A Belated Thanksgiving!

I'd set my 2 week holidays for the end of November, in prepping for a dinner I help organize over in Ireland for my alma mater rowing club. Unfortunately, the dinner fell through due to lack of interest this year (and funds), so we decided to cancel the dinner and I cancelled my trip to Ireland. A shame because I was looking forward to catching up with people, but c'est la vie!

So instead of using my time productively, I went in nearly every day to help my program out with interviews and to talk to the interviewees. I like doing it so I didn't mind, but there went my plans of trying to catch up on some work! Hopefully I can try to put my head down this month and do some study / reading, but it hasn't started out well :).

Then I had a few days at home with the folks for Thanksgiving. I have now realized that Banana Republic, Ann Taylor Loft, and BCBG Maxaria are my ultimate favorite stores and my credit card statements are skewed in those directions :). I figure I deserve it...somehow... ? Although I spent a significant amount of time at home attempting the unsurmountable task of cleaning the house for my parents, we had a nice dinner out at the Cincinnati Marriot hotel for turkey day. Why anyone would choose to cook and clean when they could have an inexpensive fantastic Thanksgiving dinner is beyond me :). So now that I'm nearly done with my 20's, I have a few things to be Thankful for.

1) Of course, the good health and not too many problems in life so far, knock on wood.
2) A stable career which isn't an office job, a career where I can actually help people and feel some satisfaction with on a daily basis (to combat the daily abuses), and a career where it seems I can be successful to the point of recognition in. And of course it helps that it is a financially fulfilling career when compared to most people.
3) I am much happier now than I was this time last year. There's much I can gripe about, but I think I'm used to culture here again and I have a bit more creative time.
4) I passed Step 3 comfortably and never have to do any of those again!!!

Starting December 1st, I'm back in the ER and it didn't take me too long to pick it up again after being on off-service rotations for awhile. There's some times when it's painful, but I'm happy I'm able to truck along quite quickly and so far have been able to clear out the rack, even if I'm the only resident on my side. If I could only do that with my personal projects and my studying ... :).

It's play time!

So after the Step 3, the first thing I did was rent a lot of books from the library and see a ton of shows. This is why I can't move out of my 500 euro / month hole in the wall that is my room, because I keep spending money on other things!

Here's my brief synopses of the ones I saw:
1) After Miss Julie with Sienna Miller - interesting play, not my type of thing but interesting nonetheless. She's this young aristocrat who seduces one of her servants and the ensuing emotional turmoil begins between them as the dynamic between them shifts. Fairly good acting on her part, it must be difficult doing such an emotionally exhaustive role.

2) Oleanna with Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman - again, very good acting, and the concepts discussed throughout the play are provocative, but not really my thing. A little bit wordy and far-reaching. She plays this student who goes to her professor (Bill Pullman) for help, but as he tries to help her she misconstrues his words into sexual harrassment and ends up ruining his life. Her character is quite annoying, but that's the emotion this play is trying to provoke.

3) The Understudy - Julie White, Justin Kirk, Mark Paul-Gosselaar (hottie!) . This play was really funny, and very witty. Not as creative as 33 Variations but very cool anyway. This was about two actors (one understudy to an understudy essentially) and a stage manager trying to produce of kafka play, so there's all these Kafka references which are pretty amusing. I like "intelligent" plays that are funnier if you know what the jokes elude to. Very good acting as well, a little overdone on the cursing but cest la vie.

4) A Steady Rain - Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig (both hotties!) . Interesting play, again not quite my thing but good acting. Very verbal play, not much action. It was a sort of "human" play too as both actors messed up lines or tripped over their tongue occasionally, but hey, they were forced to do American accents for 90 minutes. What was hilarious though was that after the show, they were trying to promote donations for Broadway cares, so they ended up unbuttoning their shirts and displaying their wifebeaters. Daniel Craig had marked his right and left breasts on his wifebeater, and then they auctioned their wifebeaters off for the crowd - an actual auction in the theater. And both wifebeaters went for $7000! They raised $14000 for broadway cares (damn!) and watching this was really funny / exciting. Then they invited people to come backstage to take pictures with them for a mere donation of $2000. Damn...some day I might have that kind of money to throw around...jeez.

