Micro-Blog-a-Thon

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Nicotene

Short observation... walking down the street by the medical "complex" today, I noticed all these people standing outside smoking... No big surprise, people always stand outside of hospitals and smoke, right? But I was surprised and amused to see one guy had multiple cigarettes in his mouth all at one time.

In other news, the Barackalypse is upon us in the health-care world... just a suggestion: to cut health-care costs, maybe we should do better at getting people to quit smoking? Maybe not encourage tobacco growers? Do away with fast food?

Maybe people would see that as the man telling them what to do though.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Is it Friday already!?! Not only did this week go pretty fast, but I've got to say that I've completed the clinical part of my OB/GYN clerkship, and I can't believe its already over! That was fast. You might be wondering how I have time to write this on a Friday afternoon, being that that's a typical workday. Well, I was on call all last night, so I've got today off.

Anyways, all I've got now is a couple of tests, and an "Observed Structured Clinical Exam", and then I'll be moving on to Anesthesia/Orthopaedic Orthopedic Surgery for a few weeks.

In other news, I finally got my score back from Step 1! Now, my roommate and I found out that we were going to be getting our scores this past Wednesday. Naturally, there was a little bit of apprehension about how we had done, and we weren't sure whether this was going to be something to celebrate, or something to try to forget about. Not that it actually happened (partly because we're lazy, and partly because we're cheap, and partly because we're not alcoholics), but we had discussed waiting until that evening to check our scores online, and when doing so having ready at hand both a bottle of champagne and a bottle of whiskey, to drink accordingly and either celebrate or drown our sorrows...

At any rate, I think I had some Diet Coke or something, and spent the rest of the evening studying. But I did pass, which made me happy. So, thus far, I haven't done anything that will prevent me from getting my medical license. (Have I mentioned that that's sort of important to me?)

Just a few thoughts in closing... I haven't seen the new Harry Potter movie, but I haven't seen any of them. I heard it was like Twilight... I also haven't seen the new show called HawthoRNe, but I'm hoping that it's sort of the nurse version of House.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

I'm just going to go with a little laundry list of what I've been up to recently (no Pulitzer prize for Matt--but I'm willing to accept that). Here we go!

Delivery! I finally did my first delivery, where I actually, physically caught the baby! I wouldn't say I've "found my calling" in OB/GYN, but I will say that was one of the most satisfying things I've done since starting med school.

24 hour call! In this context (OB/GYN) it means staying at the hospital for 24 hours waiting for pregnant women to come in for whatever reason. So, um, yeah, its not a ton of fun. But I guess it comes with the territory. That, and I feel like Jack Bauer.

I have to get up at ungodly hours of the morning... Not exactly my cup o' tea. But at least this means I have NO trouble falling asleep at night. Or the afternoon. Or mid-morning. Or exactly noon.

I've been regreting my lack of foreign-language skills, particularly spanish. Enough said. But I have learned a lot about using translators. Did you know that when you are talking to someone with a translator, you're not supposed to look at the translator at all?

I guess that's about all. I've got less than a week left of this clerkship, and then I move on to Anesthesia/Surgical subspecialty. I would tell you what surgical subspecialty, but I don't know yet. I did preference Orthopedics though.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

FREEEEEEEEEDOM!!!!

I seriously considered making the words to "My Country 'Tis of Thee" the entirety of this post. But it seems that I may be a little late for that this year. Of course, there's always next year, or the year after, or the year after that, but not the year after that
On the bright side though, I've had a really great weekend, mostly filled with me catching up on sleep (although I've heard that's not actually possible, I'm willing to try anyway!), pretending to study, spending hours and hours watching tennis (a sport that I do not fully comprehend) with my roommate, and holding back the tears when I heard that the 4th of July fireworks were canceled due to rain.
Anyway, in case anyone's wondering, at press time, this OB/GYN clerkship has yet to convince Matt to be an obstetrician or a gynecologist.