Sunday, May 04, 2008

My last rotation of formal intern year is awesome. General Medicine with a super team that's really efficient. It's great - I'm busier than my last rotation and I get to leave earlier. We're usually always out by 5 and when we're not busy, we take turns who goes for half days. Have gotten a couple interesting cases (the most recent one of an infected fluid-filled emphysematous bulla in a crack cocaine user) and have a decent level of autonomy. I'm really glad I'm ending with a good one.



Call can be really brutal though so I'm soooo counting them down. There was a saturday in April that was absolutely horrendous, o2 desats all over the place with neither myself or my partner going to bed and staying late on sunday while the intern coming on was waiting for his locum partner. Yesterday was ok, got to bed at 3:30 after an aspiration pneumonia with bad desat and a DKA that wasn't picked up in the A&E. I then wasted the rest of this gorgeous day sleeping. I'm so glad I'm going into a 3 year program and don't have to repeat intern year!



I actually found myself at a loss for words last night when a nurse asked me, "Would it not be better for both of you to be carrying your own bleeps instead of switching?" I was like "No, because then both people would be up for 24+ hours with no break since we only take like 30 min for lunch and dinner instead of us swapping so that we can each get 4 hours of sleep." She really didn't understand it. I was like "Would YOU like to be working for 24-30 hours? would YOU like to work 2 of your mere 12 hour shifts back-to-back?" Maybe this is why doctors and nurses don't get along because some really lack logic or the ability to think critically. I'm going to get shot for saying that but I'm generally nice to everyone and this inability of people to think logically or outside their own box really annoys me. There are fantastic nurses out there who I really like but for every one of them, there's like 5 dumbass/lazy ones who boil your blood on a daily basis.



Anyway, the day job is great and the free time has let me get all my stuff ready for going to NY. The number of forms you have to fill out is unbelievable. And then you have to do all the stuff for NY medical licensing and when you're reading through one form then you figure out you have to apply for something else and it costs like a grand! And you have to keep going back to the medical school office for your diplomas/transcripts/deans letters/etc. Anyway, I think it's mainly all sorted now. Hopefully everything's all set!



So I leave June 15th and I've already had to say good bye to one of my best friends, which was sad and weird. She just fininshed medical school and is now galavanting through south america. It is strange moving away from people I see virtually every single day and I'm sure I'll be making a lot of long-distance phone calls. Hopefully coming back once or twice next year (obviously around rowing events!).

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