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.
Oct 13, 2010
Sep 21, 2010
Blow me away...
For the uninitiated, that there below is Brooklyn. More specifically, it's near the part of Brooklyn *I live in*.
And that, over on yonder screen, is a frigging tornado.
I try not to ask for much, guys... I mean, some school-love every now and then, a pat on the back from an attending, unchecked wealth and power... what I'm saying is I'm an ask-not sort of gal.
But I don't think it's asking too much to ask *tornadoes* to stay out of my hood.
I lived in California; I accepted that earthquakes are part of the package.
I lived in North Carolina; I accepted that hurricanes are part of the package.
I lived in Grenada; I accepted that hurricanes are part of the package though we inexplicably got an earthquake too. Maybe it's me.
I live in Brooklyn, I accept crime, the warm smell of dog piss on the streets in the summer, and the potential to freeze to death in the winter if you can't find a cab. My point is, TORNADOES ARE NOT PART OF THE EQUATION.
And in truth, tornadoes are rarely the part of any of my equations because they scare the crap out of me.
So basically, while I was passing hours on call down at Coney, just as I was let out (of course), I hear what I had believed to be a truck backing into a loading dock. Turns out that was just the thunder. When I get home to my street, the front of one building is off, there's tree wreckage everywhere, the fence has been blown up the street, and my walls had dirt streaked on them because the wind kicked up the dust from the screens. Whoa.
In other news, I'm doing my medicine sub internship right now, which is a rough commute, topped by trying to get a job at night, topped by scheduling residency interviews (it's that time, kids!), which leaves me no time to do laundry.
On the residency front, I kicked out 57 applications for that field that I love and am just waiting for my letters of recommendation to be scanned in so that my application can finally be complete. Huzzah! I've heard back from three programs so far, two offering interviews, and one stating they will schedule and interview for me when my LORs come back in, so I'm calling that one a half interview.
And that, over on yonder screen, is a frigging tornado.
I try not to ask for much, guys... I mean, some school-love every now and then, a pat on the back from an attending, unchecked wealth and power... what I'm saying is I'm an ask-not sort of gal.
But I don't think it's asking too much to ask *tornadoes* to stay out of my hood.
I lived in California; I accepted that earthquakes are part of the package.
I lived in North Carolina; I accepted that hurricanes are part of the package.
I lived in Grenada; I accepted that hurricanes are part of the package though we inexplicably got an earthquake too. Maybe it's me.
I live in Brooklyn, I accept crime, the warm smell of dog piss on the streets in the summer, and the potential to freeze to death in the winter if you can't find a cab. My point is, TORNADOES ARE NOT PART OF THE EQUATION.
And in truth, tornadoes are rarely the part of any of my equations because they scare the crap out of me.
So basically, while I was passing hours on call down at Coney, just as I was let out (of course), I hear what I had believed to be a truck backing into a loading dock. Turns out that was just the thunder. When I get home to my street, the front of one building is off, there's tree wreckage everywhere, the fence has been blown up the street, and my walls had dirt streaked on them because the wind kicked up the dust from the screens. Whoa.
In other news, I'm doing my medicine sub internship right now, which is a rough commute, topped by trying to get a job at night, topped by scheduling residency interviews (it's that time, kids!), which leaves me no time to do laundry.
On the residency front, I kicked out 57 applications for that field that I love and am just waiting for my letters of recommendation to be scanned in so that my application can finally be complete. Huzzah! I've heard back from three programs so far, two offering interviews, and one stating they will schedule and interview for me when my LORs come back in, so I'm calling that one a half interview.
Sep 2, 2010
Tales from the Crypt...
Day 1:
Ishie: Ooh, an autopsy in the basement! What a wonderful learning experience!
PA: You two go down and label the cassettes. We'll be down soon.
(an hour passes)
(morgue phone rings)
Other med student: Um... hello?
Voice: SEVEN DAYS.
Just kidding.
Voice: Oh... are you guys still down there? We're doing the autopsy tomorrow.
Day 2
Ishie: Ooh, an autopsy in the basement! What a wonderful learning experience!
(PA unlocks door. Grenada sized roach runs across floor.)
Ishie: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Other med student smashes roach. Roach flips on back in center of floor)
PA: So, you won't need too much protection for this one... just a gown, gloves and shoe covers... you can come get them...
(Ishie remains pinned against far wall with arms crossed across chest. PA looks at her and looks at roach)
PA: You're a pathologist!!
Ishie: I'm not an entomologist!!
