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?
May 22, 2011
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 24, 2011
Nomadic drawbacks
I am a nomad, and have been since I was a child, which is why when people ask where in California I'm from, I say "the North", and they think I'm being coy. I try to be more specific with "somewhat orbiting the Bay Area", and they think I'm nuts. Then I say I went to high school in the South, and suddenly, I'm "from the South". It's very difficult to explain to people that grew up in one to two locations, and then have a family home and a place to go, what it's like to kind of be from nowhere except a vague region.
Ultimately though, I sing the praises of being nomadic, and forwarded it to program directors when they were asking me why I suddenly wanted to move from NYC (my "town" of about two years, which is my average staying time) to their town. More often, they assumed I was going "back" to California, which is a safe enough I assumption, since I do love my home state, excepting that I have no family there so other than nostalgia, it doesn't really offer me any reason I'd choose one residency there over one at Other-Desirable-Location.
I've also 'lived' in a lot of places for somewhere between one and three months, which leads to the question "What is your definition of residence?" I had a flat in Prague for a month for a medical selective. Did I "live" there? My mom's a traveler, and the one I stay with when I'm between residences, but she's rarely in the same place for a long time, so if she doesn't "live" there, do I "live" there? It's confusing.
I bring this up because I'm filling out what is known among scientific communities as a metric s*** ton of paperwork. Among this are applications for my state medical license, a background check, medical paperwork, tax forms, and so forth. List residences for the last seven years? Gods. Where do I start? My dad's address is frequently listed as my permanent address, but I don't live there... My roommate's name is on the lease and mine isn't. I lived in a country for two years that doesn't so much have addresses as locations, so some poor investigator is going to have to try and figure out how to pull up paperwork for "In the Cool Runnings apartment building on the Dusty Highway". When I told people to send stuff there, they got upset and thought I was kidding. When I wasn't in Grenada, I was in and out of different states (or countries) for anywhere from two weeks to three months.
And it continues. I don't have an address for new town yet. I'm moving out of this apartment next week and crashing at my mom's place in Brooklyn until it's time to move... this results in my initial paperwork being sent to this address, my future licensing paperwork being sent to her address, and my tax forms being listed under my dad's address because that'll be more relevant after I start residency, and as mentioned, don't know where I'm living.
If all of this certification, licensing, tax paperwork goes through without a hitch, I'll eat an okra and canned tuna sandwich. If all that doesn't gum the gears, I'm sure Old Reliable, aka, my wonky last name, will seal the "you have to resend this with ___________" deal.
Ultimately though, I sing the praises of being nomadic, and forwarded it to program directors when they were asking me why I suddenly wanted to move from NYC (my "town" of about two years, which is my average staying time) to their town. More often, they assumed I was going "back" to California, which is a safe enough I assumption, since I do love my home state, excepting that I have no family there so other than nostalgia, it doesn't really offer me any reason I'd choose one residency there over one at Other-Desirable-Location.
I've also 'lived' in a lot of places for somewhere between one and three months, which leads to the question "What is your definition of residence?" I had a flat in Prague for a month for a medical selective. Did I "live" there? My mom's a traveler, and the one I stay with when I'm between residences, but she's rarely in the same place for a long time, so if she doesn't "live" there, do I "live" there? It's confusing.
I bring this up because I'm filling out what is known among scientific communities as a metric s*** ton of paperwork. Among this are applications for my state medical license, a background check, medical paperwork, tax forms, and so forth. List residences for the last seven years? Gods. Where do I start? My dad's address is frequently listed as my permanent address, but I don't live there... My roommate's name is on the lease and mine isn't. I lived in a country for two years that doesn't so much have addresses as locations, so some poor investigator is going to have to try and figure out how to pull up paperwork for "In the Cool Runnings apartment building on the Dusty Highway". When I told people to send stuff there, they got upset and thought I was kidding. When I wasn't in Grenada, I was in and out of different states (or countries) for anywhere from two weeks to three months.
And it continues. I don't have an address for new town yet. I'm moving out of this apartment next week and crashing at my mom's place in Brooklyn until it's time to move... this results in my initial paperwork being sent to this address, my future licensing paperwork being sent to her address, and my tax forms being listed under my dad's address because that'll be more relevant after I start residency, and as mentioned, don't know where I'm living.
