Will I be able to introduce myself as "author" at parties?

So my attending asked me if I would be interested in co-authoring a case report on an interesting patient. Um, hell yeah I would! Here's hoping the patient agrees to being written about.*

*identifiers would be removed, obviously.

Post Holiday Schedule

Well, we had our second to last lottery tonight so now I know what my schedule will look like until the spring.

I have Family Medicine first for four weeks at Swedish Covenant Hospital, then Emergency Medicine for four weeks at Mt. Sinai, and then Medicine for eight weeks at Lutheran General. Family Med is great because that hospital is only a 5 minute drive away. Emergency Med will be good because it is the only location where students get to work on the trauma side of the ED (it's broken up into trauma or medicine, with trauma being stabbings and gun shots and fun stuff, and medicine being headaches and stomach aches and boring stuff). And Lutheran will be good because the commute is decent, the teaching there is good, they have a gym that I can get a cheap membership to while I'm there, and I'll be on that rotation with several good friends.

Yay!

You know you are an adult

when you start springing for the expensive 2-ply super soft toilet paper.

How Shocking

Yesterday I got to witness electroconvulsive therapy. And with one of the patients I got to press the button to deliver the shock. Hee hee. I kinda liked that. Is that weird?

The Target dollar bins

are the most dangerous place in the world. Seriously. I walk by and think, "oh, it's just a dollar" and then proceed to put numerous knick-knacks, paddywhacks, and anything else in my basket. By the time I get to the checkout, I've got about $10 extra dollars worth of stuff from the dollar bins alone. So I now try to either not look, or just walk away.

But today I couldn't resist. They had Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer lip balm! Rudolph is my favorite of all the holiday specials. They had different ones for the different characters. It was soooo hard, but I only bought one. Can you guess which character I chose?


(I found this pic online at http://x-entertainment.com/updates/2010/11/12/rudolph-the-red-nosed-lip-balm/, so thanks to whomever took it. Also, ignore the one on the right. It was also at Target, but I don't give a damn about it. Imagine instead if it were one of Clarice, Rudolph's lady-friend, because my Target had that one, too. Now if they only had Yukon Cornelius!)

I chose the Bumble! (he's my favorite)

Dear Chicago,

I really like you, I do. Except for your traffic. It is horrible. And your drivers (but that is for another post). It took me almost 2 hours to get home yesterday. That is unacceptable. Today was better, but only because I didn't leave the hospital until after 9:30pm.

Booooooo to traffic. I don't know how people don't just get out of their cars and start screaming and beating things up with a baseball bat, because that is kind of what traffic makes me feel like doing.

I guess it's a good thing I don't own a baseball bat.

Oy vey!

I know, right? It's been a long time since I posted! I figured I didn't really need to post anymore since most people I knew were also on Facebook. Then one of those people (ahem-cough-mom-cough) decided they didn't like Facebook. So much for that.

Okay, so where did we leave off? This feels like an awkward run in with someone you haven't seen since high school, where you both shuffle your feet and ask what's been going on. Ugh. So we'll skip quickly to the present. I'm in Psychiatry, and really liking it. There's something about asking, "so how does that make you feel" that I really like. Plus the hours are nice. Before this I did OB/Gyn, and while I really liked that, the hours were brutal. Not having to get up at 4am is wonderful. What really gets me now is watching shows like "Grey's Anatomy" where they show surgeons getting up at 7am. Um, no. They are usually up before sunrise, at the hospital and rounding on patients around 6:30am. And their residents usually see the patients before them. And the medical students usually see the patients before the residents. So when those characters on tv shows wake, and the sun is up and filtering through the blinds, it is toooooootally fake. Hmph.

In addition to rotations, I am really enjoying living in Chicago. The traffic may be absolutely horrendous, but I like exploring all the different neighborhoods, and there is always something to do. My roomie and I have been trying to eat at a different restaurant each month, which has been a great way to try out new places in our neighborhood. Last month it was a Peruvian place a few miles away, and this past Saturday it was an Italian place within walking distance.