5) In the Next Room or The vibrator Play - Laura Benanti (always one of my favorites), Michael Cerveris. This was a really creative play, and the character Benanti plays is brilliant. She's this really enthusiastic, curious young wife with tons of personality. Her husband is a doctor who basically ends up inventing these vibrators to help people overcome "hysteria" / depression / etc. in an age when no one even had a notion of orgasms. So he treats all these patients who obviously love this treatment and she's very curious but he won't really discuss it with her because she's not sick. It ends up delving into the fabric of their relationship . At the end for some rather funny reason it ends up with this make out scene and him ending up completely butt naked. Anyway, it was good.

Oh, and I also went with one of my friends to see the Rob Thomas concert, which was pretty good of course, he's got a great voice. And he pulled John McEnroe (yes the tennis player) on stage to play one of his riffs!! And he was really good, who knew John McEnroe could play guitar well!

So I guess seeing all these makes up for no travel for vacation. I'm going home for Thanskgiving next week. And I get to catch up with some things around here (woo) although I'm not doing a very good job of it!

I've also blown a crapload of moolah on toys for myself, got an awesome dslr to start playing with so hopefully I can have fantastic photos of NZ / Oz when I go in January and shoot happily around central park. Also got some of those fancy noise-cancelling headphones that I wish I'd had during Step 3 study in Barnes and Noble. Wooo.

FREE FROM THE USMLE!! (I hope?!)

The last couple months have been a whirlwind. I just finished sitting Step 3, and honestly, those USMLE people need some help. I take objection to being the subject of some sexually-repressed exam writers who felt it necessary to shove very graphic displays of every penile or vaginal wart possible on my screen with some chancres thrown in for good measure. Obviously 1-2 questions are inevitable, but come on, 15+ ? I really really really do not need to see 15 nasty members of genitalia on my exam, with the new technologically advanced screens they have in the Prometric centers. Nor did I really need to see that xray of a very Sex-and-the-City-ish object shoved some place where it just did not belong, and which I'm sure had a very disturbing story behind how it got there. Nor did I need to be placed right by the door so that every single person entering or exiting the room could glance at my screen. Yes, I did hear an "OH THAT'S SO GROSS" at one point. I'm thinking of writing in to those people and filing a complaint against my excessively obscene exam. I can't believe this is what passes as a medical licensing exam these days!



Anyway, I'm on Ortho rotation now, which I'm finding very disappointing. It's like med school again where you're watching the consultant do history and physical and some very boring pathological findings. And this is coming from me, who absolutely loves Ortho. So needless to say, my attendance has waned.



In October, I did PICU (peds ICU) at one of our peripheral hospitals. Before going into that rotation I was apprehensive because I wasn't that comfortably handling very sick kids. The exposure was good, treating kids with diseases I've never even heard of before. But I found their way of running the PICU and "teaching" residents management of kids was a bit odd - a lot of times it was like trial by fire. My fellow residents were pretty cool and I did not in any way feel like my knowledge was sub-par, and there was one particular resident who annoyed the hell out of me (and her hair really really really reeked too). I hear she's book smart but wow, clinically that really did not come out. The q4 long call was pretty exhausting and there were times I didn't sleep because of coding kids (that was pretty awful). Definitely glad to have my call rotations out of the way and no more WCMC! I really enjoyed my time at WCMC and the pathology is great, but not having to commute and live up there for months at a time is awesome.

In September, part of my month was Ultrasound. I covered night shift sick call frequently so therefore missed most of it. So I really am not comfortably with my level of ultrasound knowledge at this stage. This is something I'm going to have to work on.