If all of this certification, licensing, tax paperwork goes through without a hitch, I'll eat an okra and canned tuna sandwich. If all that doesn't gum the gears, I'm sure Old Reliable, aka, my wonky last name, will seal the "you have to resend this with ___________" deal.
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 8, 2011
And this time, it's for real-for real
So, I'm a real M.D. now.
I'm getting excitement-overloaded, if such a thing exists. Black Monday, woot, Match Day, woot, last day of clinicals, woot, file closed out, woot, diploma date, woot. It's like if Mardi Gras were once a week. Going from "Congratulations!!" to "Congratulations? Right? Are you a doctor yet? No? Good god, how much paperwork can there be?"
April 8th? Diploma date. Which is good, because between March 25th (last day of clinicals) and now, I really didn't know what to call myself. Was I a student? Not really; I wasn't in school. Was I a doctor? Not really. Hadn't reached my graduation date. The graduation *walk* is in June, so that'll be another woot (though I'll get a few months rest in between), but that's so I can see if the third time's the charm for not tripping over a too-long gown in heels.
This may mean that over the course of the next few months, I may... possibly, be able to start talking about things other than school, the Match, patients, and so forth. It's like a whole new social realm has opened up to me. I can talk about... Futurama again, if the bastard ever shows a new frigging episode. Seriously, seen A Clockwork Origin like five times. I need a fix.
Then residency will start, and I'll be able to bore people in an even more specialized niche. Learning medicine with goats on your lawn could at least be conceivably interesting to people not doing it. Classifying seminomas? Oh, get ready friends and family... Come July, I'm going to take you to EPIC boredom. We're talking longing for filibuster boredom. Last half hour of 2001: A Space Odyssey boredom. Yes, I went there.
Seeing as that last remark probably pissed off a good half of you, I figured this would be a good time to beg for help again. Anyone know any tried and true method of purging a particularly insidious Google redirect virus without using Combofix? The program won't run because there's some lurking AVG file haunting my computer despite my disabling it and then uninstalling the full app. TDSS Killer isn't touching it, Malwarebytes keeps helping me with the stuff it tries to download onto my computer when I space out and click a google link (I can remove Windows Security with my eyes closed by this point), but the redirect remains. And I didn't realize HOW MUCH I google random crap until I can't click on it anymore. I'm not above mucking with the registry. Just call me the latchHKey kid.
And users of better computers, have at me for not having a Macbook. I will keep my infection-ridden Dell computer duct taped together until July if it kills me. Which it may. Didn't some of these bad boys catch on fire?
I'm getting excitement-overloaded, if such a thing exists. Black Monday, woot, Match Day, woot, last day of clinicals, woot, file closed out, woot, diploma date, woot. It's like if Mardi Gras were once a week. Going from "Congratulations!!" to "Congratulations? Right? Are you a doctor yet? No? Good god, how much paperwork can there be?"
April 8th? Diploma date. Which is good, because between March 25th (last day of clinicals) and now, I really didn't know what to call myself. Was I a student? Not really; I wasn't in school. Was I a doctor? Not really. Hadn't reached my graduation date. The graduation *walk* is in June, so that'll be another woot (though I'll get a few months rest in between), but that's so I can see if the third time's the charm for not tripping over a too-long gown in heels.
This may mean that over the course of the next few months, I may... possibly, be able to start talking about things other than school, the Match, patients, and so forth. It's like a whole new social realm has opened up to me. I can talk about... Futurama again, if the bastard ever shows a new frigging episode. Seriously, seen A Clockwork Origin like five times. I need a fix.
Then residency will start, and I'll be able to bore people in an even more specialized niche. Learning medicine with goats on your lawn could at least be conceivably interesting to people not doing it. Classifying seminomas? Oh, get ready friends and family... Come July, I'm going to take you to EPIC boredom. We're talking longing for filibuster boredom. Last half hour of 2001: A Space Odyssey boredom. Yes, I went there.
