Hello, welcome back to medical school. I hope you had a good vacation after taking your board exams, because guess what YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING YOU ONCE KNEW ABOUT MEDICINE. It is absolutely shocking how stupid I am. Again.
(I know, I know, sorry Mom but it’s true.) Continue reading
I feel like this.
I HAVE FINISHED STEP 1. I. HAVE FINISHED. STEP ONE.
(Did you read that in Tom Hanks’ voice? I did.) Continue reading
When I started my embarrassingly long trek toward medical school three years ago, I studied for and took the MCAT. That exam was hands down the worst testing experience I’ve ever had – a six-hour MonsterTest covering basic science. I wrote about the studying process while cloistered in isolation in my Charlottesville apartment, where I didn’t see the sun for three or four days at a time. It was often hard to stay focused, which I covered.
Periodically I would take a practice test, a soul-sucking exercise in self-flagellation that I, of course, also wrote about. Continue reading
Just in case you were wondering, I hate rounding with a broiling, incandescent passion.
Unfortunately for me, I’m on my medicine rotation, where rounding is not just a part of the day – it’s THE day. For those of you not indoctrinated into this hateful but necessary practice, rounding is when the “team” – the attending, the resident, the intern, the idiot,* and sometimes other people see all the patients on the list in the morning. You should take the word “morning” with a grain of salt, as sometimes rounds can begin at 6 AM and stretch well into the afternoon. Why this occurs will forever baffle me. Continue reading
Halfway through last year, I wrote “Commonest Erythematous Palpation,” a post illuminating some of the ridiculous medical terminology doctors use every day. As second year draws to a close – I’m just five weeks from the end of my last rotation, not that I’m counting or anything – I thought I’d provide you with an update with a more clinically-focused bent.
See, last year we learned all these fancy words, but it was like learning formal Spanish when most people in the real world use slang. It’ll carry you in a pinch, but people think you’re an idiot. Continue reading
Since my last post, I have finished my pediatrics rotation and completed an emergency medicine elective. I know I haven’t written too much about peds, but I had a great time on the block chiefly because a) no one yelled at me for six entire weeks, which is a clinical year record, and b) kids get better, as I mentioned before in It’s Always Turner Syndrome. Continue reading
I write to you this time from a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, in the midst of my second travel nightmare of 2015. Frankly, though, nothing can top the horror of the Three Days In Ramshackle-Houston Where I Potentially Came Close To Having My Kidneys Stolen. As such I will refrain from discussing the joys of getting out of Portland with a broken plane and a pair of enraged business consultants with Very Important Meetings early tomorrow morning that surely cannot go on without their august presences. Continue reading
I am currently on my pediatrics rotation, which is a wonderful and fantastic world for a number of reasons:
Iiiiiiiit’s SOAPBOX TIME PART TWO!
Let’s start with a throwback to my surgery rotation.
Allow me to describe, briefly, the scene before a minor surgery. Like a lipoma excision, or a skin graft. The room is sterilized about fifteen minutes before the patient is wheeled back; no one is allowed in without a mask. Once the patient comes in and is put under anesthesia, they’re sterilely draped. You can’t even touch the lights without a special sterile holder, and anyone near the sterile field has to wear a ridiculous-looking full-length gown and specially-sized gloves. Continue reading
Holy sh*t, neurology is hard.
(I’m off the soapbox to give y’all a break. Don’t worry, I’ll be back with more faux-righteous anger, probably about how white coats are pretentious germ blankets that we should categorically ban from medicine, next week or so.) Continue reading
crashing resident 