Anyway, am now on vacation and free for a little bit. I was all set to go back to Dublin for yet another DULBC dinner, and I was realy looking forward to it. But unfortunately not enough alumni replied, we couldn't get the funds and after a stressful weekend of phone calls and emails, we had to cancel the even to avoid a 1000 euro loss. So after we made this decision, I cancelled my flights to Dublin... there's no point going and spending the money for catching up with one or two people. Such a shame. So now I'm spending my vacation time helping out my program for interview season. And of course, seeing a ton of shows!

I'm a PGY-2!

I finished MICU in June with no further difficulties. Had a relatively laid-back time and found after the Dublin ordeal, I was able to have much more collected thoughts and I'm glad I went for that sense of closure. Unfortunately, I had a case that I'll remember for the rest of my life where one of my patients, a young lady, died from the dreaded Swine Flu (she was immunocompromised as she had just delivered a baby). She developed ARDS, pneumomediastinum requiring bilateral chest tube placement, we placed her on a rotaprone bed with nitrous oxide therapy and at one point were considering ECMO. But it became more and more futile, which was of course very hard for the family to accept. And one of my nights on call, she became very bradycardic which we managed to resus for a few hours, before she coded. I had to call all the family to tell them to rush in, and try to get it into their heads that there was not going to be a miracle, and ask them to let her go peacefully. It was absolutely heart-wrenching, but interesting from a personal standpoint how to think of ways to get them to understand that we had done everything and have the mother sign the DNR. I think eventually what made them understand was that I explained we were not treating her, but treating numbers. I nearly cried at several points, but people seemed to think I was being very strong. But I was also really angry that I was the INTERN who should NOT have the responsibility of doing this. It should have been the senior residents. But, c'est la vie.

This last month was my trauma month in Harlem. I think it was a pretty good month for me, I don't know what I've missed because I didn't get any TICU exposure, but I got a couple chest tubes and some intubations, so I'm happy. Hopefully I'll get more when I go back for my regular ER month in April. I enjoyed it, which I'm pleased about because it's been awhile since I've really enjoyed my ER job. I was worried (and still am) that I have made the wrong career choice, and I still do feel to some degree that I've reached this goal and now I'm bored of it and want something else. But I think maybe as an attending, perhaps I'll be able to do my clinical shifts and who knows, make some money doing something completely different (ie. more creative)? We'll see. I don't think I want to do more than 14-16 shifts a month, but what made it better was that people seemed to value my work at Harlem (patients and attendings alike) and that sense of reward is satisfying. I'm just wary that I fell into this job because I happen to be good at it, not because I have a passion for it.

Summer has really not been summer yet, there have been a couple hot days but many more cold very thundery drizzly days. But I managed to catch a great warm weekend and spent it learning how to sail. The doing is not as difficult as figuring out where your point of sail is, and in that I need much more practice. If it wasn't so expensive I'd be continuing it a bit more this summer, but I need to save more and maybe I'll sign up for the dinghy class later. It was liberating though, although I probably enjoy rowing more. Cycling there gave me a chance to explore a new bike path adjacent to the hudson river though, which was pretty awesome.

I also recently went on my first "date" via match.com, which finally paired me with an attractive intelligent guy instead of a definitely-not-my-type 60 year old....we went the Coffee shop in union square and it was absolutely downpouring. He seems quite interesting, so we'll see where it goes !

Argh.

Well, I typed out a description of the rest of the services and my impromptu trip to Ireland, but something in blogspot messed up and I lost the post. I don't have the energy to retype it. Maybe I will later. Suffice it to say that two months after the incident, words still fail to describe all the emotions and details.

Continued

Oh, here it is.

I don't really feel like writing down every last detail, but I'll remember June 1st 2009 for the rest of my life.

The Butler's reception afterwards was simply amazing, and extremely detailed to dot what would have been Aisling's last I's. The next day in Dublin, it was the Trinity service. Many of us in the class met in the Pav together so we could go en masse to the Chapel, and again it was nice to have strength in numbers. The music I thought was quite somber, so it was very emotional. But Gra and Fergal gave fantastic speeches about the girls, there were professors there that we had not seen for awhile, and representatives of Air France, Brazil and France, and the President of Ireland were there. There was a nice reception in the Dining Hall afterwards, then headed to the Bailey for a commemorative drink for the girls, then the Deasy's had an absolutely lovely reception at their house afterwards as well. I mean, this was just so heartening to see people pulled together. At the Deasy's, a lot of the professors were there and it was nice catching up as well.

