Where does the time go?

May. Late May. Time to start blogging again.

I'm finishing my first of two consecutive months of ER rotations. I've been building up some pretty high expectations for these months. Since I've been thinking all through med school that emergency medicine is where I will end up, it's hard not to make conclusions about my future career based on these shifts. I need to recognize that there are ups and downs to it, much as there are in other fields of medicine and, for that matter, in any sort of job. But, perhaps more importantly, I need to look through these ups and downs and see whether the underlying responsibilities and daily activities of an ER doc are something that I could do for a few decades.

So far, so good.

My last few shifts have been particularly rewarding. I feel like I'm finally getting a sense of how the department works, how to most efficiently manage the patients I'm seeing, and how to handle some of the basic procedures performed in the ED. I've done a few I&Ds, a few laceration repairs, and tonight I did my first digital block. Nothing fancy, but it feels good to have at least some basic skills other than interviews and physical exams.

For non-medical folks: you'll notice that I'm using a variety of acronyms, and most of them are interchangable. People have heard of the "ER" and the classic TV show of that name. Some emergency physicians (EPs) now prefer the term ED (emergency department) since the physical space is clearly more than just a couple rooms. And EM (emergency medicine) encompasses the field as a whole.

Okay, 2:54am. Time for bed.

Happy 2008

Hello!

It's 2008. Things I have celebrated (?) so far in 2008 include:

- the start of my surgery rotation! Seriously. Waking up at 4:30am is one of my favorite pasttimes.
- the arrival of springtime in Cleveland (65 degrees in January?) followed by the return of actual winter
- my new hatred for Bank of America. I really, really loathe them. If every BofA were to spontaneously erupt in a shower of giant fireballs, I would feel much better. Maybe I can just hope that their purchase of Countrywide (one of the leading sub-prime lenders in the country, I think?) will somehow lead to their own little Enron-style corporate implosion. I doubt it, but one can hope. Grrrrrrr. Fireballs.

One more thing

I hate my upstairs neighbors. While there are many things I like about this place, the neighbors are not one of them. The loud rap music blasting out their windows at 12:04am on a Monday night is just one reason I hate them.

Back in the routine

Another day, another attempt at a blog post.

I'm tired. And I shouldn't be. I'm on an outpatient block right now, which means I'm working an easy 8-to-5 schedule, more or less. I should be resting up for the inpatient surgery and medicine rotations I have coming up. From what I hear, those are supposed to kill me.

Except that I'm not resting. Part of it comes from the fact that I'm trying to finish up my two research projects. One was supposed to be done ages ago and is still somehow taking up my time. The other one, well, I suppose I knew I'd be working on it at this point. The other challenging thing is the fact that Karen has a particularly brutal schedule that requires her to get up at 4am every morning for work. (That's what I'll be doing in January and February.)

But that means that I also wake up at 4am. I don't stay up long, but it's usually long enough for me to fully wake up and spend a little bit of time getting back to sleep. I just don't feel as rested afterwards. I don't blame her; we all know that we'll have that schedule at some point. In January and February, she probably won't be too thrilled to hear my alarm going off at 4am as I get up and head into the hospital for surgery pre-rounds.

Time to stop whining and get to work. This abstract isn't going to write itself.

A short hello

Hi there.

It is December. I keep starting to write on here, then I get distracted, save the draft, and forget about it. This post will be short so I can write it, save it, and post it.

It has been a busy few months. I finished my research block at the end of October and have been back on rotations since then. And I'm starting to think pretty seriously about the residency-related application fun that will be coming up in just a few short months.

Between now and 2008, however, I just have outpatient clinics to attend. They're usually not that hard. However, the surgery clinics are always overbooked, which means angry patients, which means frustrated residents, which means no real interest in teaching. Wonderful.

Happy holidays to everyone!

(cough, cough)

Hello.

It's August. I started writing this post in July. Early July, in fact. The real post I wrote was in April, and I think I made some comment about trying to post more frequently since I would have less free time than ever.

At least I was half right -- on the "less free time than ever" part.

The last four months were pretty intense. A month each of Pediatrics, OB/Gyn, Neurology, and Psychiatry. I thought Peds was fun and worth considering, and Neuro was interesting but probably not my future path. Psych was fascinating, but not in a wow-I-would-like-that-career sort of way. And my month of OB/Gyn, despite my best efforts to like it, made me feel primarily like I were being flogged. I was lucky to deliver a half dozen babies during this time, but it wasn't enough to make up for the rest of the experience.

Anyway.

I'm now on a break from rotations. We have 4 months to do research during third year, and I was lucky that I got my research block during the summer months. I don't have to start my next set of clerkships until November.

Let's see what has happened since I last posted...not that much, really. Except for...

• going to two weddings on opposite corners of the country (San Diego and Maine)
• taking out yet another outrageously large student loan
• moving into a new place with Karen
• starting a garden
• getting screwed by my ex-landlord (re: security deposit) and making plans to take her to small claims court
• training for a marathon
• buying a kitten!

I think that's about it for now. I'll try to get some photos of the kitten online at some point.

Time flies!

What a busy month! I took the boards, vacationed in San Diego, and tried to mentally prepare myself for life in the hospital. And after just a week and a half as a 3rd year medical student, I can say with confidence that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. That isn't to say I'm unhappy -- in truth, I've loved my first real exposure to working in the hospital. But it's just such an enormous change from anything I've done before.

"It's like an 18-month job interview," said one of the speakers at our orientation last week. And she was right. Try getting to know your coworkers, while knowing they're responsible for evaluating you, and do it in a completely new environment, with completely new software, with a completely new schedule that is often revealed to you just days beforehand. Also, remember that your responsibilities are not clearly outlined, they change according to who is supervising you each day, and you should always try to anticipate what will be expected of you.

So far, though, I'm having a blast. Now I just need to get to sleep earlier. I have a relatively easy schedule this month -- getting up around 5:45 am, in the hospital by 6:45, done most days by 6:00pm. My friends on Neurosurgery, though, are waking up at 3:45 am to be in the hospital by 5:00 am. Or earlier.

Anyway, sleep time. Now that I have less free time than ever, I'll try to start posting again. :-)

Mood: optimistic
Song: The Killers, "Read My Mind"