anyway, let's talk about why this resident i had on call sucked so bad:

he made inappropriate jokes. our attending was a young-ish eastern european lady, fairly attractive. just before rounds began (meaning i had been there for a total of 20 minutes or so) i asked this guy if the attending was nice. "she's got a nice ass!" was the reply. seriously. i'm all for stupid jokes but jesus christ its 8am, just tell me if she's gonna bite my head off or not. so i faked a smile and asked again, and got a similar reply about her rack. SERIOUSLY. (turns out she is a nice lady.)

later on i asked him a question about patient management. "why, you don't know what to do?" i replied that if i had known, i wouldn't have asked. "wanna know what you do?" he waits a beat (comedic pause) and says "you shit your pants." THANKS A LOT

then he asks me "hey who was that super hot chick i saw you with the other day?" first off, i'm thinking, i just met you this morning, how are you remembering who you saw me with and when? anyway, i venture that he probably saw me with jennie. so i reply, "um... probably my girlfriend." "seriously dude? that's your girlfriend? dude, she's SUPER HOT" ok... so this is kinda sorta flattering in a boorish, oafish, frat-boy-retard sort of way (ok, so not at all), but he was being a bit overly excited about the whole thing. he then follows up with "you know what you should do?" (no, please... TELL ME what i should do) "you should break up with your girlfriend so i can hook up with her!" if this guy was one of my good friends, i might chuckle and let him know what a dumbass thing to say that was. this guy is very far from being a favored acquaintaince.

he repeated the "break up with your girlfriend so i can hook up with her" bit about 3 or 4 more times.

this lumbering oaf then proceeds to stick himself with a needle from a patient. ok ok, honest mistake, whatever. the part about this that makes him so horrible is that he decides at 7:30am that he's going to leave before 8am (when rounds begin) so he can get to occupational health before it opens, so he can get samples of medications which he won't need to take until the next day (since he was already treated for his needlestick in the ER), but he "doesn't want to spend all day waiting in line." the thing is, at 8am, when we round with the team, the 2 on-call people (myself and the blubbering giant) present all 10 patients. usually it's common courtesy to divide them, 5 and 5. and it's only natural that you tend to know the 5 you're presenting better than you know the other person's 5. so when you find out 30 minutes beforehand that you're going to be presenting THE WHOLE FLOOR, it's a bit of an inconvenience. i was being asked questions if this guy had done things or not - not that i had any clue, since he was the senior, he wasn't exactly running things by me (turns out he missed some important lab results and forgot to order some key tests). needless to say, it made for a miserable and stressful morning.

that is all. otherwise, that guy was the best resident ever. aside from the qualities and experiences which made him the worst resident ever.

i'm going to try to run the philadelphia half marathon on september 17th. 13.1 miles. today i ran 6. i'm going to really need to ramp it up if i'm going to be in shape in time for the run. but i did listen to andrew WK's new album and sweet jeebus is it a great running album.

the US open. i definitely need to attend this event next year..

fin (end)

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 11:26 PM |

briefly, since i have to leave for work in about 15 minutes..

spent the weekend in philly and it was oh-so-nice even if it was a bit-too-hot since jennie has no-a/c. we saw factotum, the indie film based on the bukowski book, starring matt dillon and lili taylor. it sounds much better on paper. the film just didn't really go anywhere, never really developed characters at all (i know, it's bukowski, but STILL, it was a freaking MOVIE, make me ENJOY it), and never really engaged the audience. and then, it ended. there was a little bit of humor, but it was somewhat cringey-depressing bukowski humor. anyway. more on philly later on maybe.

monday was my first day in the MICU (medical ICU). i never did an ICU rotation in medical school, so this was my first time there. i heard good things. even though it's q4 overnight call (every 4 days), i heard the 3 days in between were nice, pretty easy, get to go home early, etc. unfortunately for me, i was on call monday.

