive feast thanks to a generous contribution of fake talent both from allrecipes.com, plus Yoshie taking on my roommate's usual role of following me around the kitchen cleaning dishes and trying to keep me from lighting stuff on fire.
The menu:
Spinach salad with mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, red onions, balsamic vinegarette and feta.
Rosemary lamb chops with balsalmic reduction
Yams with sugar and orange peel stuffed inside a shelled orange and coated in a caramel pecan sauce
Cashew broccoli
Ice cream sandwiches from Bierkraft (they're amazing; I can't top them)
This is probably more detail than anyone wants, but my cooking usually amounts to searing a steak or boiling ramen water, so I was pretty pleased with myself. Plenty of Christmas movies, wine, beer, and eggnog too. Traditional route.
Christmas in NYC reminds me of why it's going to be so hard to leave NYC. Well, currently, it would be difficult because I'm snowed in, but yesterday, we managed to procure lamb chops, eggnog, and beer on Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, I was able to snag gourmet macaroons at night. I'm spoiled completely rotten. I kept saying the adage while I was cooking of "If I screw this up, we can get take out." How can I live elsewhere?
I'm off rotations right now for interviews and the holidays but start up again after New Year's. The whole reality of not being a medical student anymore after April keeps hitting me intermittently.
Oct 13, 2010
Success is... expensive
Hi all, it's your regularly absentee blogger again, stumbling from the hours-crunch of "trying to have a night job" to "partying for fourth year". Plus there's the whole: "I don't want residency directors to figure out who I am, spend the next week reading this blog from start to finish because they have nothing else to do and then figure I'm too unprofessional to ever give a job in a desirable location, ie, the place in the middle of the Venn diagram that encompasses "places close to a large body of water" with "places where cockroaches can't fly". Or something.
But my title... I'm getting interviews! Wahoo!!! In many different places!! Wahoo! Where I have to fly to... um.. wahoo... during scheduled clinical rotations... hmmm... hope they don't mind that... in the middle of the holiday season... ooh... off my last loan check, which is supposed to last me until July... ergh... hurk.
No, it's exciting though. It really is. I'm actually applying for a job as a doctor. Which is really frigging bizarre, and I feel like the gap between my position and the residents is shrinking. When I started my third year rotations, I was scared of interns. Little things keep emphasizing to me that it's next year. Before next season clears up this season's story arc on True Blood? Doctor. Before my lease is up? Doctor. Half the stuff I receive through my school account is addressed to "Doctor", because, eh, close enough. I even played the doctor card to get my stuff back at one point, because I figure if an airline loses belongings that have a stethoscope and a white coat in them, it's fair game.
And it's a title change thing. Since I'm fundamentally afraid of marriage, I never really thought about the Miss/Ms/Mrs transition, but once I get this degree, I get "Dr" before my last name for the rest of my life, even if I spend the rest of my life selling Amway. It's extremely weird.
Meanwhile, I spent yesterday in conference, teaching me a number of things.
1. Trapping medical students in conference while you spend an hour talking about the hospital's financial restructuring has become an obsolete form of torture due to the invention of the internet phone. I never got a chance to read Crime and Punishment in high school, and it's actually pretty darn good. My colleagues seem to equally be enjoying video games, Facebook, email, and a USMLE question prep app. The residents, similarly occupied. Seriously, no one cares.
2. Despite being in conference, "I just came in for ______ and these expletives want to get all up in my expletive" is a far more common primary patient complaint than I would have expected. All I ask for in my doctor is that he not lecture me about biological clocks when I tell him I've never been pregnant. I'm easy that way.
3. Why must every conference room either be as hot as the surface of the sun or as cold as a meat locker?
One the plus side, drug company visit during conference plus radiology company visit during clinic today meant free lunches *two days in a row*. To a penniless interview-scheduling med student, this is the frigging moneyload. I also got to work with my favorite surgeon despite being out in other-Brooklyn and not being in a surgical rotation. Sweet.
Roommate and I are having an October horror-month. Paranormal Activity is freaking scary. And no, I don't believe in the paranormal, and my current favorite show has a serial killer as a protagonist. Still freaking scary.
Update: it is both wonderful and unfortunate (calorie and money-wise) that I live near the food mecca of the universe. Half the places roomie and I regularly frequent seem to be featured on the Food Network. This is going to make it very difficult to leave NYC.
But my title... I'm getting interviews! Wahoo!!! In many different places!! Wahoo! Where I have to fly to... um.. wahoo... during scheduled clinical rotations... hmmm... hope they don't mind that... in the middle of the holiday season... ooh... off my last loan check, which is supposed to last me until July... ergh... hurk.
No, it's exciting though. It really is. I'm actually applying for a job as a doctor. Which is really frigging bizarre, and I feel like the gap between my position and the residents is shrinking. When I started my third year rotations, I was scared of interns. Little things keep emphasizing to me that it's next year. Before next season clears up this season's story arc on True Blood? Doctor. Before my lease is up? Doctor. Half the stuff I receive through my school account is addressed to "Doctor", because, eh, close enough. I even played the doctor card to get my stuff back at one point, because I figure if an airline loses belongings that have a stethoscope and a white coat in them, it's fair game.
And it's a title change thing. Since I'm fundamentally afraid of marriage, I never really thought about the Miss/Ms/Mrs transition, but once I get this degree, I get "Dr" before my last name for the rest of my life, even if I spend the rest of my life selling Amway. It's extremely weird.
Meanwhile, I spent yesterday in conference, teaching me a number of things.
1. Trapping medical students in conference while you spend an hour talking about the hospital's financial restructuring has become an obsolete form of torture due to the invention of the internet phone. I never got a chance to read Crime and Punishment in high school, and it's actually pretty darn good. My colleagues seem to equally be enjoying video games, Facebook, email, and a USMLE question prep app. The residents, similarly occupied. Seriously, no one cares.
2. Despite being in conference, "I just came in for ______ and these expletives want to get all up in my expletive" is a far more common primary patient complaint than I would have expected. All I ask for in my doctor is that he not lecture me about biological clocks when I tell him I've never been pregnant. I'm easy that way.
3. Why must every conference room either be as hot as the surface of the sun or as cold as a meat locker?
One the plus side, drug company visit during conference plus radiology company visit during clinic today meant free lunches *two days in a row*. To a penniless interview-scheduling med student, this is the frigging moneyload. I also got to work with my favorite surgeon despite being out in other-Brooklyn and not being in a surgical rotation. Sweet.
