Just an update

Hello inter webs...it's been a while, hasn't it?

Just to get you up to speed, since it's been 6 or 7 mos...I'm back in the great (rainy) NW at the moment with the boy. I'm taking step 2 of the boards relatively soon (as in 6 days, eek!). Then it's off to externships, which is fancy doctor-speak for away rotations at other hospitals. I'm hoping I impress the peeps out here so they'll give me a job as a resident and pay me peanuts to do slave labor for them for the next 3 years. Do you know of any other job that has an 80 hr work week restriction? As in, "You absolutely can NOT work more than 80 hours a week or we get in trouble for working you too hard?" The craziest part is that plenty of residents fudge their hours to look like they work less than they do. We're gluttons for punishment. I don't even want to tell you how little residents get paid; the sad fact is that I'll have my doctorate and I'll be getting less per year than my engineer friend with just his bachelor's degree.

Yes, I knew all of this going in. Yes, it's what everyone has to go through. But what fun is it if I can't whine about it? *wink*

I'm getting to the point where I feel like a real doctor every once in a while...it's a little scary. I hope I'll have some good stories to share soon. In the meantime, I'm off to brave the rain and study!

You would think...

...that delivering babies for a living would mean that you were happy, nice, and lovey-dovey, right?

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. You must be a medical student to be that many flavors of wrong.

I actually like the subject matter of OB/Gyn, but having just finished my first two weeks on the rotation in high-risk OB, I can safely say that any and all desire I may have had to be an OB/Gyn is officially dead, buried, and recycled into mulch. It may even have been reincarnated by now.

It's interesting that a specialty that deals with pregnancy and child bearing is an environment that causes one to eat one's young--by that I mean that the attendings are either dismissive or abrasive which pisses off the fellows/residents, the fellows pimp* the residents which makes them crabby, the residents live in fear of retribution and are overworked and exhausted, making then even more bitchy, and then the students get the lion's share of the shit. See, we're at the bottom of the food chain, so we get eaten first.

There's only 6 more weeks to go. Wish me luck.

*Pimping is the act of asking your underling questions about conditions, prognoses, or anything else in order to "help their learning" and if you're lucky cause them to faint/cry/shit a brick. It is actually referred to as "pimping" in the medical field.

Belated Done with Surgery Post

Surgery Rotation Billing Sheet:

1 cute blue scrub hat with cute blue flowers.....$12
My favorite travel coffee mug.....$10
Losing any and all desire to become a surgeon.....Priceless.

This is my life.

I got home early at 3:30 today because lecture which was supposed to go until 5 was canceled. I checked some emails and stuff, and thought I'd take a nap--4:30 to 6, say, then actually use my suddenly free afternoon to go to the gym, cook some dinner for once, and study.

When my phone rang, I sat up in bed totally disoriented and flailing. The boy was calling me; I couldn't make the time out on the phone very well. "Hello?"
"Hi hon, what are you doing?"
"I was asleep...what time is it?"
"It's about 10, your time."

Wha what? Yes folks, I came home and took a 6 hour nap without missing a beat. And what now? Well, I've prepared both my lunch and dinner for tomorrow because I will be spending all day at the hospital (literally--6 am to 7 or 8 pm), prepped the coffee maker to make life-sustaining brew at 4:25 am, and tried to forget that I'm actually paying for the privilege to do this. I'm not actually trying to complain; I'm just marveling at how weird my life has become. Off to bed for the second time tonight!