Maybe surgery isn't sooo bad after all....

My first week of surgery is officially in the books....only 11 more weeks and 3 weekend calls to go!

Overall, surgery is a lot better than I thought it would be, but there is still no way i'd want to pursue it. The OR is a lot of fun and definitely the highlight of the rotation, but I don't love it enough to give up patient care....plus the hours suck. So far I've scrubbed in on 3 cases which have all been unique in their own way. One was a Lap distal pancreatectomy and splenectomy, one thyroidectomy and one ventral hernia repair. It's been interesting bringing back all my anatomy and actually applying it. I think surgery is the one place that you actually need to know where something should be, but also where else it could be.

One bad thing about surgery is that when I get home the absolute LAST thing i want to do is study. Sooo I'm finding it hard to get a chance to do anything more than read up on what ever case I may scrub. I guess that's what weekends are for?

Noxolo

Bang bang

The other day on living social they had a deal for target shooting for an hour for 2 people at a place in Livonia. Since my roommate has NEVER shot a gun, and we dooo live in the D, I figured it would be a good experience. We get an hour of range time, ear/eye protection, targets, two 9mm's and ammo...all for $28! I'm not sure when we'll go since I start surgery tomorrow...but hopefully sooner than later! I went to a different range about a month ago now, tons of fun! (If that's what you're into I guess)

In other news....MN football is somehow 4-0!? Pretty sure that hasn't happened since I was back in undergrad..which feels like forever ago. I might have to see if they play out here this season and get some tickets.

Cheers

IM...done!

So, my first rotation of 3rd year is done! I took the internal medicine shelf this morning and pending some sort of catastrophe on thattttt I am done with IM. It's pretty bitter sweet. I really enjoyed IM and have all but decided that is the route I want to take for residency! I still need to do a sub-I and a few electives to further solidify, but that's the way it's looking as of now.

Up next, surgery....welp. We'll see...it's going to be a longgg 3 months. The hours are looking like 5am-5pm, plus Q6 call.

In other news....I recently got a Keurig! It's pretty darn amazing. The chai latte, coffee and tea are all really good.

It's weird to have a free weekend...it has been a while. We'll see if I get anything done, might just need to relax.

As for the IM shelf...I really dislike when you take tests and about half way through you realize there was no good way to study for it. I did quite a bit of studying for IM...between step up to medicine, kaplan lecture notes, UW and USMLE Rx....I put in a few hours to say the least. However, there were still tons of Qs on there that were simply out of left field. I guess we'll see when scores come back in a few weeks.

Noxolo

and it continues...

So I guess it's been a little bit since I updated....in all fairness I've been kept pretty busy!

Lets see...as of now I have 2 more weeks of IM left! I started on a new team this month and it's crazy how different teams can be. It's still a ton of fun and I learn a lot, but it's just different. Here are a couple of pictures from last months team. Our attending was really nice and took us out to lunch on one of our last days.

Coming up in 2 weeks I also have the IM shelf which will be a little weird. It'll be the first test i've taken since step 1 a little over 6 months ago...crazy!

As for now, back to studying and trying to stay sane! At least football started and the weather is cooling down!

Noxolo

Another week done...

It's crazy how fast the time flies by! This week I was on night call, my first of many, and it wasn't too shabby. I think half of that has to do with having great residents to work with. We never really get scutted out and they love to talk and teach about PE skills or work ups on patients. With that...our attending right now is amazing as well. She really takes time to work through differentials and treatments for our patients even if they are very basic such as asthma or ACS. What is now second nature to her is somewhere in our minds...just not as organized and fluent as it should be. It's going to take one heck of a team to top this one next month but from the general consensus around here is that everyone is great soooo we'll see.

We have had a lot of lectures this week and I can honestly say i've taken something away from all of them...which is a rare feat in todays world where we have far too many lectures IMHO.

I really need to get back on my studying...night call really threw me off by a few days trying to catch up with sleep. Oh well.

Noxolo

It always gets busy at the end

Yesterday was my first day on call and it wasn't too shabby. Here we are on Q4 call meaning we're on call every 4th day. We also alternate between day and night call. So either 7am-7pm or 7pm-7am. Yesterday I was on day call and of course it was slow. I mean really slow. Until the last couple of hours which is exactly what you would expect to happen.

It was nice to kind of have a more relaxing day, get a little bit of studying done and see how the residents handle their busy work when we were in a lull. I couldn't be more happy about our team this month. My Jr, Sr and attending all really enjoy teaching and make sure to stop and always keep us involved whether it be through pimping, PE skills or just running through protocol work ups on our patients. It has all been really fun up til now, but having a solid team who is willing to teach and recognize where we are in our training is the cherry on top.

Yesterday I also had my first admit which I was completely nervous for...why...I have no clue. So when you're on call your Sr will get a call from the ER and then someone, usually the med student, will go down and see the patient in the ER. We take a complete H & P, talk it over with our Jr, who then also has to see the patient and fill in/double check the important info we gathered.  I think I was really fortunate to have a patient who was very lively, friendly and kind of just along for the ride.

I think both of my patients were DC'd today so tomorrow may be a pretty quiet one. Which is never really the case...always studying, presentations, meetings, lectures, etc....but..it's fun. Even though I've only been on inpatient for all of 5 days now, I think I could see myself doing this....I guess we'll see

Noxolo

A whole new world....

Today was my first day of inpatient and let me say, it's a whole different world than outpatient. I like some aspects, others not so much...I guess it's just different. There is nothing like being back to the bottom of the totem pole....We have our attending, a Sr resident, 2 Jr residents, a 4th year Med Sub-I, another 3rd year med student and a post intern year doc acting as an observer this month. Needless to say, our team of 7 could beat just about any other IM team in a tug of war match this month!

In outpatient my days were more 8-4...see a patient, present, see with the Dr, then move to the next. With inpatient there are a lot more lectures (resident lectures, student lectures) and we all round on all our patients together...then more lectures. Either way I feel like I'm learning which is good, but it makes me feel like I know nothing still because it is never ending.

Such is life.

Noxolo