Roommate and I are having an October horror-month. Paranormal Activity is freaking scary. And no, I don't believe in the paranormal, and my current favorite show has a serial killer as a protagonist. Still freaking scary.
Update: it is both wonderful and unfortunate (calorie and money-wise) that I live near the food mecca of the universe. Half the places roomie and I regularly frequent seem to be featured on the Food Network. This is going to make it very difficult to leave NYC.
Jun 22, 2010
Luggage gone again...
Hmmm... brief synopsis that will be elaborated on later because my days up until yesterday were spent studying for Step 2 CS, flying to Houston to take my CS, and then hanging with family in Houston, and since then I've been alternately trying to figure out how to get my luggage back and how to get my insurance to give me a new phone since mine's broken. Which makes getting luggage back more fun...
So... CS: stressful, but not as stressful as I was expecting considering forced human interaction with people who are judging me is where I excel least (hello pathology!). Can't detail too much on the exam because they threaten us with death or something equally bad like not being allowed to take CK or something. Wait...
Also, practicing for CS is not only a good idea, but fun. I got to treat my boyfriend for 'lady bits problems' and discovered a crashing deficit in my bedside manner when I was practicing on my friend... you see, the chief complaint that was yelled to me (our version of the doorway information) was "fatigue". I open my door and there is my friend sitting there with my silk robe on backwards and her eye blacked out with makeup. After my first staccato burst of laughter, I extend my hand and find both of her arms similarly darkened.
So my response to the investigation of domestic violence is to laugh uncontrollably for 15 minutes while attempting to conduct an interview and being completely unable to look at the patient's face. FAIL.
Seeing family: Awesome! My little cousins are people now. They're also more polite than I am and address me by name and title, whereas I usually get people's attention by either saying "Hey!" or more frequently, by wandering obliviously down the street attached to my ipod until someone who wants my attention has to physically grab me.
The littlest one also wants to be a doctor because she wants to give shots, and asked if I brought any. Which is absolutely not weird. The older one shares my Wii addiction and my unnatural love of the show Avatar: the Last Airbender. I'll add in that my love of True Blood fills out my diet with enough mindless sex and violence that it justifies my addition to a Nick toons show, thus I maintain my legal status as a grown-up. My big cousins plied me with wine and explained the whole oil crisis since as a proper medical student, I have absolutely no idea what's going on in the outside world at any time and my grasp of the BP situation involved a vague depression and pictures of dead pelicans.
In other news, hi guys!
My aunt and uncle took me to a little place called Spring which I liked and reminded me of Woodstock, if someone turned the thermostat up 20 degrees. I also ate BBQ with gusto since it tends to be of not fantastic quality and prohibitively expensive in NYC. I also got to make multiple car trips to the store which is a convenience I had not realized how badly I missed until I was tucked safely and comfortably in the backseat of an air conditioned ride rather than rammed up against a hobo and a busker with my food for the next week determined by how much upper body stength I have (spoiler: none).
I shopped before I left and I shopped while I was in Texas. This is relevant because it allows me to say that pretty much *everything* lost in my carry-on luggage was brand spanking new. And I very rarely shop for clothes, so it was a particularly harsh blow.
I've had luggage lost so many times that by the time I flew to NYC for my current stay, my luggage was labeled all over with Sharpie marker with my contact information, had ribbons tied on the handles, and was wrapped in fluorescent duct tape. I'm not making that up. Since flying now carries the added fun of a 25 dollar fee and I'm tired of losing my shit, I put everything in carry on. Including my stethoscope, white coat, PD kit, and all that fun stuff (that I needed today!). So imagine my surprise when as I went through the gate to my flight, my carry on (fortunately not my purse) as well as most other people's was marked "Valet" and stuck in the side of the plane. Since I never planned on letting that bag leave my sight, it wasn't well labeled.
So naturally, as soon as I got to Dallas, someone grabbed my bag instead of his and apparently disappeared off the face of the planet, leaving his bag with me, which I promptly turned over to lost luggage in Dallas because I'm a moron unfamiliar with the art of blackmail. Best part is... since it was never formally 'checked', I can't actually prove I ever had it. So I may be out the possibly ~800 dollars worth of stuff in that bag that was of a cost and emotional value which they recommend you don't check... *which is why I didn't*.
I put all of that aside to go out to watch True Blood at a bar with my friends last night, cause you know, you gotta prioritize, at which point my phone went from "almost dead" to "dead". So I end up having to call others so they can call my voicemail to listen to my messages to determine whether my bag's been found.
ARGH.
But whatever. I started pediatric heme/onc today and it's pretty cool, features an insanely nice nurse, plus nothing minimizes an extraordinarily aggravating couple of days like seeing 6 year old cancer patients. It's hard to even stay really pissed off. "I'm having the worst day with my luggage and my phone and I had to circle LGA for an hour and..." "My hair fell out but they gave me this great wig. Can I watch Ratatouille during my chemo sessions?" "Uhhh.. have a cookie." "I can't; I'm NPO."
Oh, in that direction, while practicing for the CS, the First Aid gives you these often off-the-wall 'patient questions' that are designed to throw you off guard to determine your response to being put on the spot. They range from "am I going to die?" to "What does 'ultrasound' mean"? They dispense with the normal answers of "No" and "it's a test" in favor of a paragraph of feel-good that I found rather silly.
Until today. Had a "Will I be able to make the trip" question that sounded like it was lifted directly out of the pages of the First Aid, and then not one but two "Why does she keep complaining of being cold and shivering when her temperature is so high?" that wasn't in First Aid, but should have been. Hopefully the practice paid off for something, because I felt like I could give pretty good answers and empathized well. And even for real empathy. Also, heme/onc moms seem to be a relatively forgiving lot and are used to medical students asking them a crap-ton of questions they've answered seventeen billion times, so it worked.
So... CS: stressful, but not as stressful as I was expecting considering forced human interaction with people who are judging me is where I excel least (hello pathology!). Can't detail too much on the exam because they threaten us with death or something equally bad like not being allowed to take CK or something. Wait...
Also, practicing for CS is not only a good idea, but fun. I got to treat my boyfriend for 'lady bits problems' and discovered a crashing deficit in my bedside manner when I was practicing on my friend... you see, the chief complaint that was yelled to me (our version of the doorway information) was "fatigue". I open my door and there is my friend sitting there with my silk robe on backwards and her eye blacked out with makeup. After my first staccato burst of laughter, I extend my hand and find both of her arms similarly darkened.