Had a couple days respite and just got to hang out with my rowing friends for a few days, which was really nice. I'm really glad I have friends outside of medicine to connect me to my second home. But being back made me really wish I had never left, and although I will never want to work for the HSE again, I loved living in Europe.

That Sunday was Eithne's service in Belfast, and at the reception afterwards there was a really lovely slideshow of photos.

That's all I'll say about that now. It's been two months since it happened, and words still fail to describe all the emotions and details. I'm not a very good descriptive writer, though. The only good thing to come out of this trip besides being with everyone again was a terrific amount of drinking. Peter and I went to a lovely tapas bar on the Friday night (very late as he got out of work late) and drank a hell of a lot of wine and cocktails. Then saturday night, I took him to this really fancy extraordinarily expensive dinner at Shanahans on Stephens Green where the decor is absolutely amazing.

A difficult month...

In Pace Requiescat - Dr. Aisling Butler, Dr. Jane Deasy, Dr. Eithne Walls - June 1, 2009.

The passing of these three beloved friends and classmates is still a shock to us, and the last two weeks have been very trying, exhausting and emotional. If we felt this way, I cannot imagine what their families are going through. Especially as there's still no clear idea what happened to the Air France plane, all the hurt and anger about the airline knowing about faulty parts, and there's no clear idea where their bodies / belongings are. All we can do is draw strength from continuing to remembering their bright, lively and fun-loving personalities, their ambition and optimism.

I was told about this by one of my best Irish friends / classmates before it broke in the news, and I immediately told the rest of the Americans in our class. The girls were on their way to Paris, where Et's boyfriend (someone I'd known casually before they started being a couple) was waiting at the airport. No names were released or confirmed until June 2nd, and waking up to find their photos plastered all over the papers, internet, CNN was difficult. But as soon as it was confirmed, we knew we had to be in Dublin to support others in our class, mourn with each other and pay respects to their families. And in remembering them, it would let us gain strength and have some closure regarding this terrible loss.

I'm doing MICU at one of our peripheral hospitals, and fortunately not on a very busy service. My program director was very understanding and likened this situation to 911, not at the scale of it, but because of all the uncertainty and suddenness of the situation. She immediately put in a call to the program director at the other hospital, who was very good about granting me time off to go back. I tried not to be too emotional at work, but I was not able to focus and what's worse, did not care at all about my patients (that has never happened to me before). I was on the phone 24/7 to friends overseas (phone bill is going to be exorbitant), not eating and definitely not sleeping. We tried, but it was impossible to avoid - thinking of what their final moments must have been like as a plane literally breaks apart in front of you. Although knowing the girls, they probably took some zopiclone and had a few drinks so were probably sleeping. And it was comforting to know that they were seated together.

The rest of the residents on my rotation sympathized, but I don't think some of them understood at all (although they hardly knew me). They were more concerned that my leaving increased their call time and their work load. To which I say, whatever. In times like those, work is completely trivial, but medicine is one of the most unforgiving professions. Doctors are never "allowed" to be sick, doctors are never treated like normal humans, doctors are not "allowed" to have outside issues (kids sick, housing closures, even doctor's appointments, etc etc etc). But another thing that may be difficult for them to understand, and something that I loved about my training overseas which seems to be missing in the US, is that as a class we grow up together. As a class, we are very close. Medical school is demanding everywhere, but in the UK system the oral examinations are much more intense and the classes are together for longer. It's like a family and although you have your injurious spats and there's hurt and betrayal, what's done to one spurs emotion in all. Even though we're thousands of miles apart now, we still need and draw strength from each other, and will probably continue to do so for the rest of our lives.