It's also starting to get colder right now, which would normally piss me off at any other time of the year, but since it's the beginning of winter, I'm okay with it. Most of the leaves are gone off the trees on our street, but I've put up some Christmas decorations in the apartment to get over the end of fall (my favorite season). This week is Thanksgiving, which I will again be spending with some lovely ladies I went to high school with (no awkward shuffling there!) as I have done the last few Thanksgivings. None of us are able to make it home for the holiday, so we have what we call, "Urban Family Thanksgiving". It's actually a ton of fun, and we try to make a whole weekend out of it. Thursday will of course consist of eating a tremendous amount of food and imbibing ridiculous quantities of wine, and Friday we will go for drinks at The Violet Hour, dinner at Red Star, and then dancing in Boys Town (the "rainbow friendly" area of town - so lots of awesome dance music without having to worry about being groped by drunks guys!). I don't know about Saturday, but on Sunday I think the roomie and I will check out the Jim Henson exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry, and then maybe check out the holiday lights on the Magnificent Mile or head to the Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza. Here's a pic of us from last year at the market.



We are drinking warm yummy mugs full of gluwein! I'm sure we will get more this year, too! :)

Long time, no write

Hello!

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. I have been super busy moving into the city and starting my clinical rotations. I am officially a 3rd year student, and so far things are going great. I just finished my Ambulatory Care rotation in which I worked at a Nephrology Clinic, an Endocrine Clinic, and a General Internal Medicine Clinic, all of them scattered throughout the Chicago area. I start my Neurology rotation tomorrow. Wish me luck!

I probably won't be posting much because of time constraints, and because we still don't have internet at our apartment. I am able to connect through a neighbor's wireless router every once in a while, but it is very very slow. How did we ever get anything done with dial up?!

There's no place like home

My first night in the new apartment and we had a severe thunderstorm and the tornado siren went off twice. Awesome.

Daddy Day

Happy Father's Day to the best Dad ever! Hope you are enjoying your homemade jerky. I gotta say, it's not as fun moving without you. :) Love and miss you!

Oh Bill Maher

I've never watched you, but I think I need to start.

Woot woot!

Well, I passed all my classes. I am officially half way through med school!

Now I just have to get through that pesky Step 1 exam.....

It did help to take a break last night though and go see this.





Hee hee. No, I'm not almost 30 years old.

Yowzers

This is my first choice for my Emergency Medicine rotation. Should be interesting.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=7451739

Ugh.

I only have one more final, but I can barely sit still to study for it. I am so tired of studying, and my legs ache from sitting all day. How am I gonna do this for another 2 weeks to prepare for Step 1?!

Cuteville/Awesometown

Those are the nicknames we have given to our new little neighborhood. We signed a lease today!

It is a great 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment with an office, a sunroom, a deck, and in unit laundry on the third (and top) floor of an older building near Lincoln Square. We fell in love with it when we saw it, and we were so happy when the owners agreed to start a lease 2 weeks after what they were initially looking for. Yay for Cuteville/Awesometome, population 2!

Mommy Dearest

Happy Mother's Day to the best Mom ever! She's smart, funny, compassionate, a million times better than any Fred Meyer mom, and she never cared if I used wire hangers.

Love you Mommy!

A small victory

So I just figured out that I can get less than 50% on my finals and still pass all my classes for this year. And although I would like to do better than just pass, this still gives me a small amount of relief.

Sigh.

If only Step 1 were the same way. :)

We didn't get the apartment

They want to get someone in there sooner.
The email I sent to my future roomie when I found out this afternoon:

%$$$$$$$$$$$$ck.
%$ck.
Is it wrong for me to want the landlord to get a nasty disease, so then he can be all like, "Damn! If only I had two awesome med student girls as my tenants, I could totally ask them what the F is wrong with me! Why, God, why didn't I suck up that one month of rent? Why?????!!!!!"
Stupid Foster.
I'm upstairs cursing him if you want to strategize our next move.
PS...I hope they get crack addict renters who brew meth and breed pitbulls in the bathroom. %$cktards.

Edited for this family-friendly blog, of course.
Seriously, though. Please curse this man with me. He deserves it. If I fail my classes and boards because I'm out looking for an apartment yet again, I will exact revenge on him, and it will not be pretty. It will not be pretty.

Apartment

We found a couple places we really liked today, and are submitting an application for our top choice. The owner really wants someone in there mid-May, so keep your fingers crossed that they accept us even though we don't want to start a lease until mid-June!