Seeing as that last remark probably pissed off a good half of you, I figured this would be a good time to beg for help again. Anyone know any tried and true method of purging a particularly insidious Google redirect virus without using Combofix? The program won't run because there's some lurking AVG file haunting my computer despite my disabling it and then uninstalling the full app. TDSS Killer isn't touching it, Malwarebytes keeps helping me with the stuff it tries to download onto my computer when I space out and click a google link (I can remove Windows Security with my eyes closed by this point), but the redirect remains. And I didn't realize HOW MUCH I google random crap until I can't click on it anymore. I'm not above mucking with the registry. Just call me the latchHKey kid.
And users of better computers, have at me for not having a Macbook. I will keep my infection-ridden Dell computer duct taped together until July if it kills me. Which it may. Didn't some of these bad boys catch on fire?
Apr 6, 2011
Sigh...
This turned into rain cancellation.
Plus side, I have tickets to some future Yankees game, and I got to see the stadium, which was pretty cool. They were selling Cracker Jacks in the stand and everything. And who can turn down $11 Miller Lite? Don't answer the last one.
They played a ton of rain related music, which is good, because it turns out I like a lot of songs about rain. The Rain Song, by Led Zeppelin, No Rain, and a bunch of others whose names I don't remember right now.
So wah, first Yankees game a wash, but I'm going to get to one before I leave NYC. It's on the bucket list. Since I'm venturing into the Bronx now, I'm probably also going to try to squeeze in a trip to the zoo sometime now that they found the cobra.
Rock Fever Revenge
Maybe it's the disgusting weather, but I've been really getting sappily nolstalgic for Grenada this last couple of weeks. Maybe it's also because people are leaving the area, so it reminds me a lot of those last weeks of Grenada.
And I really did have fun my last year. That encompassed my Prague trip, late night swim trips to Grand Anse beach, wrestling in Morne Rouge. I've been going through my pictures and getting all smiley and such. Then I feel like I've really been lucky as a person to get to do all this stuff and come out of it, and then I feel a touch of guilt for being such a whiny little prat so much.
Stay tuned for whiny prathood! Next week!
In the interim, here's some pictures that made me feel all sweet and fluffy. I'll probably post more occasionally now that I actually have time to sort, and to make up for the fact that I haven't been posting pictures in forever. So Grenada...
And here's a little taste of Prague... This was the view down the street from the place we met for conferences and to meet up to go to the hospital.
If I could give some Monday morning quarterbacking to the people in the midst of this... I spent a lot of time miserable. Not all of it, by any remote bit, but too much. I focused on how much this that or the other thing was screwing me (as noted on my blog), how hot it was, how nasty the men could be, interrupted by childish bickering with people.
If you're on the island, take a deep breath every now and again and just look at it. Think about where you are and how few people get to do what you're doing.
Then go back to remembering how much you loathe learning cancer treatment drugs. (I'm realistic in my nostalgia). Enjoy!
And I really did have fun my last year. That encompassed my Prague trip, late night swim trips to Grand Anse beach, wrestling in Morne Rouge. I've been going through my pictures and getting all smiley and such. Then I feel like I've really been lucky as a person to get to do all this stuff and come out of it, and then I feel a touch of guilt for being such a whiny little prat so much.
Stay tuned for whiny prathood! Next week!
In the interim, here's some pictures that made me feel all sweet and fluffy. I'll probably post more occasionally now that I actually have time to sort, and to make up for the fact that I haven't been posting pictures in forever. So Grenada...
And here's a little taste of Prague... This was the view down the street from the place we met for conferences and to meet up to go to the hospital.
If I could give some Monday morning quarterbacking to the people in the midst of this... I spent a lot of time miserable. Not all of it, by any remote bit, but too much. I focused on how much this that or the other thing was screwing me (as noted on my blog), how hot it was, how nasty the men could be, interrupted by childish bickering with people.
If you're on the island, take a deep breath every now and again and just look at it. Think about where you are and how few people get to do what you're doing.
Then go back to remembering how much you loathe learning cancer treatment drugs. (I'm realistic in my nostalgia). Enjoy!
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 31, 2011
Capitalism marches on...