So the few of us Americans who were able booked rush flights to make it to Dublin for services which were held for the girls. I think all of us were a little bit wary of flying as we were still empathizing, but a beer (some ambien would have been nice) calmed me down. One of my best rowing friends (not in my class but also now a doctor and a world-class athlete) picked me up, and after a nap we went into town to meet another of my rowing friends (the three musketeers reunited) for lunch in Avoca and it was fantastic catching up. Then went into College (Trinity) to meet a sports admin friend for coffee, back to Kilmainham for a rowing meeting (!) which lasted for ages. Finally, I got to meet up with one of my best friends from my class (Peter), and he and I proceeded to have a fantastic French dinner by Dublin castle (where they wouldn't give us a second bottle of wine) and proceeded to get very very drunk at The Bank bar in town. Had a fantastic night, I don't think I've ever had such a cathartic drinking session!

The next day, we Three Musketeers had brunch in the tea rooms in Phoenix Park, then legged it over to Peter's with my stuff, changed into my dress (amazed I remembered to bring everything to look presentable) and then met two others in my class so we could drive down to Roscrea in Co. Tipperary for Aisling's service. Beforehand, we met up with the others in my class at a hotel near to the church, and seeing them all for the first time in a long time was brilliant. Obviously everyone was quite sad and emotional, but the one good thing is that it reunited us all and allowed us to feel that connection with each other again. We walked over to the church and it was very moving to see it completely fill, spilling out the sides with her friends and communities. The newspaper the next day said about a thousand people were there. The service was beautiful. what touches me most about services is the music, and the music was absolutely gorgeous, not too somber but very tasteful, and the soloist(s) were fantastic.

Spring!

I'm really happy it's starting to get a bit warmer and the days are longer. Have been really good about getting to the gym and doing some weights / running, even though I'm half-commuting to Westchester for my ER rotation (which is fantastic). The teaching is great, procedures are great...too bad we can't have an environment like this at my home hospital. I'd love working at a place like that. In the last two weeks I've gotten to do a very clean lumbar puncture (brilliant, took me all of 5 minutes, they never go like that for me!), a shoulder reduction with arthrocentesis, seen two chest tube placements. That's pretty awesome. 

Have continued my theater splurge and since seen 33 Variations (with Jane Fonda), which is absolutely brilliant. So ingenious, it amazes me how Kaufman can have the clarity to think like that, make connections between a speculation on why Beethoven wrote his 33 Variations and the modern-day life of his musicologist, and life in general. I might have to see it again, or get the script for it. I love really intelligent plays like that. I've also seen the new musical "Next to Normal," which is creative but I can't really understand why everyone is raving about it. I don't really like the music in these new musicals. Bar one, "Invisible Girl and Super boy," I don't really like the music although some of the lyrics are kind of funny. Same as in Wicked, I don't really like the music except "Defying Gravity." Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but bring back the Gershwin / Hammerstein music. At least Sondheim's music makes sense, he's probably the only contemporary composer who makes good musical music. 

This Wednesday I'm going on my first eharmony match date. Still a little wary of meeting someone off a dating website, but seeing as how it's nearly impossible to meet anyone when you're working, and that people don't approach each other in gyms and whatnot like they do in movies (never mind the fact that I still tower over all the boys in the gym) that's the only way to go. So dinner and then seeing Waiting for Godot with Nathan Lane...that alone should guarantee a good night! 

I'm glad I'm in WMC ER right now with such a good experience so far. It reaffirms my part-desire to be a doctor and help people, and when I'm at work I enjoy it. I still know that being a doctor isn't the only thing that I want to have happen in my life and I'm still going to explore other options, but now I'm not as depressed as I was a couple weeks ago and it's a good job to be a "baseline" job. I still need to work a lot and study, but still having time for a theatre habit so that's not too bad! And I'm starting to work at creative endeavors with writing ideas and buying a guitar off amazon ;). We'll see if it can get me more content! 

More fun in the big city!

Man, my vacation was hectic and went way too fast :)!