(PA sighs, takes broom and shoves roach through drain in floor.)
PA: They come up through it; I push them back through it.
Ishie: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ishie: Ooh, an autopsy in the basement! What a wonderful learning experience!
PA: You two go down and label the cassettes. We'll be down soon.
(an hour passes)
(morgue phone rings)
Other med student: Um... hello?
Voice: SEVEN DAYS.
Just kidding.
Voice: Oh... are you guys still down there? We're doing the autopsy tomorrow.
Day 2
Ishie: Ooh, an autopsy in the basement! What a wonderful learning experience!
(PA unlocks door. Grenada sized roach runs across floor.)
Ishie: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Other med student smashes roach. Roach flips on back in center of floor)
PA: So, you won't need too much protection for this one... just a gown, gloves and shoe covers... you can come get them...
(Ishie remains pinned against far wall with arms crossed across chest. PA looks at her and looks at roach)
PA: You're a pathologist!!
Ishie: I'm not an entomologist!!
(PA sighs, takes broom and shoves roach through drain in floor.)
PA: They come up through it; I push them back through it.
Ishie: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Aug 27, 2010
Personal Statement Blues...
So that whole application season thing is coming up again and like most of the red tape involved in becoming a doctor, it's a headache.
I've never had too much trouble writing, and it used to be the normal way I occupied my free time before I discovered beer, boys, and youtube...
Where I do have trouble is selling myself. I have no particular idea how to actually convey to others that I have qualities worth hiring without sounding like a tool or downplaying myself to such a degree that I can't even figure out why anyone would hire me.
I also find my best writing comes out of either humor or anger or a combination of both, neither of which are qualities befitting a personal statement. Hire me because when stuff sucks, I'll make cracks about your program that make the other residents laugh. But rest assured, it'll be at your expense.
I also have trouble conveying why I love something, because while I can write a dissertation in iambic pentameter about why I hate something (war, construction workers jackhammering outside my apartment at 11 PM, Nicolas Cage), my general way of describing something I like is that it's "awesome".
So, this means my most natural personal statement would read... "Pathology is so so awesome. I love seeing what the problem is under a microscope because it's the closest anyone will ever come to a diagnosis. I'm fine with bodies since they complain far less than living people and I love genetics and microbiology, even though anyone with half a conscience shouldn't trust me with the former. I did a couple pathology rotations and they were awesome. I used to work at the Donated Body Program and that was super awesome too. They let me play with bones a lot and I got to do forensic research no one will ever be interested in. You should hire me because I think pathology is as awesome as you guys probably do. Peace. PS, I've never seen a single episode of CSI so please don't think I'm trying to jump on the bandwagon. -Ish"
Less than convincing... immature, unprofessional, all those lovely qualities I embody, but you're not supposed to put them a personal statement.
Instead, I currently have something that is pleasantly wishy washy and sounds insincere even though it isn't. I didn't have any one event that led to my pursuing pathology. I didn't have a beloved grandfather who just would have been saved if some go-getter had diagnosed his _____ correctly. I wasn't on a plane where a passenger collapsed and someone screamed for a pathologist, and they ran up, did a biopsy and the patient lived to see another day.
When I was a girl scout, I wanted to diagnose labs instead of people. When I was 13, after abandoning my dreams of marine biology because I get so seasick I envy the dead, I wanted to be a virologist. Probably due initially to Dustin Hoffman. Then when I was a candy striper, I got sick of wheeling patients around and providing comfort around day four and spent the rest of my time there organizing slides in the path lab because it made me happy even though I had no idea what anything was. I found fourth term WAY more fun than second term because I like path and hate physio. I'm a lifer. But expressing that in any form either sounds like I'm lying or like I'm severely socially maladjusted.
Pathology makes me content. I don't run home with awesome stories largely because no one would be remotely interested in what makes my day fantastic, and my best shareable stories from it tend to be disgusting enough to significantly limit my audience. People are excited by stories about gunshot wounds and CPR... hell, I am, and I've run home enthusiastic when they've happened in my other rotations... but once that adrenaline wears off, I'm left with... what? Surgery was cool until it wasn't. Once the excitement of a case wore off, I wasn't left feeling content; I was left feeling bored and frequently frustrated. No answers and no diagnoses. When I'm doing mind numbing number crunching in the gross lab and entering standard templates into the computer, I feel a general sense of peace and satisfaction in the downtime that I have not found anywhere else. Why is that so hard to commit to paper?
