Enjoying things while I can

I know, it's been a while since I posted. Things had been a little discouraging for a few weeks, which resulted in very little motivation on my part to post something on my blog.

It's almost been a month since I finished my internal medicine rotation, but I have to admit that my last month of that rotation was quite rough. I was at a new hospital with a different system on how they ran the wards, and it was frustrating how inefficient the whole thing was. Rounds would go until 3-4 pm some days (when they should have been done by 11 am), and the teaching sessions were quite disorganized. It made me appreciate how much more organized my initial ward experience was at another hospital.

Things were made worse too by the fact that one of the preceptors (they changed every week; talk about potential poor continuity of care, eh?) really didn't seem to like me and the other student on the team. I think we weren't used to his format of presenting patients, and there were some cases we hadn't seen before so weren't familiar with managing them. Consequently, even though we improved as the week progressed, he only focused on the 'problems' he had with us, and ended up telling the other preceptors about these 'issues' that he had with us. The other doctors did not seem to have these issues, but given that the other preceptor was a prominent member of the department, I think his comments had more bearing on our final evaluations. It was discouraging seeing that we were given marks that really didn't reflect our abilities (nor our abilities to interact with the patients), and it also pissed us off a bit that this guy would go to the other doctors behind our backs and tell them he had problems with us. I'd say more, but this isn't really the forum to complain about this sort of thing; I'm just glad that it's all done and over with.

The only saving grace about that latter bit of my rotation was the patients (which, I guess, is more important than any of the other crap I went through anyways). My most memorable patient was Mrs. L, who came in so sick that she couldn't walk and had to be put on 15 L of oxygen. It was amazing seeing her recover from her pneumonia and other issues, and made me appreciate how much we can do for some of these people.

I also got to experience my first call without any backup, as I did call on the weekend the residents went on a retreat. I wasn't really sure how to respond when I was initially told that no resident had been found to cover the wards on the weekend, but rather than piss myself (as was my initial gut reaction), I just sucked it up, and things seemed to go smoothly. They say all you need to do is keep the patients alive until the morning shift, and I managed to do that!

Anyways, these last couple of weeks, I've been doing an elective in hematology, and this experience has just caused me to appreciate more and more clinic work rather than having to be on the wards. The hours were more regular, and things just seemed less stressful. I think it helps that my preceptors are really chill, and they make an effort to make the whole experience fun. I've spent most of these last few weeks learning how to detect enlarged spleens; and while I'm no expert, at least I'm way better than before (I have no idea how I managed to pass all of my physical exam stations in internal medicine, considering the spleen station was one of them!). It's also nice being able to deal with relatively healthy patients. These last few weeks have been a much needed reprieve from ward work, and it's also starting to rekindle my interest in family medicine, where I'd have more clinic and less hospital exposure.

On another note, I impressed myself by fixing my family's steamer, which would have cost at least $65 to get fixed at the manufacturer's warehouse. Who would have thought there was a bit of handyman in me?

In summary:
- My last few weeks in internal medicine sucked, as I found my last ward experience to be quite inefficient, and one of the preceptors particularly did not seem to like me and the other student on my team. Thank god the patients were great to interact with...the only saving grace of that experience.
- I also did my first call shift without a resident backing me up and managed to come out of it without killing a patient. Yay me!
- My last few weeks have involved doing hematology clinics, where I've been learning how to examine enlarged spleens. I've also come to re-appreciate clinic work as opposed to being on the hospital wards.
- I also turned out to be quite the handyman, fixing my family's steamer and saving us at least $65. Since I can't seem to impress anyone else, at least I managed to impress myself with my handiwork!