Spent the first week of it in our condo in Vegas, where we had a family reunion with my grandmother and my sis (wooo!). Didn't really do much except eat, took a load of silly photos at the Valley of Fire park and flower shows in Bellagio. Only walked 1/2 of the strip once, because a day got wasted by sis getting sick >:(. And of course, buffet in Paris where I managed not to eat the whole dessert area like I did last time.

After leaving Vegas (having to get up at 3 am for the flight) and landing in NYC many hours later, saw an Ionesco play called Exit the King on Broadway (with Susan Sarandon, Geoffrey Rush, Lauren Ambrose) which was possibly not the best choice to end a long day. Not only was it dark and slightly depressing although there were a few funny bits in the first half, the second half was full of dragging monologues and esoteric dialogue which put everyone to sleep. We were in the 4th row from stage and in front of us this lady started snoring, and her friend with her gave her a huge elbow nudge, to which the sleeping lady jumped a foot in her chair and everyone behind her started snickering right in the middle of this death epiphany by Geoffrey Rush. Man, that was a head-banger.



Then Saturday we saw Blithe Spirit (Rupert everett, Angela Lansbury) and it was fantastic. The whole play is so witty and funny and Lansbury yet again is great at playing eccentric characters. Ate at Sardi's which was lovely and atmosphere is fantastic with all those actors' caricatures. Then we saw the Ibsen play, Hedda Gabler (Mary Louise Parker), and I wish we'd reversed the order of seeing these two because while well-performed, it was quite dark and bleek. I'll also try to avoid the American Airlines theater (roundtree) in the future because if you sit on the right side, it's adjacent to some alleyway in times square and you can hear all the immature teenage passerbys and lorries honking horns.

Sunday, we spent basically the whole day shopping at Woodbury Commons. Obviously spent loads of money and were wrecked by the end of it! We'd been up til 4 am the night before as we couldn't sleep, but somehow we managed to plod through the piles of clothes and Coach bags!

Monday, my friend from Ireland came and so we had a nice easy day of it, met up with a couple friends at my local bar and we managed to seriously bore my sis and my friend with all the medicine talk. I really need to find more non-medical friends!

Tuesday was the museum day and we raced through the Guggenheim, Metropolitan and Natural History museums. Man, that was a whirlwind and I won't be back to those for awhile! Think i might buy membership to the Met museum and just sit in the conservatory to read. Then Bubba Gumps for dinner in Times Square, which was a lot of fun and loads of silly pictures ;).

Wednesday we saw West Side Story on Broadway, which was good. This production is different because they've sung some of the songs in Spanish. I think that concept is interesting, but at the same time, I didn't like spending 120 dollars on tickets to not understand what they were saying. The lead guy of the jets started the opening song off key though he corrected himself. And the men weren't quite macho enough, in my opinion - i mean, i know west side story has some ballet style dance in it, but perhaps a little too effeminate casting. Good singing from the leads though.

That night, we went to the Knicks game, which was really exciting in the end even though now I can't remember who won...I think the Knicks did. They came out really strongly, but then let it go in the 2nd quarter and had to play catch up. My friend caught one of those tshirts that they shoot into the crowd, heh!

Thursday we drove to the Bronx Botanical Gardens which was nice (my Irish mate is into botany and all) and took silly photos of cacti and orchids. Had a nice chat before driving her to the airport. And then on the way back from JFK, got completely lost (in the dark) with my sis needing to pee really badly. Finally got the GPS working (woo for GPS!) and made it back before she had an "accident" in the car.

Friday we got TKTS to see 39 steps, which was hilarious. Very creative as 4 people play multiple parts. I love the theater!

Saturday, woke up early to stand in the TKTS line again hoping to see In the Heights (but it wasn't out yet) and then we met up with a couple high school friends (awesome!) for brunch in Greenwich. It's always nice catching up. Saw Reasons to be Pretty (Piper Perabo, Steven Pasquale even though neither of those two are the lead characters) which was interesting as you watched how a minor comment spirals into a huge life event, and was mildly amusing. A little too much cursing for me though. Then, my sis was curious about August: Osage county so we went back to the TKTS line and got tickets, and it was brilliant. Very funny watching this dysfunctional but normal ? family with most social taboos worked in! we were way up in the mezzanine though, so some parts were a little hard to hear. I'm just making notes for myself for other performances i try to see in the same theaters. I definitely have become a very avid theater-goer!