it's always a bit stressful being on call the first day you start a rotation, because not only are you trying to just get re-oriented and re-learn the ropes, you're also getting more work and more patients directed your way since YOU'RE the guy on call. so it really helps to have a good (in the hospital we say "strong") resident to work with, help you out, and generally make you feel that you're not an idiot.

my resident SUCKED.

ok, so i was biased a bit. this was a second year resident (i'd prefer to work with third years, especially when i'm just starting, since they're obviously more experienced) i had never worked with before (not that that's hard to come by, since this is month #3 of internship).

but! i had gone out for some drinks with another intern and maybe 4-5 of the senior residents last week. inevitably the conversation turns to work, exchanging funny stories, comparing experiences on the floor, and bitching about bad residents and attendings. one of the residents mentions this dude. "OH DUDE THAT GUY SUCKS" "SUCH A SHITTY RESIDENT" etc. i asked what made him such a bad resident, and they all assured me that he was just bad, and i should just hope i never have to work with him. guess who i was on call with on monday?

ok... i have to brush my teef and get ready to go in. i'll post more later today, but just had to get that little bit out there...

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 7:37 AM |

if by year, i mean birthday weekend.

friday, we started off the night by going to kum gang san in koreatown. it was my second trip back there - the first time, we brought a bunch of white people there and they loved it. this time it was 9 koreans (yes ben, you count) - and the food was every bit as tasty. i met up with my sister and her boyfriend and their 5 friends from yonsei in korea including my evil doppleganger named ben from philly.



then we went to sugar sweet sunshine (on recommendation from peter and the majority of magazine reviews) and picked up a nice big heavy order of 3 dozen delicious cupcakes.

from there it was on to sing sing karaoke where we had a room reserved for up to 20 people. it was amazing. there was a phone in the room. you dial 101 and then the bar picks up, you tell them what you want and then they bring you the drinks! like magic! it was like, awesome!

the turnout was pretty good, a nice mix of old college buddies and new new york friends and even a handful of doctors for good measure, and of course a couple of people i didn't know and i don't remember their names now. cupcakes were eaten, songs were sung, photos were taken. "baby got back" got played twice.







the tab for the night was pretty impressive. i think we made the proprietors very happy, especially when i gave away about a dozen cupcakes to various staff and patrons and people on the street. so they bought us all shots to end the night, and the remainder of the party + strangers in the bar sang me happy birthday. awwww.

we then trekked around the corner to rififi for the trash party. we got in around 2am or so. we were all dancing on stage within 30 minutes. then we took a $40 cab home...

saturday, woke up in the late afternoon with a major headache and dehydration. watched little miss sunshine, which is waaay funnier and better than i expected it to be. we had dinner at yuva, which was delicious and indian and maybe a bit pricey for the quality even for new york. and then it was decided to bail on the rest of the evening, given the prior evening's debaucheries.

sunday was my (real) birthday. did some shopping in soho, bought (another) jacket. jennie gifted me with the most awesome and most desired brian anderson dunks:



had dinner in tribeca at next door nobu, which was expensive and incredible and delicious and probably one of the best meals i've ever had, ever (although that meal at l'etoile will always be memorable). we had a tasting menu of maybe 7 or 8 plates. trying to remember.. raw fatty tuna finely minced, with wasabi and caviar and something else, and a japanese peach on the side .... oysters in some sort of delicious sauce ... lobster tempura ... alaskan black cod marinated in miso with duck foie gras ... a plate of sushi including toro and giant clam .. dessert was green tea ice cream with a chocolate lava cake and mint sauce on top. i'm pretty sure i'm forgetting a dish or two as well. it was amazing.

then as we were leaving, i was shoved aside by a little man in a suit, who asked me to wait to let the people in before i walked out. i was a bit defiant and ready to say something until i looked and noticed that jenna and barbara bush were walking in, and i had just been neutralized by a secret service dude. WOW. (capital letters = sarcasm). outside there were about 8 secret service people just milling around, getting paid.

and that was it. that was the weekend. not that i went in to work on monday or anything, but you know.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 6:54 PM |

more at flickr

i've been very lax at keeping up with my flickr account.