After some end of school celebration (and what may be a case of pink eye), I decided one of my first acts as a doctor should be to attach something mercenary to my blog with the sole interest of getting money in the bank. If anyone wants me after this, I'll be overcharging Medicaid for unnecessary tests and double billing the whole thing. Bwa ha ha ha!!!!!
But for now, I'm keeping it to the google ads, which incidentally, if you click on them, I get money. If you do not click on them, the money is given to a fund dedicated to sucker-punching blinded war orphans. I know, I thought it was extreme too.
So that's my little plea to you fine people. Feel free to ignore it as readily as I ignore the little punks at Atlantic terminal that want 20 bucks from me for their "team uniforms".
In other news, I'm... working, speaking of capitalism. Friday, I'll be hanging, and Saturday, I'll be helping with and attending my very first baby shower. And no, it isn't for me. Any suggestions from you seasoned partyplanners? I'm told these things don't usually involve three crates of homebrewed beer and male strippers, so my hands are just completely tied here.
But for now, I'm keeping it to the google ads, which incidentally, if you click on them, I get money. If you do not click on them, the money is given to a fund dedicated to sucker-punching blinded war orphans. I know, I thought it was extreme too.
So that's my little plea to you fine people. Feel free to ignore it as readily as I ignore the little punks at Atlantic terminal that want 20 bucks from me for their "team uniforms".
In other news, I'm... working, speaking of capitalism. Friday, I'll be hanging, and Saturday, I'll be helping with and attending my very first baby shower. And no, it isn't for me. Any suggestions from you seasoned partyplanners? I'm told these things don't usually involve three crates of homebrewed beer and male strippers, so my hands are just completely tied here.
Mar 29, 2011
Shouldn't I be done with rejection?
Back when I was unsuccessfully applying to American medical schools, paper still ruled and the fact that I got an email from my home program rejecting me 6 months after I sent them my application (from the same city) was a source of puffed up ire for me.
Now, the fact that ERAS (and I imagine, AMCAS) has gotten everything into a neat package to be emailed around at whim is extremely convenient, and I do not miss paper in the slightest. That being said, the ease with which emails are sent leads to things like the the following:
-Rejection a week before the rank list was due.
-Predated invitation to a highly desirable and unlikely to interview me program sent the day after the rank list was due.
-Apology for fake emailed predated invitation.
Now...
-Interview rejection more than a week after Match Day! Slow clap, Colorado. Stay classy.
Now, the fact that ERAS (and I imagine, AMCAS) has gotten everything into a neat package to be emailed around at whim is extremely convenient, and I do not miss paper in the slightest. That being said, the ease with which emails are sent leads to things like the the following:
-Rejection a week before the rank list was due.
-Predated invitation to a highly desirable and unlikely to interview me program sent the day after the rank list was due.
-Apology for fake emailed predated invitation.
Now...
-Interview rejection more than a week after Match Day! Slow clap, Colorado. Stay classy.
Mar 25, 2011
Tomorrow!
Last day of school EVER.
I mean, all right, residency is an endless learning process and there's still tests and such, but this is the last time, unless I invest in some adult education classes down the road, that I have to pay for work. With the exception of a few lulls, I've been in school since preschool. And since I was about 13, I've wanted to end up, well... here.
If all the paperwork goes through on time, I should be a doctor-fo-life as of April 8th.
I keep thinking a truck's going to hit me or something. It can't all be over with so little... whatever after literally decades of going at it. I mean, tomorrow, I'm probably going to go in, watch my attending round, have her forget about me for an hour, so I'll watch the rest of Wall-E on my iPhone, and then I'll follow her around a bit more, ask her to fill out my form, run the last paperwork up to my clinical coordinator, take my short white coat off, stuff it back into my Urban Outfitters bag (I threw up in my Trader Joe's bag; more on that in a second) stick my headphones in my ears, and take the train home. Same as any other day. Except I never have to do it again, and then I'll move to South Carolina where the weather is warm, the rents are cheap, and the palmetto bugs are terrifying.
To hinder my celebratory airs a bit, I got quite suddenly attacked by what seems to be a rollicking case of either norovirus or adenovirus. I was out at Other-Job, which is WAY the heck down on Long Island. Great job; long commute.
