My time on trauma was probably the most intense three weeks of medical school so far – even compared to the three weeks leading up to a major block exam, like I’ve written about before. When you hear “trauma,” you think of crazy accidents and dramatic TLC reenactments and emergency surgeries. There is some of that, but the majority of the time is spent in the ICU after someone has been stabilized “status post” getting hit by a Volvo. In other words, critical care. Continue reading
Medical
Just Say Yes
As I mentioned before, surgery is a tremendous learning experience. I’d contend, though, that the amount of clinical and “book” knowledge is met or even exceeded by the so-called “shadow curriculum” – the socialization into the life of medicine that goes far beyond the words in a textbook. It’s why you can’t simply read everything and know what you need to be a doctor. Continue reading
Wedge
Turns out you don’t have much time to blog during surgery. At my school, the surgical rotation is split in three: two weeks for a “subspecialty” rotation, which for me was anesthesia, and then three weeks each for paired general surgery services. My pairings were trauma and laparoscopic GI surgeries, better known as “GI-Lap.” Continue reading
“Go To Sleep, Or I Will Put You To Sleep”
My first taste of surgery, the first two weeks, was on the anesthesiology service. Anesthesia was awesome. It’s a “surgical” specialty that has magical hours: my day usually ran from 6:30 to around 5 in the afternoon. Compared to trauma, where the hours can only be described as horrible (we’ll get there), this was a cakewalk. A typical day: Continue reading
The Downhill Ritual
It has been a rough four weeks for humor.
Last time I wrote, I was finishing up my OB/GYN rotation – may it forever stay in my past – and beginning surgery. My first two weeks on surgery were in anesthesia, which has scant moments of humor. Now I’m rotating through the trauma service, which is essentially The ICU For People Who Get Hit By Volvos. So that, plus needing time to sleep, equals no posts in a month. Continue reading
Big Pimpin’
Yesterday I told you about the move to a pass-fail system. Regrettably, the change does nothing to ameliorate the other major stressor of being on the wards – pimping.
Pimping is an old method of Socratic-teaching-gone-wrong where a senior doctor instills his or her worldly knowledge in you by asking question after question until you can no longer answer, then humiliates you by either explaining the answer like you are a toddler or by requiring you to look it up and present the topic the next day. Or hour, if life really sucks. Continue reading
I Labored Thirteen Hours To Bring You Into The World, I Can Take You Out Of It
Thus spake Mom.
I’m currently in my final week of the inpatient portion of my first rotation, obstetrics and gynecology. The whole block is eight weeks, but the first month is subdivided into two weeks on “L&D” – labor and delivery – and two weeks on surgical gynecology. Continue reading
PANIC!
Allow me to sum up the collective emotions of my class: OH GOD ROTATIONS START IN TWO DAYS AND YAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Continue reading
Finally Finishing First Year
A week after our final physical diagnosis exam was our last “end of block assessment” of first year, which is fancy med school terminology for “final exam.” Like our other tests in first year, it was remarkable only for how long it was (fourteen-ish hours over three days) and for how absurd some of the questions were. Continue reading
Of Neuro and Mud Runs
I haven’t written in quite awhile because I was busy. Busy training for PROBABLY THE TOUGHEST EVENT ON THE PLANET, otherwise known as the Tough Mudder.
(Okay, maybe I wasn’t grinding out ten-mile runs or doing burpees at five in the morning. More realistically I was eating Doritos and watching Game of Thrones). It’s also probably not the toughest event on the planet; that distinction likely belongs to the Death Race, a 48-hour monstrosity that includes chopping up an oak tree stump with a hacksaw to reach the starting line and psychological torture like eating a bag of onions and counting out $500 in pennies while squatting in an icy pond. Continue reading
crashing resident 