I've never had too much trouble writing, and it used to be the normal way I occupied my free time before I discovered beer, boys, and youtube...
Where I do have trouble is selling myself. I have no particular idea how to actually convey to others that I have qualities worth hiring without sounding like a tool or downplaying myself to such a degree that I can't even figure out why anyone would hire me.
I also find my best writing comes out of either humor or anger or a combination of both, neither of which are qualities befitting a personal statement. Hire me because when stuff sucks, I'll make cracks about your program that make the other residents laugh. But rest assured, it'll be at your expense.
I also have trouble conveying why I love something, because while I can write a dissertation in iambic pentameter about why I hate something (war, construction workers jackhammering outside my apartment at 11 PM, Nicolas Cage), my general way of describing something I like is that it's "awesome".
So, this means my most natural personal statement would read... "Pathology is so so awesome. I love seeing what the problem is under a microscope because it's the closest anyone will ever come to a diagnosis. I'm fine with bodies since they complain far less than living people and I love genetics and microbiology, even though anyone with half a conscience shouldn't trust me with the former. I did a couple pathology rotations and they were awesome. I used to work at the Donated Body Program and that was super awesome too. They let me play with bones a lot and I got to do forensic research no one will ever be interested in. You should hire me because I think pathology is as awesome as you guys probably do. Peace. PS, I've never seen a single episode of CSI so please don't think I'm trying to jump on the bandwagon. -Ish"
Less than convincing... immature, unprofessional, all those lovely qualities I embody, but you're not supposed to put them a personal statement.
Instead, I currently have something that is pleasantly wishy washy and sounds insincere even though it isn't. I didn't have any one event that led to my pursuing pathology. I didn't have a beloved grandfather who just would have been saved if some go-getter had diagnosed his _____ correctly. I wasn't on a plane where a passenger collapsed and someone screamed for a pathologist, and they ran up, did a biopsy and the patient lived to see another day.
When I was a girl scout, I wanted to diagnose labs instead of people. When I was 13, after abandoning my dreams of marine biology because I get so seasick I envy the dead, I wanted to be a virologist. Probably due initially to Dustin Hoffman. Then when I was a candy striper, I got sick of wheeling patients around and providing comfort around day four and spent the rest of my time there organizing slides in the path lab because it made me happy even though I had no idea what anything was. I found fourth term WAY more fun than second term because I like path and hate physio. I'm a lifer. But expressing that in any form either sounds like I'm lying or like I'm severely socially maladjusted.
Pathology makes me content. I don't run home with awesome stories largely because no one would be remotely interested in what makes my day fantastic, and my best shareable stories from it tend to be disgusting enough to significantly limit my audience. People are excited by stories about gunshot wounds and CPR... hell, I am, and I've run home enthusiastic when they've happened in my other rotations... but once that adrenaline wears off, I'm left with... what? Surgery was cool until it wasn't. Once the excitement of a case wore off, I wasn't left feeling content; I was left feeling bored and frequently frustrated. No answers and no diagnoses. When I'm doing mind numbing number crunching in the gross lab and entering standard templates into the computer, I feel a general sense of peace and satisfaction in the downtime that I have not found anywhere else. Why is that so hard to commit to paper?
Aug 16, 2010
Oh right, the test...
This sort of thing gets weirder and weirder that farther you get in medical school, once stress gives way to apathy and exhaustion.
I got a Wii!! At long last! I can lately join the awesome gaming generation as my treat for finishing that 9 hour beast of an exam. I also had friends take me out to Chip Shop the next night so I could cram some deep fried Reese's and a few English pints. I'm not even sure which is worse for you, but I'll post from the hospital over whether my heart's failing before my liver is.
The exam... boy howdy is it long. Like LONG. Like kind of over any stress you were experiencing and "I wonder how many points I'd lose if I just went and saw a movie in the middle of this nonsense" long. The questions are long. The whole test time is long. The fact that you get 45 minutes of the day to do anything you need to do and it takes 5-10 minutes to sign in and out means it's long and you're hungry. Or dyspeptic from trying to swallow an entire peanut butter sandwich and then trying to shove it a sufficient distance down your esophagus by pouring Red Bull on it and hoping the bubbles will dissolve some of it. Hell, the stuff tastes like battery acid anyway; it should make some headway.
I took it afternoon until night, as I mentioned, which was awesome, though I closed out the place, and lo and behold the place is right across the hall from the offices for Air Jamaica, which is nice because I guess if you do badly enough, they can send you straight back to Grenada without ever letting you set foot on New York soil again.
