Medical

A Traumatic Recollection

/ Nate / 3 Comments

Okay so in case you were wondering, being a resident is way better than being a med student.

Residency started with an ultrasound block. The ultrasound block consisted mostly of watching videos about How To Ultrasound Stuff, and then going to the emergency department and trying to ultrasound stuff. It was a very relaxing time. I even tried to teach the med students with us stuff about ultrasound, although this was limited by the fact that both students were smarter than this July intern and knew it. Continue reading →

M.D.

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Although it has been quite some time since my last post, rest assured that I – along with my classmates – were diligently at work, grinding through pathophysiology of kidney disease and Obtaining Outside Medical Reco—haha, no, we were all on vacation.

I went home to D.C., played with my dog, went to Colombia for two weeks, and drank on the beach enough to poison the Gulf of Mexico. Continue reading →

The Fourth Year Lexicon

/ Nate / 3 Comments

I’ve written twice before about funky medical words – once in first year, with Commonest Erythematous Palpation, and once at the end of second year with A Lexical Update. As I hit the big orange “CERTIFY” button on the rank list page last week, I realized that there is a completely different dictionary for the fourth year medical student.

As useless extra hands in the hospital go, we have basically completed our penance and have become experts in the Med Student Daily Apologia For Being An Idiot. In celebration, many of us – yours truly included – took huge chunks of time off to apply for and interview at residency programs. The process, while fun and exhausting and replete with enormous amounts of Netflix binge-watching, also generated a lexicon all on its own. Continue reading →

How The Match Works

/ Nate / 9 Comments

As I wrote in PANIC! At the ERAS, the final step in obtaining a spot in a residency program is the Match. Like I mentioned, after all the interviews everyone’s preferences – and the preferences of all of the programs – go into a big computer and get processed through some algorithm, which somehow pops out a “best match.” This process is administered by one central service, called the National Resident Matching Program, or NRMP, so they control everything from start to finish. Continue reading →

Tox ‘O Clock: Carbon Tablets

/ Nate / 5 Comments

So I have pretty much nothing to write about now, as I’m in a lull between (mostly) the end of interviews and having to make my rank list. I spend my free time, which usually ranges between 20 and 23 hours a day, contemplating my existence in the various cities where I’ve interviewed and pretending the horrifyingly high-stakes reality of creating a match list isn’t around the corner. Continue reading →

Are We There Yet?

/ Nate / 2 Comments

Am I still a medical student? I am legitimately no longer sure.

In the last four weeks, I’ve flown to five different cities, taken a two-week family vacation to Japan, stayed in enough hotel rooms to bankrupt a minor consulting firm, and worn a suit enough to notice that I am clearly fatter than when I had it first tailored in 2012. Continue reading →

Sorry, Can’t Help You

/ Nate / 1 Comment

The fourth year of medical school is sometimes referred to as the “victory lap,” because historically it has been an easier year where you take some chill rotations, interview for residency, and mostly relax before starting intern year.

Fourth year is, obviously, the greatest year for medical school. It’s the last year when you can focus simply on your own learning without yet having to deal with all the horribleness involved in actually working in the hospital – writing the notes, checking the administrative boxes, following decision rules and spending seemingly 90% of your time in front of a computer. There is also significant time built in for important rotations such as “Let’s Go Skiing” and “I’d Like to Drink Some Beer Now,” both of which are courses known for giving out high grades. It’s fantastic. Continue reading →

PANIC! At the ERAS

/ Nate / 8 Comments

The inspiration for this blog, originally, was family – in particular, the Bringers of Life and their respective bringers of life. No, this is not an ode to a special love of family; I was really, really tired of explaining the medical school application process to everyone with my last name over and over again.

So I started writing down my explanations online – postbac program to knock out requirements, MCAT, complicated multi-stage application, interviews, second looks – and sending out links to spare myself. It’s been more than five years since my first post.

Sometime late this week, I will submit my application for residency. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ll be applying to “match” in emergency medicine. The process is long, confusing, tortuous (in multiple definitions of the word), and culminates in Match Day. For those of you already in medicine, this post might be kind of boring. I will thus use far more GIFs than normal to keep you interested.

For everyone else, welcome to the madness that is the residency application. Continue reading →