Day 2176: Urology and unnecessary rudeness.

Hi! We had our elective lottery this week and I got urology, like I wanted! :) Hello full schedule of rotations!

This is the order: ob/gyn, psych/neuro, anesthesiology/emergency medicine, family med, urology, 1 week winter break, internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics.

Speaking of Ob/Gyn, I contacted the clerkship director (extremely early) to ask for time off in July for my friend's wedding (my third time as bridesmaid, much to the displeasure of my mother who believes I am now cursed/jinxed to never marry). Well, this is the "sweet" reply she sent:

Hi Jessica

We do not give time off from the clerkship for weddings.  However, you only need to report to your assigned hospital location on the weekends if you are on call.  Currently, we require two days of weekend call (separate weekends) and allow the students to create their own call schedules. I cannot promise you this policy will continue for the next academic year as we continue to review the clerkship, but I think you will most likely be able to work the call schedule out with your classmates to ensure you have that weekend off to attend the wedding.

Please contact me with any questions or concerns.

So, I think it means I will get the wedding weekend off. I think? I'll keep you all posted.

Tomorrow, I will shadow a urologist from 8:30am to lunchtime. Lunch with my friend L. Study time. Female physical exam (checking the cervix and uterus with a speculum, performing the bimanual exam). We had a little female exam demonstration/workshop last week and I showed my group how to do it since I was the resident expert (having done 4-5 this past summer; go me).

My new microbiology course starts on Friday, not fun. I am also giving a tour that day for med school interviewees (my aforementioned friend L is interviewing that day! Yay!) so that'll be fun (because I get free lunch and get to be my awesome self).

And! Jess might be working here in Milwaukee for 6ish weeks! Yayyyyy! Boo to the fact that she'll be here from May to June (the absolute worst month/six weeks of my life aka boards/Step 1 studying for 10 hours (no joke) a day). I'll make it work!

Day 2168: Tests and tracks

I got B4! Here is my schedule for next year:

• July 1 - August 15: Obstetrics/Gynecology
• August 16 - September 30: Psychiatry/Neurology
• October 1 - October 31: RPM (anesthesiology, emergency medicine)
• November 1 - November 30: Family medicine
• December 1 - December 23: Vacation/Elective (hopefully urology!)
• January 2 - February 28: Internal medicine
• March 1 - April 30: Surgery
• May 1 - June 30: Pediatrics

My pathology exam was awful. Everyone thought the test was infinitely harder than it should have been and this is why I hate med school exams. They test you on the most minute crap that is not covered on our board exams. Why would I bother learning it if I won't retain it a) anyway and b) for the actual exam that matters? Ugh. I didn't do horribly on the test. I would have liked to do better but seeing as how I could have failed (it was that hard), I'm pretty happy with my grade.

Anyhoo, I'm at research right now. Chatting with my boss about the direction of healthcare, talking about his stint on TV (telling people how to avoid frostbite) and chatting with the research assistants. I enrolled more patients today so that's exciting! Getting people for our study and using mi español.

Day 2163: Lots of cool stuff.

I had such a great week, let me tell you about it!

Monday: I worked in the pediatric emergency department, where I do research, and actually, finally, enrolled a patient without something wonky happening. For whatever reason, I have the strangest luck when I go in to do research and a patient will have to be un-enrolled in our Spanish Interpretive Services study. Not only did I enroll one, but I also got to speak Spanish! He was very sweet and said I didn't need the interpreter and I told him that I like having him/her there to make sure I don't mess anything up. Also, one of the doctors on the study was working that night so we got to catch up and shoot the sh!t and all that fun stuff. It's cool to be friendly with the ED staff. Hopefully I can get a few days in there on my pediatrics rotation next year and impress them with all my actually (wannabe) doctor-ing!

Tuesday: The male exam. An examination of the penis, testicles, feeling for the vas deferens and checking for hernias. Probably one of the most awkward moments in medical school for many students. Not for me! I loved it! It went too quickly! Maybe it's because I like awkward things or maybe it's because I don't care, but I am really digging urology. After my path exam on Monday (which, for all intents and purposes, I plan on pwning (aka kicking butt on), I am going to contact a urology resident and get some more information on it. It's competitive as all get out so I am starting to get insanely stressed about boards. (What's new there though?)

Wednesday: My jeans that I bought (aka split with Danny) off eBay arrived and they are gorgeous!

Paige Porcelain Leaf Skinnies

Only I would love such an outgoing print. And wear it with pride no less. I plan to hem these bad boys on Monday after my exam. Or maybe before since I am so bored of studying blood disorders and leukemias and lymphomas. Have I told you all that I am a sewing machine? (Thanks to Danny for that pun!) I have blind hemmed a bunch of slacks, finally hemmed a bunch of my jeans to my teeny tiny leg length and twerked some bootcut jeans into skinny jeans! However, I screwed up one of the legs of my skinny jeans (the fade between the front and back of the jeans is awkward) and feel uncomfortable in them so I plan on converting those babies in to shorts.

School-wise on Wednesday, I had a boards study group where we reviewed stuff for our exam on Monday and that was helpful. Showed that I knew stuff, but still need to get it locked down. Motivating stuff.

Today/Thursday: Hung out at home. Became obsessed with clothes again (have I told you? I am attempting to save money and/or buy investment pieces (like this silk blouse for rotations next year/interview season the year after that). I am also planning a major closet clean out over spring break.) Purchased my question bank for boards today. Fell asleep for no good reason from 4-6pm. Listened to Pathoma for 2 hours because I was sick of actual reading/writing/learning studying so listening seemed more exciting.

Okay. This little study break/update for you has been fun but it's time to go back to our regularly scheduled pathology studying. Snooze fest. Catch y'all later!