To be fair, the people at the testing center were really nice, very chill, and the temperature was good. I was able to bring my own foam earplugs (call ahead and ask your center) which is great, because the silencers provided are identical to the ones that they use at shooting ranges which makes them heavy and tight on your skull. Good for drowning out the .45 in the next booth. Overkill when you're trying to think while drowning out the keyboard sounds in the next booth.
Despite the preventative measures, I would recommend taking as many breaks as feasible. Get water, go to the bathroom, cram some calories and get back in. Stretch your back and legs, make a Home Alone face in the mirror, chuckle to yourself and go for round 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8.
Don't overthink the questions because they give you a lot to overthink. If it seems right, just pick it. If you're clueless, pick the most likely (eliminate the obviously wrong) and move on, mark it later.
Getting in and out is starting to encroach on the airport's turf for security overkill. I had to get frisked before going back into the testing center each time, and though she did the job right in front of the security camera, I have a feeling the girl responsible for feeling me up felt as ridiculous about it as I did. That made me feel better about the whole thing. They didn't make me take my shoes off though.
Looking back, I don't really know what I would have done differently studying-wise. It seems like any moment I didn't have my head buried in UWORLD questions was a wasted one. There were still a lot of wishy washy weird judgment call questions, but I don't think any resource could really get you ready for them.
How do I think I did? Geeze, I have no idea. I think I passed, but once I'm getting below an 80 on a test (which I'm guessing I did on this one), I have *no* clue how I do. My mom's set on 261, which I think is about as probable as my riding into a residency at UCSF on the back of a unicorn, but it's a nice thought.
Also, with the exception of recalling some questions almost in entirety (though I was better about that on Step 1), I get massive testing amnesia. I go in... I vaguely remember things like "Oh, block three was really sticking it to me" and "Oh crap; out of time" and "AAAHHHHH MATH!!!" and then I walk out nine hours later feeling puzzled, brain-enema'd and occasionally vurping up bits of Red Bull. I wonder what happened. I go home, watch Futurama and go to sleep. I party the next day and then I sleep solidly for the two after that. Not hungover; not wildly stressed; just completely mentally erased.
So there you have it folks. Taking Step 2 CK is like getting roofied, waking up hours later with a hangover and your kidney missing and the only clue left behind is a note someone's written in lipstick on the mirror and it says "Your testing session for USMLE Step 2 Clinical Knowledge has ended. Thank you for participating in the United States Medical Licensing Examination. Close. (follow the white rabbit)"
And you're just surprised you can still read.
I got a Wii!! At long last! I can lately join the awesome gaming generation as my treat for finishing that 9 hour beast of an exam. I also had friends take me out to Chip Shop the next night so I could cram some deep fried Reese's and a few English pints. I'm not even sure which is worse for you, but I'll post from the hospital over whether my heart's failing before my liver is.
The exam... boy howdy is it long. Like LONG. Like kind of over any stress you were experiencing and "I wonder how many points I'd lose if I just went and saw a movie in the middle of this nonsense" long. The questions are long. The whole test time is long. The fact that you get 45 minutes of the day to do anything you need to do and it takes 5-10 minutes to sign in and out means it's long and you're hungry. Or dyspeptic from trying to swallow an entire peanut butter sandwich and then trying to shove it a sufficient distance down your esophagus by pouring Red Bull on it and hoping the bubbles will dissolve some of it. Hell, the stuff tastes like battery acid anyway; it should make some headway.
I took it afternoon until night, as I mentioned, which was awesome, though I closed out the place, and lo and behold the place is right across the hall from the offices for Air Jamaica, which is nice because I guess if you do badly enough, they can send you straight back to Grenada without ever letting you set foot on New York soil again.
To be fair, the people at the testing center were really nice, very chill, and the temperature was good. I was able to bring my own foam earplugs (call ahead and ask your center) which is great, because the silencers provided are identical to the ones that they use at shooting ranges which makes them heavy and tight on your skull. Good for drowning out the .45 in the next booth. Overkill when you're trying to think while drowning out the keyboard sounds in the next booth.
Despite the preventative measures, I would recommend taking as many breaks as feasible. Get water, go to the bathroom, cram some calories and get back in. Stretch your back and legs, make a Home Alone face in the mirror, chuckle to yourself and go for round 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8.
Don't overthink the questions because they give you a lot to overthink. If it seems right, just pick it. If you're clueless, pick the most likely (eliminate the obviously wrong) and move on, mark it later.
