When I last wrote about being in the intensive care unit, I was coming off a three-month research stint where my primary job was perfecting the art of appearing busy while actually doing nothing. I achieved true expertise in this area and earned commendations for my efforts, if not for my actual research. Continue reading
Immersions
The Coming Reckoning
Two things right up front:
- I still have no idea what I’m going to do with my rank order list;
- I still do not have access to the VA system, where I begin my acting internship on Monday.
With that said, I write this post while experiencing a fairly complex, ebbing and flowing mix of trepidation, desperation, apathy, and outright nihilism. These are the emotions of a compromised fourth year student with a willpower wellspring shallower than a lunchbox. When you do nothing for almost three months, your brain atrophies; at this point, all I’m really capable of doing is following the smells of free food and clicking “Yes, I’m Still Watching” on the Netflix popup. This bodes poorly for my ICU rotation starting tomorrow. Continue reading
Bronching The Inbox
ERAS is in, my away rotations are done, and I’m stuck here waiting for interview invitations along with the other 100% of 4th year medical students. Well, except the two loudly proclaiming to all who will listen, “I HAVE SO MANY INVITES GUYS SO MANY INVITES!”
You know who you are. Continue reading
Working with Stanley Goodspeed
Warning: this post is profoundly nerdy. However, if you caught the title reference, you’ll enjoy it anyway.
In June, I was supposed to take this great class/clinical elective hybrid that focused on trauma and the body’s response to “injury.” Due to a variety of reasons, though (#1 being that the class had a reputation for being way too hard for a burnt-out third year student like me) the section didn’t meet minimum enrollment and was canceled. I was left scrambling for something to do. Continue reading
Impostor Syndrome XXVII
Okay, so, my plan to write more and not less during Nate’s Summer Away From Home has not panned out. I probably should have expected that an audition/away rotation would take up more of my time than I thought, but I was pretending otherwise.
To recap, I spent last month taking shifts in the ED at a large county hospital on the West Coast. Like everything else here, it will remain unnamed out of the remote possibility that I can be identified. Continue reading
Resuscitation! (or, Impostor Syndrome II)
So it turns out that when you are on your research block you have absolutely nothing to write about. Patients are funny, residents are funny, and hapless medical students are hilarious, but there is absolutely nothing funny about research. My project is in the field of medical education, which I find intellectually stimulating and worthwhile but primarily involves attending meetings, reading journal articles that freely use phrases like “cognitive load” and “contextually embedded orchestration of skills,” and sitting in front of a computer. Continue reading
Tramadog
This is my dog, Tiller.
This is me and Tiller, while I studied for Step 1: Continue reading
The Return of the Phalanx
(Not that kind of phalanx.)
My last post was three weeks ago, because just about three weeks ago this happened:
The B Pod
My emergency medicine rotation has ended, and all I want to do is go back to the ER.
Actually that’s a lie. All I actually want to do is sit on my couch and do my best Fat Bastard impersonation by watching eight hours of NFL Red Zone. Which, if we are being honest, is exactly what I am going to do. Being between blocks in the third and fourth years is a little bit like getting a 48-hour pass from prison: no responsibilities, no homework, no email if you don’t want it, and nothing to do. Continue reading
Bright Lights, Shiny Objects
This week I started my emergency medicine month and I am a kid in a freaking candy store.
I’ve loved emergency medicine, or the concept of it, since I was sixteen years old when I first took a lifeguarding class. I did this so that I could spend my summers on staff at jewcamp getting tan instead of shepherding campers around, because I am lazy and vain. Continue reading
crashing resident 