Marriage

Best Facebook update I've seen in a while:

"So...Larry King is getting his 8th divorce, Elizabeth Taylor is possibly getting married for a 9th time, Jesse James and Tiger Woods are sleeping with everyone, yet the idea of same-sex marriage is what is going to destroy the institution of marriage?? REALLY??"

Well said my friend, well said.

Hunting...

...for an apartment! Tomorrow will be my third trip down into the city with my future roomie Anna. We are seeing a few more places we weren't able to see over the weekend. Keep your fingers crossed for us, because as we enter exam time we won't be able to really make any more trips down. Here's hoping we've got a place in Lincoln Square or Ravenswood by this time next week!

My life for the next year

So I pretty much know what I will be doing for the next year now. I don't know where yet, but I know what, and when.

Confused? I got my track lottery results. Still confused? M'kay, it goes a little something like this....

At my school we rotate at various hospitals in and around Chicago. We go through a lottery process for everything. So, each student starts out with 20 points. Our first lottery is for track assignments. The breakdown is 8 weeks medicine, 8 weeks surgery, 8 weeks family med-emergency med, 6 weeks neuro-ambulatory care, 6 weeks pediatrics, 6 weeks ob/gyn, and 6 weeks psychiatry (anything listed with 2 has each one taking up half the 8 or 6 weeks). There are 24 possible combinations for us to choose from for what order we want to do these in. We have to rank them all and assign them points (if we want to waste points on them - we only get 20 total, and that covers track lottery, hospital lotteries, and sub-i lottery 4th year). Last Friday we turned in our track rankings, and we just found out what track we got.

So I've got neuro-ac, peds, ob/gyne, psych, Christmas break, family med-emed, medicine, and surgery last (bleh!). Not exactly what I was hoping for (I got my 13th choice - ouch!) but oh well. At least I am doing surgery last. And the neuro-ac slot allows for lots of free time, so I guess I will be enjoying my summer! I guess it could be worse.

Also, Mom and Dad, I know I haven't talked to either of you in a while - sorry! I'm really starting to freak out about exams and step 1, so I'm kind of Ms. Crazy Pants right now. And when I do think to call, it's usually pretty late. So know I love you and miss you, and just can't get my sh*t together to pick up the phone. :)

Hoppy Easter!

Miss you Mom and Dad! I hope that whatever you are doing today you are eating some deviled eggs while you do it! :)

Huh.

So apparently it was warmer in Chicago today than it was in Miami.

Well that was interesting

So I finally completed the female exam this past weekend. I have to say, it wasn't nearly as good as the male exam. Not that I am passing judgement on anybody's parts or anything, it's just that this time I had to go in with a couple of guys I didn't know, it took a lot longer, and there was no "Yay!"-ing after we completed different portions of the exam. No, this time we had a standardized patient who was really tired and kept telling us to wake her up if she fell asleep, and a hippy-ish older woman directing us on how to perform the exam. She totally seemed like she would of been at home in a pair of birkenstocks, and when one of the guys asked her about painkillers during childbirth, I could tell it was a struggle for her not to go off on a tangent about how it was bad for the baby, and not natural, and so on (not that I have a problem with childbirth either way - I say do whatever you're comfortable with - it just wasn't an appropriate time to discuss it, what with the standardized patient falling asleep in the stirrups and all). Add to that a couple of guys who seemed really nervous, and one who was practicing his bi-manual exam technique in the corner, and it was an interesting morning.

It's weird though. I talked to someone afterwards, and we both agreed that you go in, you try to act as professional as possible, you immediately get over seeing some stranger's naughty bits, you do your thing, and then you leave,and it's not until after you leave that you look back and think, "I just DID that? I just did THAT! What the hell?!"

Wow.

That actually wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Even thinking about it now is worse than the actual event. It helped that our standardized patient was the same guy in all the online videos we watched last year to learn the head-to-toe exam, so it was kind of like learning with an old friend! And old friend who is now in the flesh, and in the buff!

It also helped that we worked in groups of three, and I got to go in with some pretty kick ass girls, A and N. There were lots of "yays!" and "oh, that's what it feels like!" and there may have even been some happy dancing when we each completed the exam. Our standardized patient cheered right along with us, and was totally awesome at making us feel comfortable and at ease, even when his cell phone alarm went off right as A was about to start the prostate exam. That was slightly awkward, but we all laughed it off and joked that it was actually a buzzer because A failed.