Suddenly, intense nausea, like run for it nausea, and I end up the one with my face against the tiles in the bathroom, because that seems to be the best medical treatment for vomiting - bathroom tiles to the face and a friend outside the door going "you okay?".
The problem? I'm an hour an half from home. There is NO easy way to get there. It takes over an hour by car when the weather has not been yet again set to "Apocalypse", so I'm forced to make a last minute run for the only train for the next hour.
It required four years of college and four years of medical school to bring me to this conclusion but:
Running + Extreme nausea = Bad
The doors close on the train with the characteristic Boooomp Boomp! Which is precisely how much time I have before freeing the beast into my grocery bag onto my white coat.
Sigh.
I had just been planning on burning the thing, but I suppose covering it in bile and partially digested peanut butter crackers works toward the same goal.
I collapse into the big bench seats with my feet up (not allowed) and I'm starting to get a good fever on by this point, so I'm lying there shaking and periodically vomiting and just REALLY hoping that the conductor will just take my ticket and not kick me off the train into the thunder-snow-hail because he thinks I'm drunk.
The train wasn't that crowded (thank goodness) but I became truly appreciative of the polite indifference of everyone in this city... The conductor took my ticket like normal, without comment, but didn't make me sit up, pull my feet off the seat, or... stop throwing up on his train. Other passengers left me alone pretty much entirely. Benevolence by indifference. I'm for it.
It still may have been about the worst 90 minutes of my life though. I've seen commercials for reality shows that seem designed to embarrass fat people into not being fat, and there's always a clip of a 300 pounder collapsing after her 10th sit up, and a personal trainer is yelling at her, and she's just going "I can't.... I can't" and crying?
I now have more sympathy for those people because when you're still retching uncontrollably LONG after all fluids have left your body, that's how it feels. Your abs are contracting against your will and you're weeping and going "I can't!!! I can't!!! No more involuntary sit-ups!"
So that was fun. But I did manage to get home and now I'm trying to brush it off in time for my partying to begin tomorrow night. Let's see how it goes.
One more day!
I mean, all right, residency is an endless learning process and there's still tests and such, but this is the last time, unless I invest in some adult education classes down the road, that I have to pay for work. With the exception of a few lulls, I've been in school since preschool. And since I was about 13, I've wanted to end up, well... here.
If all the paperwork goes through on time, I should be a doctor-fo-life as of April 8th.
I keep thinking a truck's going to hit me or something. It can't all be over with so little... whatever after literally decades of going at it. I mean, tomorrow, I'm probably going to go in, watch my attending round, have her forget about me for an hour, so I'll watch the rest of Wall-E on my iPhone, and then I'll follow her around a bit more, ask her to fill out my form, run the last paperwork up to my clinical coordinator, take my short white coat off, stuff it back into my Urban Outfitters bag (I threw up in my Trader Joe's bag; more on that in a second) stick my headphones in my ears, and take the train home. Same as any other day. Except I never have to do it again, and then I'll move to South Carolina where the weather is warm, the rents are cheap, and the palmetto bugs are terrifying.
To hinder my celebratory airs a bit, I got quite suddenly attacked by what seems to be a rollicking case of either norovirus or adenovirus. I was out at Other-Job, which is WAY the heck down on Long Island. Great job; long commute.
Suddenly, intense nausea, like run for it nausea, and I end up the one with my face against the tiles in the bathroom, because that seems to be the best medical treatment for vomiting - bathroom tiles to the face and a friend outside the door going "you okay?".
The problem? I'm an hour an half from home. There is NO easy way to get there. It takes over an hour by car when the weather has not been yet again set to "Apocalypse", so I'm forced to make a last minute run for the only train for the next hour.
It required four years of college and four years of medical school to bring me to this conclusion but:
Running + Extreme nausea = Bad
The doors close on the train with the characteristic Boooomp Boomp! Which is precisely how much time I have before freeing the beast into my grocery bag onto my white coat.
Sigh.
I had just been planning on burning the thing, but I suppose covering it in bile and partially digested peanut butter crackers works toward the same goal.
