WE"RE FAMOUS
this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 5:30 PM | 
29 May 2005
this is how i achieve my respite
on call friday. worked from 5am friday to noon on saturday with about 90 mins of sleep tossed in. went back today at 6:45am and worked until about 11am. now i'm going to chicago to fucking kill that shit tonight with those motherfuckers from newport, england: goldie lookin chain.
WE"RE FAMOUS
WE"RE FAMOUS
20 May 2005
going back on my word
so it has been a while, o readers, and while it may be tempting (it really isn't) to try to catch you all up on the myriad of events which have unfolded over the past fortnight, i have elected not to (fine: there was a wedding, countless too-early mornings, and an overflowing pile of laundry). instead, i will give a quick illustration of my latest dilemma.
currently i've been rotating through surgery. i've completed the first month so far (orthopedics and urology) and will begin the second 4 weeks on general surgery this monday. i never had an opinion about surgery one way or another. i just always thought i wanted to do peds oncology, so i didn't really care that i ended up with surgery last on my schedule, or that i had to arrange my 4th year schedule before i even began the rotation.
well, surprise, surprise, i'm TOTALLY enjoying it. it's a lot of fun. i'm finding that i'm very much attracted to a procedure-based worklife. it's fun DOING SOMETHING, that something being anything besides writing in a chart for hours on end. granted, i've never ever wanted to be a general-anything, calculating fluid rates and dosages based on weight, etc. i always wanted to specialize. but the more i think about spending 6 years in the trenches to get there, the less appealing it sounds.
now, surgery is still a bit overwhelming for me. while the workday is very busy and exciting and interesting, and even waking up at the asscrack of dawn isn't the WORST, working 15 hour shifts is a bit too much for me. even the attendings work incredibly long days. i don't want to work from 6:30am-7pm for the next 30 or so years of my life. that shit is crazy.
the urology residents have really done wonders for my resolve. they're convinced that i'd be wasting my time in a clinical setting and, over the past 2 weeks, have somewhat made it their mission to get me to go into something surgical. (their depiction of internal medicine: "round for 4 hours, go to conference, round for 4 hours, go home.") while this is flattering and anxiety-inducing (i've already got my next year planned out, damnit), the fact remains that the hours are just too crazy.
but still. the dilemma is there. maybe i don't want to wear a tie and write in a chart all day long for the rest of my life. or do i? it sure is cool to wear blue pajamas and run around from OR to OR, getting blood on (sterile gloved) hands.
i've been poring over my schedule and second guessing sending out all of these applications for pediatric away rotations, and instead trying to add in some more variety into my schedule. i really haven't seen it all, not even close, and well shit, there's other stuff that i really enjoy, maybe even more so than pediatric oncology. which SUCKS as far as planning ahead goes.
just today i was accepted for an away rotation at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine (NYC), doing a 3 week human-simulator course run by the anesthesia department. it sounded really interesting and i heard really good things about the course in various forums, so what the hell. i was actually a bit amazed that all it took was a phone call, and the program coordinator just put my name down and sent me a confirmation email within minutes. but that's forced me to move things around the schedule a bit now, and i've since dropped dermatology and transfusion medicine (oh well).
it's so damn stressful, trying to decide within a short amount of time, what i would like to do with the rest of my life based on minimally involved, short-term introductory experiences. kind of a shitty system when you think about it. so maybe tonight, to celebrate the weekend, i'll try not to.
currently i've been rotating through surgery. i've completed the first month so far (orthopedics and urology) and will begin the second 4 weeks on general surgery this monday. i never had an opinion about surgery one way or another. i just always thought i wanted to do peds oncology, so i didn't really care that i ended up with surgery last on my schedule, or that i had to arrange my 4th year schedule before i even began the rotation.
well, surprise, surprise, i'm TOTALLY enjoying it. it's a lot of fun. i'm finding that i'm very much attracted to a procedure-based worklife. it's fun DOING SOMETHING, that something being anything besides writing in a chart for hours on end. granted, i've never ever wanted to be a general-anything, calculating fluid rates and dosages based on weight, etc. i always wanted to specialize. but the more i think about spending 6 years in the trenches to get there, the less appealing it sounds.
now, surgery is still a bit overwhelming for me. while the workday is very busy and exciting and interesting, and even waking up at the asscrack of dawn isn't the WORST, working 15 hour shifts is a bit too much for me. even the attendings work incredibly long days. i don't want to work from 6:30am-7pm for the next 30 or so years of my life. that shit is crazy.