Getting in and out is starting to encroach on the airport's turf for security overkill. I had to get frisked before going back into the testing center each time, and though she did the job right in front of the security camera, I have a feeling the girl responsible for feeling me up felt as ridiculous about it as I did. That made me feel better about the whole thing. They didn't make me take my shoes off though.
Looking back, I don't really know what I would have done differently studying-wise. It seems like any moment I didn't have my head buried in UWORLD questions was a wasted one. There were still a lot of wishy washy weird judgment call questions, but I don't think any resource could really get you ready for them.
How do I think I did? Geeze, I have no idea. I think I passed, but once I'm getting below an 80 on a test (which I'm guessing I did on this one), I have *no* clue how I do. My mom's set on 261, which I think is about as probable as my riding into a residency at UCSF on the back of a unicorn, but it's a nice thought.
Also, with the exception of recalling some questions almost in entirety (though I was better about that on Step 1), I get massive testing amnesia. I go in... I vaguely remember things like "Oh, block three was really sticking it to me" and "Oh crap; out of time" and "AAAHHHHH MATH!!!" and then I walk out nine hours later feeling puzzled, brain-enema'd and occasionally vurping up bits of Red Bull. I wonder what happened. I go home, watch Futurama and go to sleep. I party the next day and then I sleep solidly for the two after that. Not hungover; not wildly stressed; just completely mentally erased.
So there you have it folks. Taking Step 2 CK is like getting roofied, waking up hours later with a hangover and your kidney missing and the only clue left behind is a note someone's written in lipstick on the mirror and it says "Your testing session for USMLE Step 2 Clinical Knowledge has ended. Thank you for participating in the United States Medical Licensing Examination. Close. (follow the white rabbit)"
And you're just surprised you can still read.
Aug 10, 2010
Oh, it's here
With considerably less holy crapping than the first... but time will tell.
I'm taking the Step 2 CK later today, so naturally that will be followed by probably very little helpful information since the USMLE wranglers have me so paranoid that if I say to a friend something like "Whew!! Should have studied more epidemiology!" (that's just an example; I swear I haven't taken it yet!! Don't kill me!), I'm convinced I'll hear the opening to Ride of the Valkyries and black helicopters will swoop down, whisk me away and strange men will waterboard me... or feed me okra or something. And the last thing anyone will ever hear of me will be an email from my clinical coordinator saying "You STILL haven't written your personal statement?"
I'm taking the Step 2 CK later today, so naturally that will be followed by probably very little helpful information since the USMLE wranglers have me so paranoid that if I say to a friend something like "Whew!! Should have studied more epidemiology!" (that's just an example; I swear I haven't taken it yet!! Don't kill me!), I'm convinced I'll hear the opening to Ride of the Valkyries and black helicopters will swoop down, whisk me away and strange men will waterboard me... or feed me okra or something. And the last thing anyone will ever hear of me will be an email from my clinical coordinator saying "You STILL haven't written your personal statement?"
Aug 6, 2010
Bored now...
The problem with being an intrinsic night owl the second you're deprived of an attending who would take you not showing up at a rotation until 3 PM somewhat amiss, is that you start studying late thus your study breaks come around... oh, say, now, rather than at a time where you can spend them doing anything fun.
So my Step 2 CK is in four days, and I'm trying to stay motivated, which is difficult because as noted above, I'm bored. I seem to have weaned myself off the crippling levels of stress that kept my blog so um... colorful... through my early med school days, but losing that overwhelming anxiety is also killing my drive to do things like study straight through for 48 hour blocks. That's probably a good thing. I also live in NYC with an awesome roommate, which means at any given time (even now), I *could* be forgoing this study thing entirely and replacing it with whatever the heck I want. Live music, transvestite burlesque shows, 2 AM cupcake delivery, microbrewery sampling.
But whine whine, that all ends on Tuesday and then I have some relaxation. By relaxation I mean, do a case write up in the hopes of squeezing a last minute publication under the wire, write my personal statement, and upload all my crap to ERAS because I'm a horrendous procrastinator that can only focus on one task at a time. Sometimes not even one.
Oh, though speaking of awesome NYC stuff plus night owl stuff, I'm actually taking my exam starting at 1 PM, because holy crap, that was an option. That means instead of spending the first three hours of the exam feeling shaky, exhausted, and smelling of Red Bull and fear, I can sleep until my normal hour, stroll to the testing site grabbing some tasty lunch treat along the way and be at my best when I'm actually at my best. Granted this will leave me strolling Brooklyn after dark, but for the luxury of sleeping in on board exams day, I will gladly sacrifice a maxed credit card or three to the urban jungle.
