Island Med Student

When I was at Coney Island the other day, I saw a bunch of seagulls hanging out on the beach and decided to take advantage of them by running around and disrupting them so they’d fly up and I could snap their pics. Micah happened to get the whole thing on video, and he just posted it for the world to see. Enjoy.

Subway Trip to Coney Island from Micah Walter on Vimeo.

I’m sitting in my bed in my apartment in Brooklyn, New York. I am wearing comfy sweatpants and have my blanket pulled up as high as it will go while still allowing me to type. I have two pieces of toilet paper, crumpled up, stuffed in each nostril, soaking up copious amounts of mucus. The heat in my apartment is turned up to the max. My bedside table is littered with cough syrup, nose spray, ibuprofen, tissues, water, orange juice, chapstick, day time cold meds, vitamins, and honey. Every few moments, I have to stop typing to cough up some mucus into a tissue, or to change the “snot plugs” in my nose.

You might have guessed by now…I am sick.

What started out as a minor cold eventually turned into bronchitis, and I somehow then developed pneumonia. Life definitely sucks right now.

Yesterday was quite an interesting day. I came into the hospital at 8:00 a.m. for morning rounds. My attending physician took one look at me and told me to go home and to get checked out by a doctor. Since I have no primary care physician in New York, and since I didn’t feel like calling around to various doctors, only to be told that they weren’t accepting new patients, and since my health insurance is so crappy that I knew I’d be paying out of pocket anyway, I decided to take the elevator down to the Emergency Department of the hospital.

Now, at this point, I was still wearing my white coat and stethoscope, and when I approached the ED check-in counter, the friendly nurse immediately said, “how can I help you doctor?” When I told him that I needed to see a doctor, he promptly recorded my details and alerted the triage nurse to come take my vitals. Since I had to take off my white coat to have my blood pressure taken, I went ahead and left it off the rest of the time. Now, I was no longer a med student/fake doctor, but had joined the ranks of the patients.

After getting my vitals, the triage nurse handed me a cup and told me to get a urine sample and bring it back. All of the ED bathrooms were occupied, so I walked down the hallway to find an available bathroom. The only one I could find had a broken lock, but I decided to use it anyway. Halfway into giving my “sample” an elderly hispanic man opened the door, was surprised to see me hovering over the toilet with a plastic cup between my legs, mumbled something in Spanish, and then promptly closed the door. Yes, I was definitely now a patient.

I returned to the nurse, gave her my urine sample, and sat back down in the ED waiting area. Many hours went by, and many of my fellow med student friends came by to check on me, and upon realizing how long I’d been waiting, suggested that I use my med student status to get bumped up in line. They had apparently done this many times before. I thought about it, and decided that I didn’t want to. My visit really wasn’t an emergency, and I didn’t think it was fair to go ahead of all the other people who had been waiting just as long. It eventually became obvious to me that had I kept my white coat on, I would have received different and mostly likely faster service.

If I had to do it all over again, I would do it the same way. I kind of liked the anonymity of being just another patient, and not a medical student wearing a stethoscope. In fact, I think the only way anyone could tell that I was not an average patient was by the color of my skin (most of our patients are latino/hispanic or black) and by how I described my symptoms.

In fact, I think the doctor who eventually saw me thought it was a bit entertaining that instead of listing my symptoms as a runny nose, watery eyes and coughing up blood, I complained of rhinorrhea, excessive lacrimation, and hemoptysis.

Ahhh, the joys of being a patient! Now please excuse me while I change my snot plugs.

Click Here To View the Original Post on Medscape

My apologies again for the lack of posts recently. So you’ve probably been wondering…what have I been doing? How did Thanksgiving turn out? Where’s Buttercup?

Let me explain.

No, there is too much.

Let me sum up.

Buttercup is marrying Humperdinck in a little less than half an hour, so all we have to do is get in, break up the wedding, steal the Princess, and make our escape, after I kill Count Rugen.

Whooops, I slipped for a moment there.

Anyway, let me sum up. I was still feeling kind of sick, and all of our dogsitters were unavailable, so we (Micah, me, Scope, Molly) all ended up staying in NYC for the holidays. I had the brilliant idea of finding all of my friends in the city who were not going to visit their relatives and getting them to come to Sushi Samba for Thanksgiving. I mean, nothing says Happy Thanksgiving like unagi rolls and edamame! I had so much fun! Thanks for coming out Bindi, Vaneet, Ghazel and Francy!

And the icing on the sushi cake is that later on in the evening my son Tom was able to join us! I had fun using my saliva covered finger to clean up his face, and also just hanging out.

The next day, Micah and I had the idea to go to Coney Island and wander around. Since I’ve never actually been, I thought it would be fun. Even though everything was closed, we still had a good time just walking on the beach and checking everything out.