PS! Did you know this is my 400th post?! Crazy!

Day 2158: More on rotations. NFL Playoffs!

Hey all,

I am hitting a wall with my studying, so, of course, I am going to write a blog post about hitting said wall. Post over. Thanks for reading.

Joke! Okay, so, I want to show you this.

Remember the post on rotations (selection)? Well, apparently, I have to pick 10 of the 16 tracks and hope the lottery will give me my first choice. As you can see, it was stressful trying to pick which other 9 I wanted and apparently, I don't know how to read because I wrote F14 and F15 twice. We will find out on Monday January 21st (tentatively; IT issues live in med schools) which track we all got. I am hoping for B4! That's my baby!

Also! The Packers play the 49ers today! Ahhhh! Who to support?!

I really need to paint/make a 49ers shirt if Jim Harbaugh keeps taking the Niners to the playoffs! Geez! A friend organized a little dinner + playoffs thing at a pub downtown so I'll be headed there shortly. Burgers + fries + classmates I actually like + football (especially Packers/49ers football) = a good time. Pictures to come!

Day 2156: Rotations!

Today my class had a big ol' mandatory meeting about my third year of medical school. It was both very exciting and very stressful.

Exciting: I am one semester away from beginning the most exciting part of my medical education -- rotations! I will be meeting patients on a daily basis and have a small hand in their care! I can't wait!

Stressful: There are 16 possible tracks and I don't know which one to choose.

Let me give you some background information. At most medical schools, there are 9 main rotations -- the Big 3: pediatrics, general surgery, internal medicine, and the Little 6: psychiatry, neurology, anesthesiology, OB/GYN, family medicine, vacation/elective. M3s will tell you to get the Big 3 out of the way. They are the longest rotations (2 months). Surgery sucks so you'll want to get that out of the way. Et cetera, et cetera. However, the administration today brought up a good point -- "it just doesn't matter." (This is the actual video played for us, ha!) Everyone will complete the 9 total rotations by June of 2013 so it doesn't really matter what order you do it in.

The only advice to heed is this: do NOT do what you think you want first, and do not do it last. Don't do it first because you're too green/ripe/new and won't know what you're doing (aka not very impressive to your clerkship director). Don't do it last because you could actually hate whatever specialty you thought you wanted and be scrambling like crazy in the first two months of your fourth year trying to decide on a residency specialty.

So, back to what I was saying about "stressful." I don't have any interest in pediatrics or general surgery. Thus, I don't really care if I get the Big 3 first. I am currently leaning towards family medicine. OR! Newsflash! I think I like urology! I have this weird thing for genitalia (which sounds really awful when you actually type it out) and it could be cool to help treat men and women (yes! Women need urological help too). Also, urology is surgical! Which is also cool. Procedural, people's junk, what more could a gal ask for? I emailed some people today to get some shadowing experience in to make sure I actually like it. More information about urology in a future post!

Oh, speaking of urology, I am performing the male physical exam next week, which has been very icky for my classmates and I am unnecessarily pumped about it!

Okay, so, stress, again. Sorry I get so distracted. Here is an image of what the schedules look like.

I am leaning towards having the Big 3 second semester so that I can get some clerkships under my wing before I impress people in family med and/or urology (my elective). But, track selection is a lottery system so I may not even get it! And! CRAP. With OB/GYN first, I should be able to get time off for the wedding I'm in (in late July) but babies wait for no one to be born! Although, if I got gynecology (aka no babies) for my last 3 weeks of OB/GYN, then I am sure I could get the weekend off. See what I mean about stressful?

All in all, an interesting day! It's too bad my mom had to rush off the phone or else I would have regaled her with stories of her daughter moving towards being a true blue doctor! :)

Day 2151: Saturday Free Clinic

Saturday Free Clinic always provides me with motivation and clarity. I wasn't particularly in the mood to volunteer today but, as always, SFC is always exactly what I need.

I wasn't feeling up to snuff regarding the physical exam, so of course the universe gave me more pharm, which was kind of fantastic and exactly what I needed to remind me that a) I know things and b) medicine really does a lot for people.

Today I had two patients related to diabetes. This showed me that I should probably be on top of my insulin/diabetes mellitus Type II meds since a lot of patients/people are diabetic. Other than that, it's amazing to see and feel (in my brain that is) the difference between M1 and M2 year. The M1s seem so green and new and fresh. It's crazy to think I was in their shoes just 365 days ago. I am really enjoying this new found knowledge and medical confidence.

Day 2149: Happy 2013!

...three days in to it. Ha, how very Jessica of me to be late.

I have returned to school and it is in full swing. It's only pathology this block (and a new course that starts next week called Health Policy, which actually sounds interesting since it has to do with the Affordable Care Act and other related policies) so I am trying to get my red blood cell disorders, white blood cell disorders, etc etc in order.

Home was...something. Most (if not all) of you know the issues that arose whilst I was home. Well, to update you, things got better and then they took a turn for the worst. It's a lot of emotional turmoil that really just pisses me off, so I think I've made some headway as to how I want to deal with it all.

I returned to Milwaukee to get sick after my first night back. Fun, but not at all. After two days of icky, achy-ness (through the new year no less), I feel better. I tackled a little school yesterday and am back at it today. Sigh. Lots of learning, already.

Anyway, here are pictures from my trip home.

M and I went to Christmas in the Park!

Had some major best friend time. Amazing.

Did an ungodly amount of bikram yoga. Hotness/Hot mess.

A rainy Christmas in San Francisco.

Found old photos of me as Annie Oakley. YES.

Went to the happiest place on earth aka Disneyland.

My sister and I hanging out in CarsLand.