What else... I'm still in maximum amounts of love with my phone and it's letting me play with Wikipedia with enough speed and dexterity that I can study in places that aren't "in front of my computer where I'm getting foot drop from having plastic-chair ass".
That seems like a good place to end.
So my Step 2 CK is in four days, and I'm trying to stay motivated, which is difficult because as noted above, I'm bored. I seem to have weaned myself off the crippling levels of stress that kept my blog so um... colorful... through my early med school days, but losing that overwhelming anxiety is also killing my drive to do things like study straight through for 48 hour blocks. That's probably a good thing. I also live in NYC with an awesome roommate, which means at any given time (even now), I *could* be forgoing this study thing entirely and replacing it with whatever the heck I want. Live music, transvestite burlesque shows, 2 AM cupcake delivery, microbrewery sampling.
But whine whine, that all ends on Tuesday and then I have some relaxation. By relaxation I mean, do a case write up in the hopes of squeezing a last minute publication under the wire, write my personal statement, and upload all my crap to ERAS because I'm a horrendous procrastinator that can only focus on one task at a time. Sometimes not even one.
Oh, though speaking of awesome NYC stuff plus night owl stuff, I'm actually taking my exam starting at 1 PM, because holy crap, that was an option. That means instead of spending the first three hours of the exam feeling shaky, exhausted, and smelling of Red Bull and fear, I can sleep until my normal hour, stroll to the testing site grabbing some tasty lunch treat along the way and be at my best when I'm actually at my best. Granted this will leave me strolling Brooklyn after dark, but for the luxury of sleeping in on board exams day, I will gladly sacrifice a maxed credit card or three to the urban jungle.
What else... I'm still in maximum amounts of love with my phone and it's letting me play with Wikipedia with enough speed and dexterity that I can study in places that aren't "in front of my computer where I'm getting foot drop from having plastic-chair ass".
That seems like a good place to end.
Jul 28, 2010
Too true
Hello all, I'm in USMLE study hell again though I'm taking a little bit of a turn from last year's Step 1 hell and making my current experience less hell and more "I don't have to be at the hospital! PARTY!!!!" Weirdly, it seems to be working pretty well though the actual exam will tell, but stress has always been my big killer on exams and enjoying life is making the gears run smoother. Plus I spent a great deal of this last year transferring a number of hospital lunch breaks into UWorld time at the library because sometimes that cafeteria pizza is just so gnarly that it's better to cram a granola bar and surf a computer.
Due to that tendency, I actually completed all 2200+ questions on USMLE World last night after a year long subscription to that brain-ripping, ego-destroying program, which felt a bit like this:
Of course, the actual test still comes at the end of this, which is sort of like defeating Mario Brothers only to discover that King Koopa is real and lives in your bathroom.
Speaking of random youtube videos, I chased this link thinking it was an actual tutorial on heart sounds because I suck at them and the brand new audio feature I experienced on Step 1 emphasized that to me. I admit, I loled.
And yeah, that's pretty much what I did on Step 1.
Anything else? NYC (as well as a great deal of the rest of the country) spent the last couple weeks being miserably unbearably hot. Like a good medical student, I chose to attempt to run Prospect Park on a day where the heat index was 105, which fortunately, at a mile and a half, my body saved me the hospital trip by crapping out on me entirely and made it difficult to even walk home. If my life were a USMLE World question stem, it would have read:
"A 29-year-old female with no documented medical problems is brought into the Emergency Department unresponsive, seizing, and with a body temperature of 109. She had previously been running in an unshaded section of the park despite an actual weather alert advising against doing exactly that. Despite aggressive management, she codes. What is the physiological mechanism behind her cause of death?"
If you picked anything regarding temperature regulation mechanisms or denaturing proteins, you're wrong. The answer is "mind-blowing stupidity". It's actually a more common cause of death than the usual statistics indicate.
So I consoled myself at my favorite bar with True Blood because damn, I'm hooked on that show and I don't get HBO at home because I'm cheap. Sookie.
Due to that tendency, I actually completed all 2200+ questions on USMLE World last night after a year long subscription to that brain-ripping, ego-destroying program, which felt a bit like this:
Of course, the actual test still comes at the end of this, which is sort of like defeating Mario Brothers only to discover that King Koopa is real and lives in your bathroom.