So my response to the investigation of domestic violence is to laugh uncontrollably for 15 minutes while attempting to conduct an interview and being completely unable to look at the patient's face. FAIL.
Seeing family: Awesome! My little cousins are people now. They're also more polite than I am and address me by name and title, whereas I usually get people's attention by either saying "Hey!" or more frequently, by wandering obliviously down the street attached to my ipod until someone who wants my attention has to physically grab me.
The littlest one also wants to be a doctor because she wants to give shots, and asked if I brought any. Which is absolutely not weird. The older one shares my Wii addiction and my unnatural love of the show Avatar: the Last Airbender. I'll add in that my love of True Blood fills out my diet with enough mindless sex and violence that it justifies my addition to a Nick toons show, thus I maintain my legal status as a grown-up. My big cousins plied me with wine and explained the whole oil crisis since as a proper medical student, I have absolutely no idea what's going on in the outside world at any time and my grasp of the BP situation involved a vague depression and pictures of dead pelicans.
In other news, hi guys!
My aunt and uncle took me to a little place called Spring which I liked and reminded me of Woodstock, if someone turned the thermostat up 20 degrees. I also ate BBQ with gusto since it tends to be of not fantastic quality and prohibitively expensive in NYC. I also got to make multiple car trips to the store which is a convenience I had not realized how badly I missed until I was tucked safely and comfortably in the backseat of an air conditioned ride rather than rammed up against a hobo and a busker with my food for the next week determined by how much upper body stength I have (spoiler: none).
I shopped before I left and I shopped while I was in Texas. This is relevant because it allows me to say that pretty much *everything* lost in my carry-on luggage was brand spanking new. And I very rarely shop for clothes, so it was a particularly harsh blow.
I've had luggage lost so many times that by the time I flew to NYC for my current stay, my luggage was labeled all over with Sharpie marker with my contact information, had ribbons tied on the handles, and was wrapped in fluorescent duct tape. I'm not making that up. Since flying now carries the added fun of a 25 dollar fee and I'm tired of losing my shit, I put everything in carry on. Including my stethoscope, white coat, PD kit, and all that fun stuff (that I needed today!). So imagine my surprise when as I went through the gate to my flight, my carry on (fortunately not my purse) as well as most other people's was marked "Valet" and stuck in the side of the plane. Since I never planned on letting that bag leave my sight, it wasn't well labeled.
So naturally, as soon as I got to Dallas, someone grabbed my bag instead of his and apparently disappeared off the face of the planet, leaving his bag with me, which I promptly turned over to lost luggage in Dallas because I'm a moron unfamiliar with the art of blackmail. Best part is... since it was never formally 'checked', I can't actually prove I ever had it. So I may be out the possibly ~800 dollars worth of stuff in that bag that was of a cost and emotional value which they recommend you don't check... *which is why I didn't*.
I put all of that aside to go out to watch True Blood at a bar with my friends last night, cause you know, you gotta prioritize, at which point my phone went from "almost dead" to "dead". So I end up having to call others so they can call my voicemail to listen to my messages to determine whether my bag's been found.
ARGH.
But whatever. I started pediatric heme/onc today and it's pretty cool, features an insanely nice nurse, plus nothing minimizes an extraordinarily aggravating couple of days like seeing 6 year old cancer patients. It's hard to even stay really pissed off. "I'm having the worst day with my luggage and my phone and I had to circle LGA for an hour and..." "My hair fell out but they gave me this great wig. Can I watch Ratatouille during my chemo sessions?" "Uhhh.. have a cookie." "I can't; I'm NPO."
Oh, in that direction, while practicing for the CS, the First Aid gives you these often off-the-wall 'patient questions' that are designed to throw you off guard to determine your response to being put on the spot. They range from "am I going to die?" to "What does 'ultrasound' mean"? They dispense with the normal answers of "No" and "it's a test" in favor of a paragraph of feel-good that I found rather silly.
Until today. Had a "Will I be able to make the trip" question that sounded like it was lifted directly out of the pages of the First Aid, and then not one but two "Why does she keep complaining of being cold and shivering when her temperature is so high?" that wasn't in First Aid, but should have been. Hopefully the practice paid off for something, because I felt like I could give pretty good answers and empathized well. And even for real empathy. Also, heme/onc moms seem to be a relatively forgiving lot and are used to medical students asking them a crap-ton of questions they've answered seventeen billion times, so it worked.
Jun 10, 2010
When is an emergency not an emergency?
Naturally, the second I have a week off, I revert to my midnight owl schedule, which put me at my prime study hour just in time to hear annoying jangling outside my window for long enough that I finally looked out it.
In time to see one of our friendly neighborhood street rats brandish his giant novelty-sized bike-lock pruning shears, put them away, and ride off on his newly found prize.
Bah... so I uttered an ineffective "Hey!" out the window, tempted to run him down swatting him in the head like our falafel guy did when someone tried to jack a bike out of our apartment (love you, Mohammad, seriously, and your shwarma is the frigging bomb), but by the time I got jeans on and went outside, he was already ineffectively weaving up the street...
Leaving me with a dilemma... this is not my bicycle thus I can't really identify it or prove it isn't this kid's (though the shears might), and the perpetrator is currently escaping with slim odds, I would think, that someone is going to pull up and catch him by the time I run upstairs and call the police.
So who do you call? The last time 911 and I had a friendly chat, it was for a three year old that was sans a heartbeat, which tends to be the level of emergency I do not want getting preempted for bike theft. So I called 311, due to their effectiveness at shutting up noisy buttholes at my friends' place, but then they promptly forwarded me to 911, who seemed interested but vaguely confused as to why I was calling them. Then they called me back three times to get a better description, so I guess they care after all. But if you see a blurb in the paper about some high strung female who called 911 due to seeing a kid with bike clips outside her apartment, don't blame me. I called information.
In time to see one of our friendly neighborhood street rats brandish his giant novelty-sized bike-lock pruning shears, put them away, and ride off on his newly found prize.
Bah... so I uttered an ineffective "Hey!" out the window, tempted to run him down swatting him in the head like our falafel guy did when someone tried to jack a bike out of our apartment (love you, Mohammad, seriously, and your shwarma is the frigging bomb), but by the time I got jeans on and went outside, he was already ineffectively weaving up the street...
Leaving me with a dilemma... this is not my bicycle thus I can't really identify it or prove it isn't this kid's (though the shears might), and the perpetrator is currently escaping with slim odds, I would think, that someone is going to pull up and catch him by the time I run upstairs and call the police.