Then after getting very little sleep, Viv left for LaGuardia at like 5 am . :( . Damn, I wish we were at the stage in our lives where we could get the big house / apartment together like we always planned. We've been apart for nearly 8 years now after spending every single day together and I thought I'd welcome the change (and I have to some degree), but now I at least want her around to do stuff with, since my social network is still in Ireland .

Then this past Tuesday, I took myself to see the new Durang play (Why torture is wrong) mainly because I wanted to see Laura Benanti act again (I saw her in Gypsy). It was definitely interesting, made a few funny jabs, and the actress who plays the mother is hilarious! I think some roles had a little overacting going on, but I just find there's something very engaging about Ms. Benanti that's captivating. I spent the rest of the vacation downloading and watching episodes of True Blood, I'm not really certain why!

I've been feeling pretty down lately, which is something new for me. I've never felt this way before, and it's not pleasant, especially when I'm supposed to be on vacation relaxing! Maybe it's because my twin left. I just feel like there's something really missing in my life, I'm not enjoying my work and it's not exciting me to go into work. I like the idea of being a doctor, and I like acquiring the skills. But it's not a culmination for me, I don't feel like I have achieved anything. It's funny how people measure success as they grow older. Some would think I've done a lot and am a very successful individual at this age, and I thought I would feel that way too. But I don't...I want something more and I'm not sure what that something is.

Maybe it's the fact that to get to this point, I was involved in so many things and now those have just been cut out due to work committments, and I don't like my life just being medicine. I'd love to get into more creative endeavors, I think at the very least I'll start a little writing again (even though my thoughts are so jumbled I feel I don't know where to begin). But right now I'm questioning my life / career choice, and if I had to opt differently, I wonder what it would have been like to pursue one of the possibilities I was thinking of when I was 18 to be a musician / performing artist, although that would have been the less stable route. Although if I didn't do medicine, I never would have gone overseas to Trinity and met my wonderful friends there. Maybe I have too many unrealistic ambitions, but I still feel like a young kid who wants to get out there and do everything and make a mark in the world!

Vegas!!

Have done quite a bit of nothing (besides work) these last couple weeks, and now am just finishing a couple days in Vegas, where we're having a family reunion at the condo. It's been really nice, gorgeous weather in the 80s and I love the sun! I'd love moving here except for the lack of water. We spent several hours at the Valley of Fire state park which had gorgeous red rock and stone formations. We missed seeing petroglyphs because my parents/grandmother weren't keen on hiking to those spots, but we amused ourselves by taking silly photos anyway! Who else can I take silly photos with except my twin :) :) ?

Then Wednesday we took some photos in a lovely flower exhibit at the Bellagio (more silly photos), they're always very creative in making their displays. We wandered around the strip more but only got halfway. Did some fake sword-fighting in Excalibur and rode the hideously expensive New York New York roller coaster where we had to wait for front row seats, of course. Fun enough and scenery is cool, but the pictures they take are kinda crappy and don't even include the taxi-cab-looking cars. Then spent hours in M&M world and coke world so Viv could find gifts for friends. Coke world have made these cool shirts which smell like their products, but they're too sweet-smelling and would definitely attract all sorts of interesting bugs in the summer. Good thing we think practically cuz otherwise I'd buy everything under the sun! Then had dinner at Rainforest cafe which is always a blast. I think Viv ate something bad though cuz she spent all last night and today running for the porcelain god....

...which sucked because we were hoping to go back to the Strip and finish off the rest of the half (I love Caesars Palace), but it wasn't to be. She's feeling a little bit better now, but my family ignored my doctory advice and tried pushing some herbal medications which I've never heard of before.

Anyway, to Manhattan tomorrow so I can show my sis and friends the dazzle of NYC!

