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."

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.