So who do you call? The last time 911 and I had a friendly chat, it was for a three year old that was sans a heartbeat, which tends to be the level of emergency I do not want getting preempted for bike theft. So I called 311, due to their effectiveness at shutting up noisy buttholes at my friends' place, but then they promptly forwarded me to 911, who seemed interested but vaguely confused as to why I was calling them. Then they called me back three times to get a better description, so I guess they care after all. But if you see a blurb in the paper about some high strung female who called 911 due to seeing a kid with bike clips outside her apartment, don't blame me. I called information.
Jun 7, 2010
Another test already?
But I just took the Step 1 like... oh, over a year ago. But still.
I'm going to take the Step 2 CS in about a week and a half. This is a really different exam than all the others in that it costs nearly twice as frigging much and I actually have to play doctor with actors rather than banging out multiple choice questions on a computer screen.
The problem with this exam is that it has a really high pass rate, which sounds like a good thing, but that ends up serving to make you feel really bad if you're in that 10 percent that fails it, and given my proclivity to blurt out nerdy inappropriate jokes when I'm stressed, that just has "train wreck" written all over it.
Nah, but it's all good. It's an opportunity to go to Houston and finally see family again! Huzzah! And I'm actually really excited about that. So fake patients do your worst. Actually, don't. Be nice to me so I can play with my cousins.
Because I don't want to blow off the exam and I was being creative with my scheduling, I now have a week off post-pathology rotation, which I'm going to dedicate to practicing and studying for the test so I can enjoy my Texas time. I'm also going to enjoy the opportunity to sleep in and *not* have a 45 minute train ride each morning.
Not that I can really bitch about my last rotation. It was pretty awesome, everyone was nice to me; everyone showed me around; I got to see all the labs, and since path is a heavy laboratory specialty, the staff offset my expected cost of eating disgusting overpriced hospital food by bringing goodies in damn near every day. In unrelated news, I'm upping my run-time in Prospect Park despite the stifling humidity because I refuse to buy new jeans to accommodate an expanding posterior surface.
I started getting confident with the microscope, which makes me happy. I'm not confident with diagnosing what's on the microscope (though now I can find H. pylori!) but I can swap those lenses out and zoom in on problem areas with ease. I got to see an autopsy, which kept me hovering near the back room like a vulture for half the day because I didn't want them to start without me. I stayed late a lot largely because I wanted to make a good impression on the denizens of my future career, but also because I had access to my own microscope, a computer, and air conditioning.
Speaking of that last one, I caved. I can't do another summer, particularly with all New Yorkers talking about how mild the last one I suffered through was. Home Depot was having an online sale and now I'm just checking the order status every five minutes to see if they shipped my A/C yet. I'm giddy with the anticipation. Especially with a late summer several-week study session for the Step 2 CK (the computer exam), I'm going to be sweating enough from the mental beating UWorld gives me; I don't need to add constant sticky heat and sleeping on ice packs.
Being in the specialty of my dreams didn't keep me from recreating though... I went stereotype NYC for Memorial Day by escaping the city on a camping trip up to the Adirondacks, which was phenomenal and refreshed my desire to apply to residency in some more rural locations to get my nature vibe back. I also went with the most prepared camper in the world, who not only brings the stuff I forget (like flashlights, maps, tent poles, and similar little stuff) but a tournament beer pong table, an air mattress that is larger and more comfortable than my actual (bunk) bed, and three dogs.
The weekend before that was Jersey pool party weekend... Now this weekend was... uhhh... let's just say it involved Williamsburg, Zombie Hut, an insane hunt for pommes frites, and dozing off in our deck's new pool at 4 AM. And by pool, I mean "We now have a plastic kiddie pool on our porch that we fill from the sink." Looking at that plus the 6 and a half foot plastic mannequin standing vigilant over it, my roommmate muttered something to the effect of "We are such hipster trash." Heh.
I'm going to take the Step 2 CS in about a week and a half. This is a really different exam than all the others in that it costs nearly twice as frigging much and I actually have to play doctor with actors rather than banging out multiple choice questions on a computer screen.
The problem with this exam is that it has a really high pass rate, which sounds like a good thing, but that ends up serving to make you feel really bad if you're in that 10 percent that fails it, and given my proclivity to blurt out nerdy inappropriate jokes when I'm stressed, that just has "train wreck" written all over it.
Nah, but it's all good. It's an opportunity to go to Houston and finally see family again! Huzzah! And I'm actually really excited about that. So fake patients do your worst. Actually, don't. Be nice to me so I can play with my cousins.
Because I don't want to blow off the exam and I was being creative with my scheduling, I now have a week off post-pathology rotation, which I'm going to dedicate to practicing and studying for the test so I can enjoy my Texas time. I'm also going to enjoy the opportunity to sleep in and *not* have a 45 minute train ride each morning.
Not that I can really bitch about my last rotation. It was pretty awesome, everyone was nice to me; everyone showed me around; I got to see all the labs, and since path is a heavy laboratory specialty, the staff offset my expected cost of eating disgusting overpriced hospital food by bringing goodies in damn near every day. In unrelated news, I'm upping my run-time in Prospect Park despite the stifling humidity because I refuse to buy new jeans to accommodate an expanding posterior surface.
I started getting confident with the microscope, which makes me happy. I'm not confident with diagnosing what's on the microscope (though now I can find H. pylori!) but I can swap those lenses out and zoom in on problem areas with ease. I got to see an autopsy, which kept me hovering near the back room like a vulture for half the day because I didn't want them to start without me. I stayed late a lot largely because I wanted to make a good impression on the denizens of my future career, but also because I had access to my own microscope, a computer, and air conditioning.
Speaking of that last one, I caved. I can't do another summer, particularly with all New Yorkers talking about how mild the last one I suffered through was. Home Depot was having an online sale and now I'm just checking the order status every five minutes to see if they shipped my A/C yet. I'm giddy with the anticipation. Especially with a late summer several-week study session for the Step 2 CK (the computer exam), I'm going to be sweating enough from the mental beating UWorld gives me; I don't need to add constant sticky heat and sleeping on ice packs.
Being in the specialty of my dreams didn't keep me from recreating though... I went stereotype NYC for Memorial Day by escaping the city on a camping trip up to the Adirondacks, which was phenomenal and refreshed my desire to apply to residency in some more rural locations to get my nature vibe back. I also went with the most prepared camper in the world, who not only brings the stuff I forget (like flashlights, maps, tent poles, and similar little stuff) but a tournament beer pong table, an air mattress that is larger and more comfortable than my actual (bunk) bed, and three dogs.