Speaking of random youtube videos, I chased this link thinking it was an actual tutorial on heart sounds because I suck at them and the brand new audio feature I experienced on Step 1 emphasized that to me. I admit, I loled.
And yeah, that's pretty much what I did on Step 1.
Anything else? NYC (as well as a great deal of the rest of the country) spent the last couple weeks being miserably unbearably hot. Like a good medical student, I chose to attempt to run Prospect Park on a day where the heat index was 105, which fortunately, at a mile and a half, my body saved me the hospital trip by crapping out on me entirely and made it difficult to even walk home. If my life were a USMLE World question stem, it would have read:
"A 29-year-old female with no documented medical problems is brought into the Emergency Department unresponsive, seizing, and with a body temperature of 109. She had previously been running in an unshaded section of the park despite an actual weather alert advising against doing exactly that. Despite aggressive management, she codes. What is the physiological mechanism behind her cause of death?"
If you picked anything regarding temperature regulation mechanisms or denaturing proteins, you're wrong. The answer is "mind-blowing stupidity". It's actually a more common cause of death than the usual statistics indicate.
So I consoled myself at my favorite bar with True Blood because damn, I'm hooked on that show and I don't get HBO at home because I'm cheap. Sookie.
Jul 12, 2010
Ways to make a good impression...
1. Come early
2. Don't leave until you're told to go. This may periodically involve staring at your attending an hour past leaving time like a dog waiting to be fed.
3. Ask questions at appropriate times
4. Don't write vitriolic, misspelled, profanity-laden hate mail to your entire department
Wait, what?
Yeah, so apparently some resident thought it'd be a swell idea to do number 4. Now, I grew up in a beautiful world where the internet was increasingly providing a veil of anonymity to flame warriors and Thundercats fanfiction authors, but how dumb can you possibly be? The resident pool within a department is not *that* large... you are in a group of people that has gotten to know you over years, including your mannerisms when you're at your worst (2 am post-scut) and your personal idioms, and if that isn't enough to protect you, blasting nearly everyone else in the department including your colleagues is probably going to narrow the suspect pool to the cat not mentioned in the letter. Not rocket science. Or brain surgery. Or garbage collection.
And yes, I realize the irony of pointing this out in a blog... but I've also been relatively cautious not to email said blog to any of my superiors with "RE: YOU SUK AND SO DOS EVERYONE YOU LUV" in the subject line. Plus I'm relatively sure most of my superiors already know exactly who I am and thus can avoid my application letters with impunity. I'm also hoping someone with a love of sarcasm and path-geeks will embrace me into his/her grasp and give me a job with the caveat that I'm not allowed to talk to others without a handler. Which I think is fair.
What else... ummm... I'm studying for that pesky exam that comes after Step 1 and before Step 3. I have 10 percent of the questions on UWorld left to do and am finally beating the clock by a fair margin while skimming the questions going "blah blah blah useless" and then reading the last line. I think after you do the first 1800 questions, you just stop caring, so I think I'm going to avoid my pre Step 1 anhedonia, but time will tell. The increased time on UWorld is also giving me an appreciated bit of quality time with my iTunes playlist so I'm discovering some new bands, by which I mean "bands that have been occupying my hard drive for half a decade".
I've been studying with a friend at various locales in the interim to try and mix it up. We had a conversation at an Asian fusion place (tres chic) about preventative screening measures because I'm useless at it, so we really know how to live it up. This is sort of a running theme from my "stercobilin in the line for the Finding Nemo ride" from a few years ago.
This is my last week of heme/onc, which I've really enjoyed despite having kind of a soul-crushing day that will make me more appreciative of being on the other side of the microscope.
I'm also learning that while I don't particularly care for Spongebob despite being a cartoon focused adult, he is absolutely hypnotizing to children. Like forget Lidocaine; the second they hear "He lives in a pineapple under the...", you are effectively dead to them.
I've also learned that I can be puked on without moving my hand or relaxing my grasp, which was a useful little piece of information about myself I had not previously been privileged with. Oh, the little bits of medical school that aren't in the brochure.
Summer got a little miserable so I've been basking in finally having an A/C and occasionally venturing out to hit concerts in Prospect Park or wander off to see True Blood in a place with both HBO and and cheap nachos. I drew the line at Twilight though. Shirtless werewolves? No thank you. Shirtless werewolves with extremely gratuitous violence? Shakespearean.
