Coasting

It's been a long time since I could ever consider coasting at anything. This journey has been long and arduous, much longer than most people know. However, with a little bit of planning and some diligent work, I have carved out a small amount of time over the next few months where the pace of things will slow down, and I won't have something hanging over me every night when I get home. I have jumped over all the the big medical school hurdles, and really all that remains is time.

Certainly there are more things left for me to experience before I am completely done, but most of these are good things, something to look forward to. The obvious landmark is Match Day, when most medical students in the US find out where they are doing their Residency. That date is exactly 8 weeks from today (March 18). That day has been almost 5 years in the making for me, so needless to say I am ready. Graduation will be the other defining moment, a day to celebrate my classmates and my accomplishments, where we will officially be conferred our MD degrees.

I am thankful for my experiences to this point, and on some level will miss my medical school time. It is not quite time for me to be completely reflective, but I am sure that time come soon.

Resurrection

I'm sitting here trying to avoid working on my thesis anymore and I thought I would give it a run with another post. It has been a very long time since I have even checked this, so I certainly don't expect anyone to really be following it. There is something cathartic, however, about just writing something down sometimes.

Things have really progressed since my last post and I am at the verge of submitting my application for Residency. Needless to say, it's been quite a long journey to this point, but mostly it's been enjoyable. Certainly I have much of the journey left to make, but it with be as an MD, something that I imagine will be better than being a medical student. I expect the work to be harder, which is okay.

With my bit of ADD, I am looking forward to a change in pace and scenery, but have no idea what that new setting will be. Perhaps the scene will not change so much, just the circumstances, which is also okay.

So here's a post to renewal!

The internet is a crazy thing

So, just out of curiosity, I googled "CCLCM" to try to figure out what things would pop up. Well, I found that even though I have done nothing to publicize this blog, links to it appear in random places. I am not a computer expert by any stretch, and have no idea what technorati is, so some of this stuff is funny to me.

There is really nothing new on the med school front. I am settling in to research and think I am finally getting comfortable with the pace (a little slower than I am used to from my clinical rotations). Things will actually pick up quite a bit now that I have received confirmation of my grant funding (yah!) and can start ordering animals and supplies. I am also recovering from a cold, so tomorrow will take a few minutes to get back into the swing of things after missing most of last week.

Making up for lost time

So it's been forever since I last posted. I am now on research and trying to plan for Residency. Although I still have 2 years left, I need to have things lined up for away rotations, applications, and Step II CK and CS while I am on research. Now that I have finished my Basic Core rotations, I am looking forward to elective time where I get to design my curriculum.

This also provides me the opportunity to use my new computer, a Lenovo ThinkPad T61. So far I have really enjoyed it, and am trying to get used to Vista and the few hiccups along the way. Hopefully, I will take more of an opportunity to stay up on this now.

How to prevent disaster?!?!?!

I've learned that no matter how big the hospital seems, it has the potential to shrink at just the wrong moment. Today I was reminded about how important it is to carefully monitor everything you say, regardless of what your intentions are. I seem to find myself asking questions in the wrong manner or venting about a less than optimal experience at just the wrong time. I somehow managed to disparage an entire medical specialty today with one simple question.

The question was innocent enough, but it's all about context. It is impossible to predict what reaction someone may have. I think the difficulty is that you are constantly being evaluated as a medical student, in a way that you are not really sure what to do sometimes. I don't have any desire to be disingenous about my goals or career plans, but at the same time I want Attendings to know that I take their rotation seriously. You want to be eager without being over the top. You want to be interested without being patronizing. You want to learn without fear of a negative evaluation.

It is interesting that sometimes learning and the process of evaluation don't coincide, and may even conflict. Studying for the test, and being prepared for life aren't necessarily the same thing. In medicine, you hope these two line up. You also hope that ultimately truth prevails regardless of context.

Will I really miss surgery?

As I transition from surgery to outpatient internal medicine, I am dealing with mixed emotions. Surgery is physically and mentally demanding because the days are long and you never really feel completely on top of what you are doing. You come in early and stay late, and you're lucky to get a break to grab a bite to eat at any reasonable time. But, I enjoyed it. I am interested in doing surgery as a career and it's almost like a rite of passage to go through this type of life. However, as a student, it's nice to have a little bit of a break to catch up on reading and doing the things that you've had to neglect because time and exhaustion do not work in your favor. It's also weird to just leave patients that you've worked with over the past month to another group of students who are not up to date with all that has been going on in the lives of these patients. As I had a chance to catch up on some rest this weekend, I actually started to mourn the death of my surgical experience. I know I will have the opportunity to do more as I approach my Residency choices, but I was surprised that I had such a visceral response to this rotation ending.

Time for the good stuff

So, now that I have taken (and passed) Step 1, it is time to move on to the fun stuff. I started surgery rotations on Tuesday and thus far it has been fun. Tonight (as I sit here at 4:28 am) is my first night of call. It has been an interesting experience, though not as crazy as it might have been. I have tried to make it through the night without sleeping because that is what hard core people do. I will probably regret this at a later date, but it has been fun learning new ways to get around the hospital and surviving on Mountain Dew. I really don't have any major cool things to mention other than the fact that I am closing in on finishing my first night of call, which will certainly not be the last.