The weekend before that was Jersey pool party weekend... Now this weekend was... uhhh... let's just say it involved Williamsburg, Zombie Hut, an insane hunt for pommes frites, and dozing off in our deck's new pool at 4 AM. And by pool, I mean "We now have a plastic kiddie pool on our porch that we fill from the sink." Looking at that plus the 6 and a half foot plastic mannequin standing vigilant over it, my roommmate muttered something to the effect of "We are such hipster trash." Heh.
May 10, 2010
As soon as it was over...
it begins again!
Except this time, I'm chasing the specialty that I want... ah, the beginning of fourth year. It seems like not too long ago (Friday), I was a lowly third year, new in the ways of the world before a new day dawned (Saturday) and all the wisdom of the profession was passed down to me.
Or something. Plus I went to Fat Cat so that Lori and I had a contest over who could suck more at pool. Then my boyfriend stepped up and was gracious enough to not destroy me immediately.
Whenever I feel like I don't know enough in medicine and I'm not studying enough and I'm dumb and stupid and I'll never be a real doctor, I need to play pool, because holy crap, I can cram decent knowledge into my brain when I have to, but I have the hand-eye coordination of a brain damaged rhesus monkey. Another good reason not to go into surgery. My real life scratch on the eight ball could have me jamming a kelly clamp into someone's hypothalamus, and I'm told the hospital's insurance company frowns on that.
But I started my pathology rotation at a new hospital! The path part was cool, but I'm discovering a few things... I'd say that being at a new hospital is like being the new kid in school, except it's more like being the new kid in school if you started in the middle of summer vacation. The crop of third year clinicals don't start at that hospital for another one or two weeks and most of my now fourth year colleagues were smart enough to give themselves a break now, so I was virtually the only medical student wandering around this giant hospital, and the only one in my rotation.
I'm also discovering that while I love love love looking at slides while attendings teach me (!!!), I need some damn Bonine or something because I was getting seasick. I actually had to close my eyes a few times while we were reviewing pap smear slides because I had that icky feeling I got when I went up the windy road to Fish Friday. Is there any way to man up your middle ear? That's pathetic.
The attendings are really nice so far, and they already know that I'm almost certain I want to go into their profession. This lays on the extra pressure of my being the only student *and* I don't have the "I don't need to know this" excuse, because even if it is too high tech for the boards, I'm going to need it in the long run.
I'm already mourning the loss of our free meal passes at my old hospital too. I was bone dead tired this morning so ran down to the cafeteria to pay for my coffee... later pay for my lunch... the horror! After nearly a year of running to the grocery store virtually never, the first thing I did on my way home was stop and get portable lunches. Momma needs rent money, and that is not going to go to paying 8 dollars a day for crappy hospital food.
Except this time, I'm chasing the specialty that I want... ah, the beginning of fourth year. It seems like not too long ago (Friday), I was a lowly third year, new in the ways of the world before a new day dawned (Saturday) and all the wisdom of the profession was passed down to me.
Or something. Plus I went to Fat Cat so that Lori and I had a contest over who could suck more at pool. Then my boyfriend stepped up and was gracious enough to not destroy me immediately.
Whenever I feel like I don't know enough in medicine and I'm not studying enough and I'm dumb and stupid and I'll never be a real doctor, I need to play pool, because holy crap, I can cram decent knowledge into my brain when I have to, but I have the hand-eye coordination of a brain damaged rhesus monkey. Another good reason not to go into surgery. My real life scratch on the eight ball could have me jamming a kelly clamp into someone's hypothalamus, and I'm told the hospital's insurance company frowns on that.
But I started my pathology rotation at a new hospital! The path part was cool, but I'm discovering a few things... I'd say that being at a new hospital is like being the new kid in school, except it's more like being the new kid in school if you started in the middle of summer vacation. The crop of third year clinicals don't start at that hospital for another one or two weeks and most of my now fourth year colleagues were smart enough to give themselves a break now, so I was virtually the only medical student wandering around this giant hospital, and the only one in my rotation.
I'm also discovering that while I love love love looking at slides while attendings teach me (!!!), I need some damn Bonine or something because I was getting seasick. I actually had to close my eyes a few times while we were reviewing pap smear slides because I had that icky feeling I got when I went up the windy road to Fish Friday. Is there any way to man up your middle ear? That's pathetic.
The attendings are really nice so far, and they already know that I'm almost certain I want to go into their profession. This lays on the extra pressure of my being the only student *and* I don't have the "I don't need to know this" excuse, because even if it is too high tech for the boards, I'm going to need it in the long run.
I'm already mourning the loss of our free meal passes at my old hospital too. I was bone dead tired this morning so ran down to the cafeteria to pay for my coffee... later pay for my lunch... the horror! After nearly a year of running to the grocery store virtually never, the first thing I did on my way home was stop and get portable lunches. Momma needs rent money, and that is not going to go to paying 8 dollars a day for crappy hospital food.
May 8, 2010
Holy crap; I'm a fourth year
AIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE
Seriously, wow... when I first came to Grenada, I was staring at second termers in awe because they were... wait for it, almost a year into medical school! Now, with the completion of my surgery written exam, I'm officially done with third year. Like donezo. Like applying for a residency this year. Like going to have "MD" after my name in a year. Like... actually will be able to draw a paycheck rather than just hemorrhaging Citibank's money in the hopes they'll never cut me off.
I'm not sure if I'm going to feel more ready to be a doctor in a year. I think I expected some sort of transition through medical school where I felt like a doctor at the end of it, or near the end of it, but instead it's just sort of an insidious thing that creeps in while you remain petrified that you have no real doctoring skills and feel just as inept as you did after your freshman year of high school. But I find it harder and harder to have totally un-medicine related discussions. I have a bunch of interests, but stuff creeps in... there's analogies... "man, this song is so bad, I'd rather hold retraction for a whipple on a 450 lb patient than listen to it again"... ya know, normal stuff.
I also have moments of "Hey the training paid off clarity" when I'm in clinic and a patient begins to describe a symptom, and I can rattle off all the other symptoms they're about to say in my head because I know what they have. Then some friend or family asks me some extremely simple question (So why do you get that stitch in your side when you run?) and I just look at them blankly and wonder where all my money (by which I mean Citibank's) is going.
Bahhhhh but no more surgery! No more third year! Conceivably I don't have to be on call again unless I schedule a rotation that requires on call time. I'm "studying for CS" and "taking a month off for interviews" and the rest of the fourth year lexicon. I'm pass/fail for the next year. Weird. I'll be the highest level of short white coat in the hospital, which still has me outranked by... everyone except the third years.
