Island Med Student

Today started out with obstetrics rounds at the hospital. Around noon, I left early to take care of errands in the name of residency and med school.

I went to a family clinic to get a physical exam for my school records and for applications to elective emergency medicine rotations. They had to draw my blood to get my MMR, Hep B, and Varicella titers. They then stuck me with another needle in order to place my PPD. After this fun visit, I went to FedEx to send in my emergency medicine letter of recommendation. I then stopped by Walgreens to get my required flu vaccination. Yesterday, I donated blood to help others, and for the free cookies and juice, of course. If you are keeping count, that’s four separate needle sticks in a little over 24 hours. I feel like a human pincushion.

Now it’s time to reply to more interview requests and sort through the piles of paperwork for emergency medicine elective applications. Lately, I feel like I’m a professional errand runner and blood giver. Ahhh, the joys of medicine and residency!

Today, as I was walking home from the hospital, a lady approached me and asked me for money. I reached in my pocket and handed her 2 dollars. It took about 1-2 seconds. Then, a few blocks later I was crossing an intersection, and a guy on motorcycle ran a red light and came within a few feet of hitting me. In fact, if I had been coming through the intersection about 1-2 seconds later, I probably would have been run over by the guy on the motorcycle, who was traveling at a very high speed. If I hadn’t stopped to give the lady money, I might be dead right now. Funny how life works in mysterious ways.

In other news, I’m not enjoying the week of sonograms so far. The morning is cool, because we round on the obstetrics patients. But so far the clinic has failed to impress me. I still have yet to actually see a sonogram being performed. But the rest of ob/gyn has rocked, so all is not lost.

My residency app is rocking out. Don’t want to give away all the details, but I have received quite an amazing response.

I have to get up at 4:00 a.m. tomorrow, so it’s beddy bye time for me now. G’nite sweet world!

I totally lucked out today and finished my ob/gyn duties by noon. I then donated blood (and tried to donate platelets but was turned down because I don’t weigh enough), which was fun, as always. After that, I walked home and continued my attempts to get elective emergency medicine electives at NYC hospitals. After sorting through websites and documents and filling out forms, I realized how treacherous the process of applying for away electives is. I need to go to a doctor to get health forms completed, get letters from my school, apply for NY forms, and many other things. All in the name of applying for electives. There isn’t even any guarantee that I will get accepted. If I hadn’t lucked out and gotten home from the hospital early today, I wouldn’t have had the time to do all this. I don’t know how med students are expected to spend such long hours at the hospital, and also have time for this volume of paperwork at the same time. I’m beginning to actually see the rewards of the ERAS application. It might be a long and expensive process, but at least I only had to do it ONCE, as opposed to these elective applications, which all have their own various applications and forms to fill out.

Anyway, my printer is now almost out of ink, and I am tired of sorting through documents. It’s time to walk the doggies and prepare for dinner and bedtime. I really do hate paperwork. G’nite!

Check out my post on Medscape to read about my recent experience getting up close and personal with the pro-lifers.

Click Here To View the Entry

• Vital Signs – Medical Students Faulted for Online Rudeness – NYTimes.com
  (tags: interesting)

Both photos taken within one block of my apartment, where I also park my car!

“Yo Brooklyn, Fuhgeddaboudit” Photo Series

Quite literally. Today was the first time that I’ve seen daylight since Sunday. I’ve been going to the hospital in the early morning in the dark, spending the entire day in the OR or surrounding area, walking home late at night, and then doing it all over again the next day. Today, we were lucky enough to finish all the cases and get sent home around 3:00 in the afternoon. Sunlight never tasted so gooooood!

Now it’s time to have a life and hang out with my Bindaloo, Micah, and Son. I love the smell of sunlight in the evening. It doesn’t smell like the operating room.

“Yo Brooklyn, Fuhgeddaboudit” Photo Series

Today was an incredibly long day of gyn surgeries. I’m totally pooped. I have so many great topics to write about, but not the energy to do so. I think I will write a coherent post about everything for the Differential soon. Anyway, please excuse me if I am rambling or lack proper grammar.

The gist is that there were many termination of pregnancy (abortion) cases in the OR today. I didn’t really think anything of it until one of my students came to me to tell me that he would not scrub into his assigned case because it conflicted with his moral values. It didn’t even occur to me that a med student would opt out of a great learning experience because of a moral reservation. I guess I’m just so pro-choice that I sometimes forget how many people are not.

Anyway, I performed my first termination of pregnancy today. The case was a very emotional one because my patient and I had a very long talk before and after her surgery. Of course, I can’t share any details for HIPAA sake, but I can say that I was very moved, and felt like it was a huge privilege for her to share her intimate details with me. I spent way more than the usual amount of time with this patient. We talked about all kinds of things going on in her life. She shared a lot with me. And she thanked me profusely afterwards for actually listening to her. I think that I did as much with my ears for her as I did with my hands.

Really, it was just an amazing day, and I feel lucky to be doing something that I love, and something that can make such a huge impact on someone’s life. It’s what makes the 15 hour days worth doing.

where I worked 13 hours at the hospital in gynecological surgeries and then came home to find out that my dog had urinated and vomited all over my bed and that my spare sheets are in another city and as I was walking down my stairs with my dogs in one hand and dirty sheets in the other, my one dog bolted down the stairs, burning my hand severely in the process with the leash and then I thought, this is why beer was invented.

And then I finally had one. It never tasted so good. And it turns out that a cold beer bottle is a great way to soothe the pain of a hand burn. Yeah, that’s my life.

Today I scrubbed in on what should have been a short D&C (dilation and curettage) case, but ended up taking much longer because of problems with hemostasis. Because the resident and attending were shorter than me, and due to the fact that there is only so much room between a woman’s spread legs, I had to do some acrobatic twisting and posing in order to hold the retractors, do suction, cut the sutures etc. My back was killing me by the end of the surgery. I felt as though my hands were going to fall off, and my toes were going numb. I don’t think I’m physically cut out to be a surgeon anymore. I have no idea how the older surgeons manage to make it all look so easy. Although I guess it helps to be the one who gets to decide how high to raise the OR table.

In other news, I have gotten a good response from my residency application. More to come on that soon.

In the meantime, please enjoy the random photos taken today while waiting for OR cases. Good night!