the urology residents have really done wonders for my resolve. they're convinced that i'd be wasting my time in a clinical setting and, over the past 2 weeks, have somewhat made it their mission to get me to go into something surgical. (their depiction of internal medicine: "round for 4 hours, go to conference, round for 4 hours, go home.") while this is flattering and anxiety-inducing (i've already got my next year planned out, damnit), the fact remains that the hours are just too crazy.
but still. the dilemma is there. maybe i don't want to wear a tie and write in a chart all day long for the rest of my life. or do i? it sure is cool to wear blue pajamas and run around from OR to OR, getting blood on (sterile gloved) hands.
i've been poring over my schedule and second guessing sending out all of these applications for pediatric away rotations, and instead trying to add in some more variety into my schedule. i really haven't seen it all, not even close, and well shit, there's other stuff that i really enjoy, maybe even more so than pediatric oncology. which SUCKS as far as planning ahead goes.
just today i was accepted for an away rotation at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine (NYC), doing a 3 week human-simulator course run by the anesthesia department. it sounded really interesting and i heard really good things about the course in various forums, so what the hell. i was actually a bit amazed that all it took was a phone call, and the program coordinator just put my name down and sent me a confirmation email within minutes. but that's forced me to move things around the schedule a bit now, and i've since dropped dermatology and transfusion medicine (oh well).
it's so damn stressful, trying to decide within a short amount of time, what i would like to do with the rest of my life based on minimally involved, short-term introductory experiences. kind of a shitty system when you think about it. so maybe tonight, to celebrate the weekend, i'll try not to.
this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 6:38 PM |
07 May 2005
blood time on my hands
i've been neglecting this blog for a little while. sorry about that, o faithful reader(s). surgery will do that to you. i just finished orthopedics on thursday. i got lucky because i was on sports medicine, and there was a sports symposium yesterday which all the docs and residents attended. so there was no clinic and no OR cases, which means jason gets the day off. which was a nice surprise, considering that a) i had my very first oral exam on thursday, which i studied for by only achieving one hour of fitful, accidental sleep, and which i assume i passed (he said "you did great, i wouldn't worry about it - but i can't tell you if you got honors until i figure out the curve at the end of the 8 weeks"), and b) i'm on call today, ortho trauma, from 7am to midnight. so, what was looking to be a destructive stretch of a few days turned out to have a very pleasantly unexpected reprieve, right in between. thank you, sports medicine symposium. thank you for giving me time to sleep.
i've enjoyed trauma call before. it's fun, in a not-fun-for-the-patients sort of way. you're running around in the ER, ordering and analyzing X-rays and splinting and casting and dodging cops and paramedics, all the while in blue-green pajamas, and it's quite exciting. (i can totally understand why someone would want to go into ER medicine; wish i was smart enough for it) but today's been a snore. i won't complain just yet though. i've been here since 7, right now it's almost 11, and i haven't done a thing. apparently there's "nothing going on" (i always find that a bit hard to believe, but hey, it's a bit early on a saturday to be breaking bones i guess), so the resident will just page me if something comes up. so i've been reading, blogging, internet-ting, and talking on the phone since then.
nate made a thought-provoking post to his blog the other day, and i dropped in a little comment, half-jokingly. however, these semi-humorous nuances tend to go unnoticed when translated into type, and of course, there are those that choose to not give the benefit of the doubt and simply march right through to full-blown righteous pomposity. i received a rather fiery response from some girl i don't know (and who, by convention, does not know me), and i spent more than a few minutes this morning composing a response that, hopefully, will encourage her to curtail her enthusiasm to jump up and point fingers. i never claimed to be innocent of her accusations, and i sincerely doubt that she herself can claim that she is completely innocent (although, if she is, then she should be elevated to the ranks of MLK, Gandhi, and Jesus Christ). whatever.
growing up a minority gives you a different point of view than others, specifically those in the majority. for some, this may be a radically different point of view (see Black Panther Party), for others, this may be minimal (such as myself). but it's still different nonetheless. and not to devolve too much into a "reverse racism" mindset, but i feel that unless you too have lived those experiences, you can do no more than empathize, and you certainly can never "know what i mean." i know my non-minority friends empathize with me, i know they support me and i know their anger is just as valid as mine when ugly situations present themselves. hell, in certain cases i've seen their anger outpace mine if they had the misfortune to accompany me when one of these situations occurred. and i love that about my friends.
but i mean no disrespect when i say that unless they've lived through it, they'll never truly know it. that doesn't discount their empathy or anger at all. i'm just saying that there's more to it than getting mad or sad about it. there's a certain, deep pain that comes with racism or discrimination, and it leaves marks like notches on a bedpost - names and places may be a fuzzy memory, but you will never forget those words. i can recount almost word-for-word some of these encounters. if i thought hard enough, i can probably put a date and a place to them as well. these are situations that i'll carry with me forever, not as some sort of emotional chip-on-my-shoulder baggage, but as a reminder of what people are capable of.