Naturally, this even required celebration, meaning that pretty much immediately after the exam, we migrated en masse to a student's rooftop to do what carless medical students do when they celebrate... To give you some idea of the day I've had, we got out of the exam around 11 AM and I just got home, albeit the last hour was largely influenced by the F train's insistence on sucking. Three trains and a shuttle later, that I wound up getting off in... let's just say a part of town where I didn't feel snuggly and warm standing by myself on a corner in a bright red dress, so I caved and took a taxi. The horror.
Oh, which reminds me of my latest pet peeve. Everyone has GPS. I even have a GPS and I don't have a car. WHY have the last 12 taxis I've gotten into (and having me get into a taxi is relatively rare) asked me how to get to my location? And it doesn't matter where. "Brooklyn Bridge please." "Oh, how do you get there?" "Um... drive downhill until you hit water; I don't frigging know." To me the city is a series of completely disconnected epicenters around subway stops. I have no idea how to logically connect them, and certainly not within the framework of legal traffic patterns. And every minute you sit in a cab (like frantically pulling up the directions on your phone), you're paying. I'm also not a fan of the phenomenon of getting a cab in Brooklyn and having them waffle, refuse to take you, or try to charge more if you're going to another place in Brooklyn. Manhattan is amply served by subways. Areas of Brooklyn, less so. Just drive me to my destination and shut up. I'm not paying you forty dollars to take me to Manhattan slower than the subway takes to get there. Except the F train.
Monday I start my official pathology rotation (rather than the unofficial one I was making out of surgery), and I'm excited. My first rotation of fourth year! Celebration will continue through the weekend, so long as mother nature doesn't conspire to ruin it.
Apr 21, 2010
It's drawing near...
The end of surgery! (and third year)
Surgery's kind of a mixed bag in that we have a pretty slack rotation as far as surgery rotations go, but apparently an even *more* slackass group, so we keep getting in massive amounts of trouble with no conceivable way to end it since as the slackers keep slacking, eventually everyone sort of gets a "f- it; why am I doing the scutwork of two people when you're at home doing nothing" sort of attitude which compounds the slacking which compounds the trouble.
I feel the students' guide to slacking is to not slack in ways that screw over other students or sticks them with excessive amounts of work in your absence. Otherwise, slack at your own risk. If not, the whole group dynamic changes and people get angry, bitter, and defensive. I feel a lot of this is also a function of simply having too many students on this rotation. The statistical likelihood of shameless slackery goes up simply with the number of people, plus since there is an overflow of students that lessens the workload, it creates an impression that you can do *nothing* and others will pick up the slack. This is partially true, but creates a tremendous amount of resentment.
If you are going to slack, the worst way to do it is the slack-and-schmooze. This is a brilliant technique wherein your colleagues are left with thankless scutwork while you flash the glistening smile at the attendings of someone that's racked up an adequate amount of sleep. To be fair, this technique seems to frequently pay off gradewise (leading to a similar phenomenon observed in residents), but your classmates will want to kill you even more than if you were the simple shameless slacker that could not be less interested in ________ rotation, and has no problem showing it. Be advised.
Lest anyone get the idea that I'm claiming to be a good little worker bee when half this blog has been dedicated to my various non-medicine related exploits, I'm not. I tend to refer to myself as a lazy buttmunch with frequency, but moderation people; jesus.
Anyway, so that's that bit. Otherwise, surgery's mixed on its own because as a lazy buttmunch, I detest long hours, and in particular, early mornings, which surgery has in abundance. I'm also fidgety and get hot easily, both of which are not fantastic qualities when you're scrubbed into surgery leaning over a heated air cushion and not allowed to touch your face. On the other hand, you get to do what I generally associate with "medicine" such as "Hear patient's complaint. Use prohibitively expensive education (or Wikipedia) to diagnose complaint. Remove complaint. Hope removal of complaint doesn't lead to minor complications such as wound site irritation or massive blood loss. Discharge happier patient sans complaint. Make bed of money and roll around in it."
Okay, not that last part. For anyone reading this that thinks becoming an MD is an efficient, effective way to make money, that is the same logic as deciding to get a piece of cake by working your way up at Duncan Hines starting as a janitor and eventually buying stock in the company fifteen years later so you can sell it to buy cake.
I'm also finding kind of a mixed bag on the whole surgeon personality thing, which I was initially warned about and expected to be far worse than it was. I've found surgery people more prone to tantrums than your average other-doc and during conference, they're absolutely brutal to each other, but they also seem to possess far less soul-crushing existential angst than other branches of medicine indicating a certain level of happiness. On an individual basis too, I've found most of them to be fairly friendly and nice to students (with a few rather drastic exceptions). So that's cool. Procedures are also interesting. I'm also learning a surprising amount of real medicine because diagnosis is key when screwing up leads to the definitive "uh oh" moment of opening the wrong thing. So they aren't the mindless scalpel jockeys of legend either.
Surgery possesses some amazing gadgetry too, even at county hospital level, which I assume is largely around based on surgeon-tantrums so maybe they have a purpose. For every engineering inconvenience in the human body, there is a tool that's made to deal with it. Wanna remove a section of cancerous bowel and snap the healthy ends back together in such a way that gets you out in time for lunch AND keeps the patient from having to carry their waste in a bag for the rest of their life? There's an app for that. Wanna see where that obstruction is without having to saw through that large important artery? No problemo. So far the only drawback other than the huge cost of manufacturing the most specific articles on the planet (this tool is made to see around gallbladders!) is that then you have to learn the names of all of it. Or if you're a med student, the suture scissors, since that's generally what your tool is. And we take it seriously too.
I'm on ENT now, which is particularly nice, and am almost comfortable enough with the staff to ask them to clean my ears, since after a few patients and the standard procedures of doing a standard ear exam on people without significant symptoms, going "hmm", and still pulling out giant disgusting gobs of crap, I'm paranoid. Though I suspect the root of my gradual hearing loss is far more likely embedded in the fact that I'm in physical and emotional connection with my ipod every second that I'm not at the hospital or asleep, as it protects me from having to talk to people on the subway.
ENT is also proving more interesting than I expected. Lots of allergies and sinus infections naturally, but also some crazy frigging tumors.
Still, pathology calls. There was some downtime in SICU last week that coincided with helping out in the gross lab and an autopsy so I got to make productive use of the time and got to practice some suturing where I can't do damage, which enhances my confidence greatly. When I wasn't fixing the computer.