I collapse into the big bench seats with my feet up (not allowed) and I'm starting to get a good fever on by this point, so I'm lying there shaking and periodically vomiting and just REALLY hoping that the conductor will just take my ticket and not kick me off the train into the thunder-snow-hail because he thinks I'm drunk.
The train wasn't that crowded (thank goodness) but I became truly appreciative of the polite indifference of everyone in this city... The conductor took my ticket like normal, without comment, but didn't make me sit up, pull my feet off the seat, or... stop throwing up on his train. Other passengers left me alone pretty much entirely. Benevolence by indifference. I'm for it.
It still may have been about the worst 90 minutes of my life though. I've seen commercials for reality shows that seem designed to embarrass fat people into not being fat, and there's always a clip of a 300 pounder collapsing after her 10th sit up, and a personal trainer is yelling at her, and she's just going "I can't.... I can't" and crying?
I now have more sympathy for those people because when you're still retching uncontrollably LONG after all fluids have left your body, that's how it feels. Your abs are contracting against your will and you're weeping and going "I can't!!! I can't!!! No more involuntary sit-ups!"
So that was fun. But I did manage to get home and now I'm trying to brush it off in time for my partying to begin tomorrow night. Let's see how it goes.
One more day!
Mar 17, 2011
Brief synopsis...
The timeline of all this stuff comes out through this blog if you read from the beginning, of course, but who on earth wants to do that? Thinking back on everything, and with prospective students I talk to, the entire process of becoming a doctor is frigging confusing.
In other news, after over a year of my mother's pleading, I have a new profile picture. Kagome is dead. I'm probably going to give her about a month of peace before I switch to Ed from Cowboy Bebop, because that's how I roll.
The cliff notes of what I've been doing:
-finish bachelor's of sciences in US while taking MCAT (difficult but moderately priced test)
-2 years of basic sciences in the Caribbean. A more clever blogger than I referred to this as the Bob Marley School of Medicine.
-USMLE Step 1 (giant expensive test)
-1 year of core rotations (internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, psych, OB/Gyn, etc) at a hospital in Brooklyn;
-USMLE Step 2 CS/Step 2 CK (two giant expensive tests)
-1 year of elective rotations at varying hospitals (okay, still in BK; I'm lazy)
-Graduate with Medical Degree
-Obtain ECFMG certificate (that's a bonus for us foreign kids)
FWI, you're still paying for all of this at this stage. For the last two years, you work in a hospital, but you are a paying student.
During this time, you must secure a residency for when you are out of medical school or you can be a doctor all you want, but you can't practice. A residency is additional training, for which you are paid, and this is what trains you to your specialty. Anyone graduating medical school is a doctor, but only people completing a pediatric residency are pediatricians. The process of securing a residency (since everyone's applying for them at the same time) is called the Match.
The Match:
-September through February of last academic year, choose a medicine specialty you want to practice and apply through a paid central database to programs you select.
-During this time, those programs that want to interview you grant you dates for them. You attend as many as you are able
-Mid February: submit a rank list. This is your favorite programs in order from top to bottom of your preference. How you rank stuff is up to you... location, training, prestige, hotness of fellow residents, etc. The programs are simultaneously ranking you.
-February to March: The central computers match up (get it?) applicants to programs. Programs with unfilled residency spots lose thousands of dollars for having those spots vacant. Applicants with no programs are jobless for a year while their loans go into repayment. Stakes are high. The computer uses an algorithm that tries to match the highest ranking applicant to the highest ranking program. If Pediatrics at Tulane loves Lucy and Lucy loves Tulane, and neither Tulane nor Lucy love anyone more. Match. This takes a while.
-Third Monday in March: Black Monday. The computers release whether students have successfully matched. Location is not disclosed.
-Tuesday-Thursday: Scramble: A list of the programs with unfilled positions is released to the unmatched applicants and a predictable clusterf-- of frantic emailing, faxing, and calling ensues. Applicants may have to switch specialties and explore other geographic regions to ensure a job.
-Thursday: Match Day. At noon EDT, the names of the programs are released to the people that matched there. Most American medical schools have a large ceremony to commemorate this. Some friends and I are making our own.