in an effort to not be as emotionally heavy as this post has become, i find it rather relieving to make light of certain situations, and i'm confident that my friends have a fairly sharp knowledge of when i'm joking and when i'm not. so it's bothersome when a comment is made in jest (well, partial jest - cynical pessimism, at least), and a stranger shoudlers the responsibility of pointing out its lack of political correct-ness or, *gasp*, its integrity.
ok. enough with this business. time for some shout-outs. i'd like to give a big CONGRATULATION to: Doc "George Clooney" Dayne, who has now officially completed his medical education and is ready to sail into positive-income territory; Chas U-Baz, who has achieved his primary goal of gainful employment in the Big Smoke; P-dubs, whom i believe is tackling another one of his countless law school final exams; Mayor May Not, finally finishing the work on their staggering 4-disc retrospective, May Or May Not: Ass, Grass, Gas, & Class; and to any and all of you who are wrapping up your undergraduate studies, i salute you. here's to the rest of your life. i'm going to go back and wait for pages.
i've enjoyed trauma call before. it's fun, in a not-fun-for-the-patients sort of way. you're running around in the ER, ordering and analyzing X-rays and splinting and casting and dodging cops and paramedics, all the while in blue-green pajamas, and it's quite exciting. (i can totally understand why someone would want to go into ER medicine; wish i was smart enough for it) but today's been a snore. i won't complain just yet though. i've been here since 7, right now it's almost 11, and i haven't done a thing. apparently there's "nothing going on" (i always find that a bit hard to believe, but hey, it's a bit early on a saturday to be breaking bones i guess), so the resident will just page me if something comes up. so i've been reading, blogging, internet-ting, and talking on the phone since then.
nate made a thought-provoking post to his blog the other day, and i dropped in a little comment, half-jokingly. however, these semi-humorous nuances tend to go unnoticed when translated into type, and of course, there are those that choose to not give the benefit of the doubt and simply march right through to full-blown righteous pomposity. i received a rather fiery response from some girl i don't know (and who, by convention, does not know me), and i spent more than a few minutes this morning composing a response that, hopefully, will encourage her to curtail her enthusiasm to jump up and point fingers. i never claimed to be innocent of her accusations, and i sincerely doubt that she herself can claim that she is completely innocent (although, if she is, then she should be elevated to the ranks of MLK, Gandhi, and Jesus Christ). whatever.
growing up a minority gives you a different point of view than others, specifically those in the majority. for some, this may be a radically different point of view (see Black Panther Party), for others, this may be minimal (such as myself). but it's still different nonetheless. and not to devolve too much into a "reverse racism" mindset, but i feel that unless you too have lived those experiences, you can do no more than empathize, and you certainly can never "know what i mean." i know my non-minority friends empathize with me, i know they support me and i know their anger is just as valid as mine when ugly situations present themselves. hell, in certain cases i've seen their anger outpace mine if they had the misfortune to accompany me when one of these situations occurred. and i love that about my friends.
but i mean no disrespect when i say that unless they've lived through it, they'll never truly know it. that doesn't discount their empathy or anger at all. i'm just saying that there's more to it than getting mad or sad about it. there's a certain, deep pain that comes with racism or discrimination, and it leaves marks like notches on a bedpost - names and places may be a fuzzy memory, but you will never forget those words. i can recount almost word-for-word some of these encounters. if i thought hard enough, i can probably put a date and a place to them as well. these are situations that i'll carry with me forever, not as some sort of emotional chip-on-my-shoulder baggage, but as a reminder of what people are capable of.
in an effort to not be as emotionally heavy as this post has become, i find it rather relieving to make light of certain situations, and i'm confident that my friends have a fairly sharp knowledge of when i'm joking and when i'm not. so it's bothersome when a comment is made in jest (well, partial jest - cynical pessimism, at least), and a stranger shoudlers the responsibility of pointing out its lack of political correct-ness or, *gasp*, its integrity.
ok. enough with this business. time for some shout-outs. i'd like to give a big CONGRATULATION to: Doc "George Clooney" Dayne, who has now officially completed his medical education and is ready to sail into positive-income territory; Chas U-Baz, who has achieved his primary goal of gainful employment in the Big Smoke; P-dubs, whom i believe is tackling another one of his countless law school final exams; Mayor May Not, finally finishing the work on their staggering 4-disc retrospective, May Or May Not: Ass, Grass, Gas, & Class; and to any and all of you who are wrapping up your undergraduate studies, i salute you. here's to the rest of your life. i'm going to go back and wait for pages.
this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 11:40 AM |
01 May 2005