Lemme just take this opportunity to again rail at frigging virus makers, since the SICU computer got hit with an almost exact variant of the virus I had, which is the only reason I knew half where to start with it having dedicated an entire Saturday to it previously (thanks, jackasses!). So not only are they stealing your credit card information, they're also trying to hinder medical care to your loved ones. Please remember that the next time you happen to catch yourself in a dark alley with one of them.
Speaking of peaceful hippie love, I went to Woodstock and the nearby lighthouse this past weekend so I could give my mom an urban escape for her birthday. I would highly recommend that for anyone who needs a break. What I would not recommend is what I did last year, which is using Woodstock as a staging ground to get lost in the Catskills at night, but I managed to refrain from doing so this time around.
Bedtime. Tonsillectomy in the morning, so I can finally see what was done to me as a child...
Surgery's kind of a mixed bag in that we have a pretty slack rotation as far as surgery rotations go, but apparently an even *more* slackass group, so we keep getting in massive amounts of trouble with no conceivable way to end it since as the slackers keep slacking, eventually everyone sort of gets a "f- it; why am I doing the scutwork of two people when you're at home doing nothing" sort of attitude which compounds the slacking which compounds the trouble.
I feel the students' guide to slacking is to not slack in ways that screw over other students or sticks them with excessive amounts of work in your absence. Otherwise, slack at your own risk. If not, the whole group dynamic changes and people get angry, bitter, and defensive. I feel a lot of this is also a function of simply having too many students on this rotation. The statistical likelihood of shameless slackery goes up simply with the number of people, plus since there is an overflow of students that lessens the workload, it creates an impression that you can do *nothing* and others will pick up the slack. This is partially true, but creates a tremendous amount of resentment.
If you are going to slack, the worst way to do it is the slack-and-schmooze. This is a brilliant technique wherein your colleagues are left with thankless scutwork while you flash the glistening smile at the attendings of someone that's racked up an adequate amount of sleep. To be fair, this technique seems to frequently pay off gradewise (leading to a similar phenomenon observed in residents), but your classmates will want to kill you even more than if you were the simple shameless slacker that could not be less interested in ________ rotation, and has no problem showing it. Be advised.
Lest anyone get the idea that I'm claiming to be a good little worker bee when half this blog has been dedicated to my various non-medicine related exploits, I'm not. I tend to refer to myself as a lazy buttmunch with frequency, but moderation people; jesus.
Anyway, so that's that bit. Otherwise, surgery's mixed on its own because as a lazy buttmunch, I detest long hours, and in particular, early mornings, which surgery has in abundance. I'm also fidgety and get hot easily, both of which are not fantastic qualities when you're scrubbed into surgery leaning over a heated air cushion and not allowed to touch your face. On the other hand, you get to do what I generally associate with "medicine" such as "Hear patient's complaint. Use prohibitively expensive education (or Wikipedia) to diagnose complaint. Remove complaint. Hope removal of complaint doesn't lead to minor complications such as wound site irritation or massive blood loss. Discharge happier patient sans complaint. Make bed of money and roll around in it."
Okay, not that last part. For anyone reading this that thinks becoming an MD is an efficient, effective way to make money, that is the same logic as deciding to get a piece of cake by working your way up at Duncan Hines starting as a janitor and eventually buying stock in the company fifteen years later so you can sell it to buy cake.
I'm also finding kind of a mixed bag on the whole surgeon personality thing, which I was initially warned about and expected to be far worse than it was. I've found surgery people more prone to tantrums than your average other-doc and during conference, they're absolutely brutal to each other, but they also seem to possess far less soul-crushing existential angst than other branches of medicine indicating a certain level of happiness. On an individual basis too, I've found most of them to be fairly friendly and nice to students (with a few rather drastic exceptions). So that's cool. Procedures are also interesting. I'm also learning a surprising amount of real medicine because diagnosis is key when screwing up leads to the definitive "uh oh" moment of opening the wrong thing. So they aren't the mindless scalpel jockeys of legend either.
Surgery possesses some amazing gadgetry too, even at county hospital level, which I assume is largely around based on surgeon-tantrums so maybe they have a purpose. For every engineering inconvenience in the human body, there is a tool that's made to deal with it. Wanna remove a section of cancerous bowel and snap the healthy ends back together in such a way that gets you out in time for lunch AND keeps the patient from having to carry their waste in a bag for the rest of their life? There's an app for that. Wanna see where that obstruction is without having to saw through that large important artery? No problemo. So far the only drawback other than the huge cost of manufacturing the most specific articles on the planet (this tool is made to see around gallbladders!) is that then you have to learn the names of all of it. Or if you're a med student, the suture scissors, since that's generally what your tool is. And we take it seriously too.
I'm on ENT now, which is particularly nice, and am almost comfortable enough with the staff to ask them to clean my ears, since after a few patients and the standard procedures of doing a standard ear exam on people without significant symptoms, going "hmm", and still pulling out giant disgusting gobs of crap, I'm paranoid. Though I suspect the root of my gradual hearing loss is far more likely embedded in the fact that I'm in physical and emotional connection with my ipod every second that I'm not at the hospital or asleep, as it protects me from having to talk to people on the subway.
ENT is also proving more interesting than I expected. Lots of allergies and sinus infections naturally, but also some crazy frigging tumors.
Still, pathology calls. There was some downtime in SICU last week that coincided with helping out in the gross lab and an autopsy so I got to make productive use of the time and got to practice some suturing where I can't do damage, which enhances my confidence greatly. When I wasn't fixing the computer.
Lemme just take this opportunity to again rail at frigging virus makers, since the SICU computer got hit with an almost exact variant of the virus I had, which is the only reason I knew half where to start with it having dedicated an entire Saturday to it previously (thanks, jackasses!). So not only are they stealing your credit card information, they're also trying to hinder medical care to your loved ones. Please remember that the next time you happen to catch yourself in a dark alley with one of them.
Speaking of peaceful hippie love, I went to Woodstock and the nearby lighthouse this past weekend so I could give my mom an urban escape for her birthday. I would highly recommend that for anyone who needs a break. What I would not recommend is what I did last year, which is using Woodstock as a staging ground to get lost in the Catskills at night, but I managed to refrain from doing so this time around.
Bedtime. Tonsillectomy in the morning, so I can finally see what was done to me as a child...
Apr 8, 2010
Anesthesia is sweet...
