Sunday . June 2 . 2002 . 5:02pm |
lost weekend Despite the fact that we had last Monday off for Memorial Day, it's been an incredibly long week. I was on call all day Saturday, and had to go in early this morning to round on my patients. Thankfully, I got out around 11am and have a glorious 17-hour break before I have to return to the hospital. And a beautiful 17 hours it is, too. Yesterday on call, I scrubbed into more cases than I had the whole rest of the week. Maybe because I generally try to make it a point not to scub on any cases unless I absolutely have to, because scrubbing traps you in the OR for the entire duration of the case, no matter how long it lasts. And let's not forget the no-scratching-or-peeing- or-moving-for-hours aspect of it. So, when at all possible, I like to just stand a little ways back from the operating table (or even better, to get a head-on view next to the anesthesiologist) and just watch. But since I was on call yesterday, I was kind of cornered. Yesterday's patients I've dubbed the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. First, the Good: your classic young kid with appendicitis, where we quickly and efficaciously removed the offending appendage. Badda bing. The Bad: a middle aged man who, after getting into a drunken brawl, was knifed in the belly and had to be explored for internal organ damage. And then, the Ugly: drainage of a peri-rectal abscess. Basically, this guy needed us to drain a pus collection from around his anus. And let me tell you, the poo was flying. I've decided to change around my schedule slightly for next year as well. Now that I've decided once and for all that I'm doing Peds (and believe me, my resolve to do so strengthens every day of this current rotation), I've decided that I should shift around some of my electives to create a solid, more directed first trimester of fourth year to build up my application a little bit. As such, I won't be working in the Peds ER this upcoming July. I still might do it some other time later in the year, but in terms of logistics, I think it would be better to do a general Peds ward Sub-I early on, and follow it up with a PICU sub-I in October. Since my rudimentary strategy for residency application is basically to prove to people that Michelle Does Good Work (and have them echo similar sentiments to people in authority) it would probably be better to work on a team with the same people every day rather than do shift work with randoms rotating through night-to-night. Who would vouch for me if them only worked for me two night shifts over an entire month? Who, I ask of you? So even though I would like to assume the Doug Ross mantle, this July may not be the right time. The down side to doing the Peds Sub-I in July, though I'm really quite excited about it, is that my whole summer is basically shot. I'll be on Surgery until June 21st (my birthday, by the way--and what a happy birthday it will be) and on Peds through all of July, with a similarly punishing schedule. Actually, it will be even more grueling, when you think about it, since I'll be taking 24-hour call Q4 (every four days) and just generally working harder because I'll be a Sub-I. And August, I'll probably be doing an Infectious Disease consult elective, which, while it doesn't include call or weekend work, is still allegedly one of the more time-intensive consult services on which to work. So goodbye to those lazy hazy crazy days of summer. MICHELLE I'm not going to get to be outside this summer at all. I'm going to be like Batgirl. In a cave. JOE Well, at least we'll have the next summer off. MICHELLE Are you high? Next summer we'll be starting our intern year. We'll never see the light of day again. JOE But before that, we'll have off. MICHELLE When will we have off? JOE You know, with the wedding and graduation and stuff. MICHELLE That's spring. That's not summer. No more summers off. Ever. JOE Just like Real People with jobs. MICHELLE I wish I was a Real Person. On the whole, I would say that despite the length of it, this week has gone better than the last. I'm still not going to do Surgery or anything, and I'm still counting down the days until this rotation ends, but it's slightly more tolerable. I guess I'm getting into the swing of things. Inevitably, of course, the moment I'll really feel comfortable handling the ins and outs of this rotation is the day that it ends. Med school is a little like that. A gigantic obscure conversation that you join midstream, in which at the moment you finally catch onto what's being talked about, people change the subject. Actually, I guess that applies to life in general. xo Michelle |
