medicine! wooooo!

Well, it's been awhile, so much has happened!

Finished my OB/GYN rotation in June in the Rotunda doing Labour Ward nights (ie. the 10 pm to 8 am shift). I thought I'd hate it, but I really enjoyed it. I delivered my first baby on June 19th @ 4:51 am, and he was the cuuuutest little baby boy I've ever seen. The parents were fantastic, and let me give him his first bottle and play with him for awhile, took a picture of me feeding him and brought me the picture the next day! That was really sweet. It was a good rotation but I don't think I'd want to do it for my life. Delivering babies and everything involved with that region...it's just kinda gross.

Spent the month of July finishing off the rowing season. This month is my "holiday" month, which wasn't much of a holiday between moving to different places, catching up on errands, and the rollercoaster that is rowing. The national championships were on the 14th and 15th, and in our 8's race, we came 2nd. We rowed decently, but we were pretty disappointed with that. The team which came 1st beat us by a long way, but at least we'd gained some back on them from our last race in June. Anyway, that's team rowing done for me - will probably scull next year since I can't commit to team training while doing finals. It's been enjoyable, and Captaining this year has also been enjoyable, but I think it would have been even more so if I didn't have so many things going on (ie. stupid group projects and the TSMJ (student med journal) which became the bane of my existence for 2 months). Definitely glad to have a break!

Now doing an elective in MICU (medical intensive care) at the Cleveland Clinic. This is only my 2nd day, and it's awesome. I love it, and I love being here. And I love that I know this job will be the right one for me. So my first day yesterday was eventful enough with consults. Today was a little harder because my team were on codes (as in "code blue code blue!"). Since Cleveland Clinic is so large, you actually have to run from floor to floor and building to building every time a code is called. It's like ER or Scrubs. But what made today hard was not the fact that we were dealing with patients nearly on their death beds, but talking to their families afterwards, and they're crying and appreciative of your work but obviously very sad, and it's really touching. You try to remove yourself a little without being cold-hearted, and it's hard to do. I nearly cried, my junior resident actully did cry. And several codes happened within the space of like 2 hours so you couldn't get a break from the depression. So that bit obviously no one likes, but it was really good to see how the jr. and sr. residents handled it. Then after work, we went to a happy hour/dinner that was being held for the residents (I think I was the only med student there) and it was just my team + fellow there, and we just had the best time making fun of each other. My team is awesome, everyone is really nice, and I actually got a speech from the fellow yesterday about how we're all one big family and if I'm unhappy, they're unhappy, etc. This is the most organized rotation I have ever had with orientation, accommodation, pagers, nearly everything for free, and they're so keen on teaching.

The work hours are long but time passes by without you realizing. So I usually start at 9 am, which means 8 if I have to pre-round (everyone else is there at 7), and then you're done by 6 or 6:30 pm. Unless you're on call, which I am tomorrow...then you don't finish til noon the following day. So unfortunately, haven't had time to visit the gym any, but maybe I will my post call day or tomorrow morning before pre-rounding. And, I love that this rotation I can stay in scrubs and sneakers. So much more comfortable! And, hopefully by the end of the week I'll have put in a central line, several IV and arterial lines, ABGs, Corpaks (PEG system), etc. AWESOME.

I'm really impressed by this rotation so far, I'm considering internal medicine now as well (ie route to EM and ICU). ICU wouldn't be a bad field to be in. It's definitely an active medicine (although ward rounds do take 3 hours, which I don't like), and it's chaotic enough without being too chaotic. I loved A&E (ER) in St. James's, but that emergency dept is a lot smaller than the ones in the US. I visited the ED in Cleveland Clinic, and that seemed a bit insane - unhappy chaotic, not a good kind of chaotic. And in MICU, we're probably doing all the same procedures they're doing in ER anyway.

Oh, and I passed the USMLEs. Not a great score, but I always knew that'd be my downfall. I don't study enough, so it'll be cool to see what happens next yr when i actually do study!