The highlight was a closed game called “Shoot the Freak.” Actually, I was very glad that it was closed, because I didn’t really feel like getting shot yesterday.

Click Here to View My Pics

Click Here to View Micah’s Thanksgiving Day Pics

Click Here to View Micah’s Coney Island Pics

• DB’s Medical Rants » Contemplating medicine and the health care system
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Today, I was very excited and pleased to discover a fully decked out clown in the hospital lobby. Apparently, he was making balloon animals and doing face painting for all the kiddies. Since I am myself a perpetual child, I excitedly stood in line for my turn. I was at least twice the height of everyone in the line, but I didn’t care.

After an interesting exchange with the clown, I had a brand spanking new, very colorful butterfly painted on my cheek. I was quite the happy camper.

I wore the butterfly on my cheek for the rest of the day, including my time at the hospital. I must admit that I seemed to feel less sick, and had a very cheerful pep in my step for the rest of the day. Of course I got many interesting glances from folks, but about 99% of them resulted in smiles. And I think quite a few kids were very jealous of my butterfly (even though I directed them to the clown in the lobby).

The butterfly on my cheek is merely one example of a fun “prop,” as I like to call it. I get much joy from wearing things like oversized sunglasses, caution tape belts, rainbow suspenders, tiger parasols, and the like. It seems that when I spend the day with a non-traditional and brightly colored object that doesn’t quite “fit” the occasion, my day is all the much better for it. In honor of today, I think I’ll name this phenomenon the “butterfly effect.”

So, it really got me thinking. Is it because I am a generally happy and jovial person that I have the urge to play with oversized and colorful props? Or do I play with oversized and colorful props and am then consequently very happy and jovial?

Which came first? The joviality or the oversized egg?

Perhaps the mystery will never be solved.

But I know one thing for sure, one should never underestimate the power of the butterfly effect.

What do they all have in common? Nothing, other than I am currently excited about all of them.

Why Jesus? I recently made a fabulous purchase at the local 99¢ store (to feed my 99¢ addiction). I bought a candle with a crucified Jesus on it (very popular in this neighborhood). Not only does it smell nice, but it’s a great decorative item.

As for spiders, please read this article. You will pee your pants. I’m not kidding. Be prepared. I squirted urine and had tears streaming down my face at the same time. It totally reminds me of something I would do.

And taking baths with dogs? Today, Micah and I (yes, even though I’m sick and shouldn’t) took Scope and Molly (yes, the terrorist is in town) to the park to play. What we forgot was that it had been raining all day, and hence the park was more of a huge mud ocean. By the time we left, Scope and Molly were solid black and brown with mud, and looked like they had been in a monster truck rally. Speaking of leaving, we actually didn’t do so voluntarily. We were in fact ordered to leave by a large police van with a megaphone. Apparently, we were breaking the “no dogs allowed” rule in the park. At least we didn’t get a ticket. Anyway, when we arrived home I realized the only option was to take off all my clothes and hop into the bath with both Scope and Molly. T’was a jolly adventure, indeed.

I’m sick. Really sick. I don’t feel like explaining. But the short story is that I spent the entire morning in the ED of my own hospital. I don’t have a PCP in NY, and it was my only reasonable option. Anyway, the highlight of the experience is when I had to give a urine sample, but the only working bathroom had a door with a broken lock. As I squatted over the toilet, holding a plastic cup between my legs, trying to aim for the cup, an elderly hispanic man opened the door, looked shocked and confused, mumbled something in Spanish, and then closed the door. That was pretty fun.

Anyway, the good news is that I don’t have miliary TB. The bad news is that I do have pneumonia. Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but now you know why I haven’t been in the writing mood. Now I will finish my soup and go back to sleep. But not before I change the snot plugs in my nose. I am such a horrible patient.

• Unhappy People Watch More TV Than Happy People, U-Md. Researcher Finds – washingtonpost.com
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• BushwickBK.com
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I really hope you get the reference to the title of this post, and the photo above (Bindi + Kendra hands).

Internal medicine is going okay so far, but it’s so very slow compared to surgery. The longest days are 12 hours, and we have no night calls. There is no “Group D” to bring me joy. We do virtually zero work, as we are no longer slaves to our residents. We are merely there to learn, and not to do the work of the residents, which means it’s a heck of a lot easier and less stressful. Oddly enough, I miss that stress, though. Maybe I just miss being needed.

Anyway, the other night, a bunch of my Group D folks got together at Life Cafe in Brooklyn for dinner and drinks. T’was just splendid to see all my peeps again. I miss you Group D!

Click Here to View the New Pics (at the bottom)