The name and specialty that is released on Thursday is where you are contractually obligated to go on July 1st of that year to begin residency training. The first year of residency (which used to be more of a transitional year, though now there are still transitional years and preliminary years) is what most people think of when they refer to "interns".
Usually, after your first year of residency, you take USMLE Step 3 (giant expensive test).
Near the end of your residency, you take the board exams (massive excruciatingly expensive tests) for that specialty. You also start a version of the Match all over again around then if you're applying for a fellowship, which is yet another 1-2 years of training for subspecialty fields (like pediatric cardiology).
So there we go... a probably largely unnecessary "Becoming a Doctor for Dummies" guide. Now back to being excited for the big reveal in ten hours.
In other news, after over a year of my mother's pleading, I have a new profile picture. Kagome is dead. I'm probably going to give her about a month of peace before I switch to Ed from Cowboy Bebop, because that's how I roll.
The cliff notes of what I've been doing:
-finish bachelor's of sciences in US while taking MCAT (difficult but moderately priced test)
-2 years of basic sciences in the Caribbean. A more clever blogger than I referred to this as the Bob Marley School of Medicine.
-USMLE Step 1 (giant expensive test)
-1 year of core rotations (internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, psych, OB/Gyn, etc) at a hospital in Brooklyn;
-USMLE Step 2 CS/Step 2 CK (two giant expensive tests)
-1 year of elective rotations at varying hospitals (okay, still in BK; I'm lazy)
-Graduate with Medical Degree
-Obtain ECFMG certificate (that's a bonus for us foreign kids)
FWI, you're still paying for all of this at this stage. For the last two years, you work in a hospital, but you are a paying student.
During this time, you must secure a residency for when you are out of medical school or you can be a doctor all you want, but you can't practice. A residency is additional training, for which you are paid, and this is what trains you to your specialty. Anyone graduating medical school is a doctor, but only people completing a pediatric residency are pediatricians. The process of securing a residency (since everyone's applying for them at the same time) is called the Match.
The Match:
-September through February of last academic year, choose a medicine specialty you want to practice and apply through a paid central database to programs you select.
-During this time, those programs that want to interview you grant you dates for them. You attend as many as you are able
-Mid February: submit a rank list. This is your favorite programs in order from top to bottom of your preference. How you rank stuff is up to you... location, training, prestige, hotness of fellow residents, etc. The programs are simultaneously ranking you.
-February to March: The central computers match up (get it?) applicants to programs. Programs with unfilled residency spots lose thousands of dollars for having those spots vacant. Applicants with no programs are jobless for a year while their loans go into repayment. Stakes are high. The computer uses an algorithm that tries to match the highest ranking applicant to the highest ranking program. If Pediatrics at Tulane loves Lucy and Lucy loves Tulane, and neither Tulane nor Lucy love anyone more. Match. This takes a while.
-Third Monday in March: Black Monday. The computers release whether students have successfully matched. Location is not disclosed.
-Tuesday-Thursday: Scramble: A list of the programs with unfilled positions is released to the unmatched applicants and a predictable clusterf-- of frantic emailing, faxing, and calling ensues. Applicants may have to switch specialties and explore other geographic regions to ensure a job.
-Thursday: Match Day. At noon EDT, the names of the programs are released to the people that matched there. Most American medical schools have a large ceremony to commemorate this. Some friends and I are making our own.
The name and specialty that is released on Thursday is where you are contractually obligated to go on July 1st of that year to begin residency training. The first year of residency (which used to be more of a transitional year, though now there are still transitional years and preliminary years) is what most people think of when they refer to "interns".
Usually, after your first year of residency, you take USMLE Step 3 (giant expensive test).
Near the end of your residency, you take the board exams (massive excruciatingly expensive tests) for that specialty. You also start a version of the Match all over again around then if you're applying for a fellowship, which is yet another 1-2 years of training for subspecialty fields (like pediatric cardiology).
So there we go... a probably largely unnecessary "Becoming a Doctor for Dummies" guide. Now back to being excited for the big reveal in ten hours.
Mar 16, 2011
Much love
to you guys in the trenches that are having to deal with this scramble nonsense this year with the server crashes. I can't even imagine what that must feel like, but my thoughts and hopes are with you. Good luck!!!!!!!!!
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