I think I'm becoming more financially educated, having done my taxes (and paid HR Block an enormous sum to do it for me and fix my errors), and looking up all these Roth IRA companies online, and trying to come to grips with the funds in my 403(b) / TDA. I should take a class one day. But I think anyone who is or will be a resident should try to max out their Roth IRA each year of their residency before we become ineligible when earning an attending salary. I only have 3 years to do that unless I do a fellowship. So word to those who know nothing like me: INVEST IN A ROTH IRA NOW! The market is falling so your money will buy you more shares which will compound more interest when they start rising again.

Well, last month was busy! Everyone was just so tired. You have to cram nearly the same amount of shifts (one shift less) into a short month. A bit insane, even though you can get more coverage during a day. I came in on a week of nights and was hit with a thoracotomy (I came too late so couldn't get into the action) and we spent the whole night trying to recover from it although it was cool seeing it. A GSW that transected the descending aorta unfortunately. The third year resident was too busy doing paperwork for the police so I ended up taking all the sign outs. I don't really know if a first year has done that before at my program. It was tough following everything and trying to deal with incomplete signouts, and meanwhile the chart rack remains overflowing. But no matter how bad a shift seems, I've learned it doesn't kill you and you survive.



Then we had our inservice. Have to say didn't study for it as much as I wanted to, but we'll see. .. 1st years generally don't pass, but the questions seemed manageable. Had a nice post inservice party! It's so nice when nearly all the residents and some attendings can be together. And we learned our ER chief of service has a fantastic apartment ;).



Now trying to figure out how to do my taxes. I don't think I'm doing something right cuz I keep getting it saying I'm making a negative operating loss. I think I may need to get a financial advisor, sigh.

Snow Snow Snow!

On the eve of our seemingly savior President's inauguration, I've never seen so much snow coming down as now. I'm not from a snow-shy state either, but walking home last night, so much snow caked on my head that it actually weighed me down!

Right now doing my medicine floors month in Valhalla at one of our sister hospitals. I will be so glad when it's done. Just not my cup of tea, and I never thought I'd say this, but I like the way the St. James's (Dublin) medicine teams run a lot more. I'd forgotten how on floors you never ever get out on time, doesn't matter whether you're in surgery or medicine, you can't possibly enjoy your life like that. At least with ER you know you end at such-and-such time and get definite days off. I've talked to many disgruntled people over the last few weeks, including the superstar residents, high-ranked surgeons...they definitely don't tell you this crap when you're a young doctor hopeful.

Although residency is tough on everyone and so many 12 hr. shifts in first year really kills your spirit, I'm so glad I'm in ER. There's fewer arrogant assholes. I wish patients in hospital could see what their residents have to go through and how what seems like a small simple task is actually the result of someone scurrying high and low, begging, yelling, crying to accomplish it. Then on top of that everything is complicated by the state of health care in this country, medicaid and medicare limiting doctor's options, etc. Makes me more tempted to become an ex-patriate again!

But aside from all that, I think I'm disgruntled because I'm lacking a creative outlet . You spend time doing all these extracurriculars and excelling in all these activities to make you a well-rounded person because that's what med schools and residency programs want (well you do too but you know what I mean). Then when you get into residency, all of a sudden all those extra things are taken away from you and your whole life is just medicine when you've gotten used to being able to do and balance everything. can't wait for more time to just enjoy other things.

I'm starting to realize that medicine is just a job like everything else, and although for me it's a more preferable, safe stable job than others, it's just acquiring a set of skills like a mechanic or electrician. I always thought that loving your job was to love your life, and that medicine was the only job that I could like, but now I want to spend all my free time not doing medicine! It could be worse, but am definitely longing for the day when I can feel balanced again.

We'll see what changes our new president can instigate. I'd definitely love the pressure to be relieved from the ERs.

Apart from all this medicine mumbo jumbo, have checked out a couple restaurants for NYC's winter restaurant week. Went to a quite nice cozy French place last night, and checking out a Scandanavian restaurant tonight! Woo! I don't know how but somehow have lost like 6 pounds ... by eating!