Now on to the female exam in a couple of weeks!

Pray for me

Because tomorrow morning I will have to do what I have been dreading all year long. The male exam.

That's right. Testicle, hernia, rectal, and prostate, bright and early tomorrow morning. All on a kindly standardized patient who gets paid to have med students touch his junk.

Stay tuned...horror stories to follow.

Or perhaps anesthesiology?

Hmmm...surgery doesn't sound so bad

All Dogs Go To Heaven

RIP my sweet Maxie. I already miss you terribly.

What's going on with this Medicare cut?

Check out Happy's post here.

Ready, set, go!

My apartment is clean, my taxes are done, and my freezer is stocked with Costco goods. I am ready for the next term. It just so happens this will be my last term of classes before starting rotations. Now that is a scary thought. Come July I will be hitting the hospitals and caring for patients. Yikes. To be honest, it still doesn't even feel like I'm really in medical school. I mean, yeah, I'm in school, and working my butt off, but it doesn't feel like how I thought it would feel. My school is a little different. Our main campus is outside of the city and does not have a teaching hospital on the grounds like most other schools. Sure, there is the VA hospital next door, but it's not the same. So, because of this, I feel my medical school education has been different from those who attend other medical schools. You don't see clinicians walking around in their white coats, getting pages and rushing off to see patients. Not that there is anything wrong with this. In fact a lot of my professors write board review books, and my school is known for its students getting good board scores and great residency placements. But it still doesn't feel like how I thought it would feel. So this change coming in July is pretty huge. Not just because I'll be in the hospital, but because I think I'll finally feel like I am truly in medical school.

It's exciting, but I also kind of want to pee my pants.

Done!

Take THAT Pharmacology......hiii-yaaa!


Now where is that beer? :)

A quick peak into hell week

Also known as finals week.

I've had 3 exams already this week, one taken on only 2.5 hours of sleep. We'll see how that one turns out!

Last but not least is Pharmacology. The bane of my existence. It's just a lot of memorization, and trying to remember random drugs with silly little tricks like...

Topiramate. For generalized, partial, and other seizures. It reminds me of America's Next TOP Model. Hmm...models. Weight loss and reduced cognitive ability. Oh, those just happen to be the side effects of TOPiramate! Ha!

This is my desk currently. It doesn't look so bad.



But you can't see the crap I've got spread out on the kitchen table, the couch, the coffee table...

And here are my flash cards.




There's a lot of them. A lot. Look how far up they come next to that pretty little bottle of beer (my treat for tomorrow night when I am done).

And they don't have just one or a few words on the back. They are all packed full of information I need to know. For tomorrow. At 9am. So I better stop blogging and start cramming!

What a wild life I lead

I ventured out of my building for the first time since Friday! It would have been exciting, except it was only to walk to school and take a final. Oh well.

Back into my little study cave until my next exam tomorrow morning. It's gonna be a long night folks.

V Day

Happy Valentine's Day Mom and Dad! Love and miss you both!

Another Saturday spent studying

One of the things a lot of people don't understand about med school, or any other ridiculously rigorous academic program, is the amount of studying you have to put in to know the material. Sure, everyone is all happy and excited and proud to hear you are on this journey, but when you tell them you can't do this or can't do that because you have to study, they just kind of don't believe you. They ask, "well can't you just do it tomorrow?" Um, no, because tomorrow I have another 8 hours of studying other stuff I have to do.

Not that this is directed at any one person. I mean I probably didn't really know what I was getting myself into before starting. I don't think anyone really knows until you are in the middle of it. So here I am, in the middle, not doing much of anything except studying. Incredibly boring, but totally required. So don't get mad if my posts become less frequent and less interesting, m'kay?

Plus the whole Step 1 business coming up. Yikes. Let's not dwell on that.

So life is pretty much the same. Get up, go to class, do some studying, fit in some meetings, more studying, and when I need a break, I'll put something on Netflix while I flip through flash cards or tab my notes for quick reference.

But I think I found a roommate for next year! And sometimes, just sometimes, I'll browse Craigslist for apartments in the city, dreaming of a more exciting life during rotations next year.