So I know the last time I wrote, it came off a little bit angry and a little bit sad. I said things like “none of this matters,” and “bloated, terminally diseased healthcare system,” and mentioned Wharton’s Jelly again.
I am happy to report… that I took Step 3, the final step in the general medical board exams. And it was stupid. Continue reading
The state of the Class of 2021 is…not strong. If we are being honest, our ranks are presently decimated by illness, wear and tear, and, yes, the brutal Southern California winter.*
(*Ha! Sucks to be you, bomb cyclone sufferers. Whatever that is.)
If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from me in awhile, it’s because I went directly from the Potassium Repletion rotation, which I absolutely despised, onto internal medicine wards. I am not sure why it is called a “wards,” rotation, but basically it’s the same thing I did in med school – rotating on an internal medicine team. I actually finished my “IM” rotation two weeks ago and have since been on an obstetrics service catching babies, but that’s a story for another time.
I’m behind. Residency is hard. Leave me alone.
I am on the cardiac care unit, which is a supposed intensive care unit. I say “supposed” because none of the patients I am caring for are actually sick; almost all of the patients in the “CCU” are in a holding pattern until something definitive can be done by another person. For instance, there are people awaiting heart transplants. Others are awaiting implantation of an implantable defibrillator. Continue reading
As I wrote last week, I am on a surgical service, trauma, at the moment. And my day is governed by, and revolves around, poop.
It is astounding how much of my daily well-being on trauma is influenced by the ability of someone else to poop. I think about it literally all day. It is often the first question I ask patients in the morning and the last question I ask them before I go home. It sits on my constantly-growing, frequently changing TO DO list I carry with me as the only constant: “Check on BMs for Patients A, B, F, W, P.” Continue reading
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
Although most of my medical school classmates have already begun their formal residency rotations, we here at the Necessarily Anonymous Emergency Medicine Residency have yet to officially start. This is, depending on your point of view, either because our residency is warm and fuzzy and wants us to have a high quality of life, or they lack so much confidence in our abilities that they feel it necessary to train us up for an entire month. Continue reading