Though I suck at pulmonary physiology and pharmacology, so I think I'll keep on towards path. Plus path makes me really gloriously happy, which causes me (and others) to doubt my sanity.
So in surgery, we have several weeks of 6 AM rising and cranky residents interrupted by anesthesia, which seems to be a specialty that was licked into existence by unicorns. They leave early; they're chill (getting to sleep does that to you) and given the long periods where there is virtually nothing to do, they enjoy talking and teaching, and periodically, dismissing med students to take long lunches mid surgery, because hey, what the hell.
We still tend to have late lectures, which has often left me several hours at the hospital, forced to do something productive like (gasp) study for Step 2. I actually have a date for the CS, which I decided to take in Houston so I could finally see my family again, to whom I've been a distant memory since before I left for Grenada. I'm also studying for the CK, whose date is "sometime in August", doing the delicate balance between giving myself time off to study and rock boards while being well aware through the entire time that our loan distribution is contingent on our actual enrollment in rotations, so eek. Studying or working, I still need rent, people!
But I'm being oddly productive lately because I've started to run out of creative ways to procrastinate. I'm trying to save money by not... oh, going out to bars and overpaying for drinks, but I still like to get out of the house, so I'm running a ton, including a 6.7 mile double loop through Prospect Park today. So my days are largely consumed by working, studying, and exercising. I'm so ashamed.
It's also gotten hot recently, rather abruptly, so we went from snow on the ground to "Holy crap, it's time for me to buy an air conditioner" weather, which is actually really fantastic. I hit the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens last weekend where everything is threatening to bloom, the cherry trees are all opening up and I feel a strange emotion that was probably, oh, licked on by unicorns. I also got Easter off at the last minute when I was *supposed* to be working a 24 hour call by myself, so I'm feeling pretty good. Except my last run is leaving me acutely aware of what "lactic acidosis" feels like.
In other school news, through anesthesia, I finally got in on my first fresh frozen specimen. This and autopsies are really the only thing most pathologists are on "call" for. Essentially, you're in a surgery and you need the results on something to decide how to proceed. In this case, it was lymph node. The pathologist flash freezes it, shaves off pieces in something that looks remarkably like a miniature deli slicer, throws it through the H&E stain, and in minutes, determines whether it's malignant or not. This determines whether the surgeon will close up the patient or perform a multi-hour axillary dissection. While they were dissecting out, I was doing mature things like shifting from foot to foot excitedly and going "When they take it out, do you mind if I follow it to the lab? Pathologists are also a cool lot who seem unused to students giving half a crap about what they do, so ours readily explained it to me while moving at the speed of sound. And I got to run the papers back to the room with the results. I resisted kicking the door open like Batman and shouting "CLOSE HER UP, DOC! IT'S BENIGN!" but only just.
Also, I'm such a dork that finally seeing the H&E staining process was like meeting a rock star. "Oh my gosh... I've heard about you since histology... I love your work in the gallbladder. I never thought I'd actually see you in person. Can I have your autograph?"
Yeah, so I think it's official. It's even so official that I've stopped giving the flip-flop craven med school response of "Oh, I'm keeping my options open, but I really like surgery" and just blurt out "I like pathology". This usually invites a sort of "Um... oh. Well, someone needs to do it!" response, or the haters, who just think I want sweet hours so I can occupy my time making babies, or something. The rest just go with the general assumption that I wasn't hugged enough as a child.
So in surgery, we have several weeks of 6 AM rising and cranky residents interrupted by anesthesia, which seems to be a specialty that was licked into existence by unicorns. They leave early; they're chill (getting to sleep does that to you) and given the long periods where there is virtually nothing to do, they enjoy talking and teaching, and periodically, dismissing med students to take long lunches mid surgery, because hey, what the hell.
We still tend to have late lectures, which has often left me several hours at the hospital, forced to do something productive like (gasp) study for Step 2. I actually have a date for the CS, which I decided to take in Houston so I could finally see my family again, to whom I've been a distant memory since before I left for Grenada. I'm also studying for the CK, whose date is "sometime in August", doing the delicate balance between giving myself time off to study and rock boards while being well aware through the entire time that our loan distribution is contingent on our actual enrollment in rotations, so eek. Studying or working, I still need rent, people!
But I'm being oddly productive lately because I've started to run out of creative ways to procrastinate. I'm trying to save money by not... oh, going out to bars and overpaying for drinks, but I still like to get out of the house, so I'm running a ton, including a 6.7 mile double loop through Prospect Park today. So my days are largely consumed by working, studying, and exercising. I'm so ashamed.
It's also gotten hot recently, rather abruptly, so we went from snow on the ground to "Holy crap, it's time for me to buy an air conditioner" weather, which is actually really fantastic. I hit the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens last weekend where everything is threatening to bloom, the cherry trees are all opening up and I feel a strange emotion that was probably, oh, licked on by unicorns. I also got Easter off at the last minute when I was *supposed* to be working a 24 hour call by myself, so I'm feeling pretty good. Except my last run is leaving me acutely aware of what "lactic acidosis" feels like.
In other school news, through anesthesia, I finally got in on my first fresh frozen specimen. This and autopsies are really the only thing most pathologists are on "call" for. Essentially, you're in a surgery and you need the results on something to decide how to proceed. In this case, it was lymph node. The pathologist flash freezes it, shaves off pieces in something that looks remarkably like a miniature deli slicer, throws it through the H&E stain, and in minutes, determines whether it's malignant or not. This determines whether the surgeon will close up the patient or perform a multi-hour axillary dissection. While they were dissecting out, I was doing mature things like shifting from foot to foot excitedly and going "When they take it out, do you mind if I follow it to the lab? Pathologists are also a cool lot who seem unused to students giving half a crap about what they do, so ours readily explained it to me while moving at the speed of sound. And I got to run the papers back to the room with the results. I resisted kicking the door open like Batman and shouting "CLOSE HER UP, DOC! IT'S BENIGN!" but only just.
Also, I'm such a dork that finally seeing the H&E staining process was like meeting a rock star. "Oh my gosh... I've heard about you since histology... I love your work in the gallbladder. I never thought I'd actually see you in person. Can I have your autograph?"
Yeah, so I think it's official. It's even so official that I've stopped giving the flip-flop craven med school response of "Oh, I'm keeping my options open, but I really like surgery" and just blurt out "I like pathology". This usually invites a sort of "Um... oh. Well, someone needs to do it!" response, or the haters, who just think I want sweet hours so I can occupy my time making babies, or something. The rest just go with the general assumption that I wasn't hugged enough as a child.
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