I also joined the Apple cult of iPhone because I'm a weak weak person and I'm too destructive to be affected by the network problems because everything I own already requires a case lest I spill stuff on it. Just ask my (miraculously still working) laptop, which survived the great Grenadian cornflake barrage of 2008.
2. Don't leave until you're told to go. This may periodically involve staring at your attending an hour past leaving time like a dog waiting to be fed.
3. Ask questions at appropriate times
4. Don't write vitriolic, misspelled, profanity-laden hate mail to your entire department
Wait, what?
Yeah, so apparently some resident thought it'd be a swell idea to do number 4. Now, I grew up in a beautiful world where the internet was increasingly providing a veil of anonymity to flame warriors and Thundercats fanfiction authors, but how dumb can you possibly be? The resident pool within a department is not *that* large... you are in a group of people that has gotten to know you over years, including your mannerisms when you're at your worst (2 am post-scut) and your personal idioms, and if that isn't enough to protect you, blasting nearly everyone else in the department including your colleagues is probably going to narrow the suspect pool to the cat not mentioned in the letter. Not rocket science. Or brain surgery. Or garbage collection.
And yes, I realize the irony of pointing this out in a blog... but I've also been relatively cautious not to email said blog to any of my superiors with "RE: YOU SUK AND SO DOS EVERYONE YOU LUV" in the subject line. Plus I'm relatively sure most of my superiors already know exactly who I am and thus can avoid my application letters with impunity. I'm also hoping someone with a love of sarcasm and path-geeks will embrace me into his/her grasp and give me a job with the caveat that I'm not allowed to talk to others without a handler. Which I think is fair.
What else... ummm... I'm studying for that pesky exam that comes after Step 1 and before Step 3. I have 10 percent of the questions on UWorld left to do and am finally beating the clock by a fair margin while skimming the questions going "blah blah blah useless" and then reading the last line. I think after you do the first 1800 questions, you just stop caring, so I think I'm going to avoid my pre Step 1 anhedonia, but time will tell. The increased time on UWorld is also giving me an appreciated bit of quality time with my iTunes playlist so I'm discovering some new bands, by which I mean "bands that have been occupying my hard drive for half a decade".
I've been studying with a friend at various locales in the interim to try and mix it up. We had a conversation at an Asian fusion place (tres chic) about preventative screening measures because I'm useless at it, so we really know how to live it up. This is sort of a running theme from my "stercobilin in the line for the Finding Nemo ride" from a few years ago.
This is my last week of heme/onc, which I've really enjoyed despite having kind of a soul-crushing day that will make me more appreciative of being on the other side of the microscope.
I'm also learning that while I don't particularly care for Spongebob despite being a cartoon focused adult, he is absolutely hypnotizing to children. Like forget Lidocaine; the second they hear "He lives in a pineapple under the...", you are effectively dead to them.
I've also learned that I can be puked on without moving my hand or relaxing my grasp, which was a useful little piece of information about myself I had not previously been privileged with. Oh, the little bits of medical school that aren't in the brochure.
Summer got a little miserable so I've been basking in finally having an A/C and occasionally venturing out to hit concerts in Prospect Park or wander off to see True Blood in a place with both HBO and and cheap nachos. I drew the line at Twilight though. Shirtless werewolves? No thank you. Shirtless werewolves with extremely gratuitous violence? Shakespearean.
I also joined the Apple cult of iPhone because I'm a weak weak person and I'm too destructive to be affected by the network problems because everything I own already requires a case lest I spill stuff on it. Just ask my (miraculously still working) laptop, which survived the great Grenadian cornflake barrage of 2008.
Jun 23, 2010
Oh well whatever nevermind
Against all odds, my bag was recovered today AND the people on the phone through AA's lost luggage line were nice and polite. I had pretty much kissed off seeing my stuff again and also figured I'd have to get and finish a residency and hire a lawyer before I'd see any compensation.
I also sacrificed another year of my life to get a new phone. It's shiny. I'm getting used to having manual keys to type again.
In even more unbelievable news, today I... comforted a child. Somewhat successfully. I feel like now I should be in a CS advertisement jumping up in the air and high fiving something, since my usual response to human suffering is profound and visibly awkward discomfort. Maybe that studying paid off.
I also sacrificed another year of my life to get a new phone. It's shiny. I'm getting used to having manual keys to type again.
In even more unbelievable news, today I... comforted a child. Somewhat successfully. I feel like now I should be in a CS advertisement jumping up in the air and high fiving something, since my usual response to human suffering is profound and visibly awkward discomfort. Maybe that studying paid off.
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.
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