lots of old photos have been uploaded, including several trips to philly, evenings of fun with the finger-stache (total borrowed idea from MBIMOTMOG), lots of pictures of cats and dogs, and photos of our trip to mexico.

maybe i'll sort through more old stuff.

tomorrow night, for my pre-birthday party:

Sing Sing Karaoke
81 Ave. A (between 5th and 6th)
9pm - 12am
let's get retarted

bring expensive gifts

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 1:33 PM |

apartment life at flickr

i replaced my broken camera. pictures will now be arriving again.

this morning's running soundtrack:
spank rock
cage "hell's winter"
"we got it for cheap vol 2"
"use your illusion II"
the new roots album
les savy fav
DFA79

it was nice

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 6:54 AM |

ok that was the worst chinese food i've had in about 10 years.

get it right here in the bronx. ugh.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 10:00 PM |

yesterday i rode down to the south street seaport to catch hot chip. it was soo good. i was going to try to do an interview with them for STUCK (since the publicist asked if i wanted to), but after i said yes she told me that they had to do an interview with sirius satellite radio and wouldn't have time. so, thanks for asking.

but hot chip was awwwesome. it was outdoors on the pier where i was drowning in hipsterses, it was kinda warm (but it cooled off nicely towards the end of the set), it started early (at 8pm) and finished early (9pm), the drummer dude from LCD soundsystem/les savy fav held it DOWN live, the lead singer looked like a slight mike skinner in a pink lumberjack flannel (in this weather??), and the band was ON POINT. all the songs sounded fantastic, most of which i attribute to the fact that i was hanging out by the soundboard. i think i was standing next to a hipster first date, which was amusing until the set started, and they continued their getting-to-know-you-by-telling-you-all-about-myself-first puppet show throughout every single song. (seriously, they should just start a blog)

the rockinger songs (like "boy from school" and "over and over"(which, incidentally, tore the sky off the sucka)) came off sounding terrific, with the heavy backbeat laid down by the live drumming and the thick layers of synthesizers - i think it helped that they used synth bass, because that shit was LOW and LOUD. even the quieter songs like "colours" and "keep falling" got rocked out in a bit more of an upbeat and uptempo fashion. they never lost their pace through the set, never missed a cue, even the three part vocal harmonies were all perfect. it was great.

the show finished early, and i raced uptown to barca 18 to join my co-interns for dinner. there's a group of four of us interns that have established ourselves amongst the seniors as "the ones that go out," aka, "the only ones we know outside of work." the four of us have gone out every night for the past four nights. it's been fun. i met the other 3, plus 2 second years (one of them is actually younger than me (by almost two years) and went to med school at northwestern and states that life during wartime dance parties at the hideout was like her fave dance party there and that she also loves club foot). i showed up a bit late so they had set aside my share of the tapas ... which almost filled up a plate the size of a saucer. then the entrees came, which .. of my portion .. almost filled the rest of the saucer. then we had dessert and sangria. it was kind of expensive for the amount of food. but the morsels i ate were quite tasty.

we then went around the corner and killed a couple hours at underbar (described as "sexy, subterranean lounge is like a basement makeout party for grownups" - i certainly saw no making out and no grown ups, although the DJ was spinning some 90s hiphop, which was a welcome change). after it was decided that the night had grown ripe enough, we trekked to the LES where we met up with some of the other senior residents at club tuts, which is a hookah bar with a dance floor and all the bartenders look like vin diesel (or mini-me dressed up as vin diesel). the bar probably wouldn't have been as fun if i hadn't already been drunk. for some reason i got really fired up at this place and constantly demanded that everybody keep dancing and for the most part, they listened to me. i had fun.

we shut down the place at 4:30am.

then i realized that i left my keys..in my bag...in my friend diana's car...who parked a cab ride away...and left earlier...and was leaving early in the morning for the hamptons.. FUUUCK.

so i crashed with one of guys in my class, slept for like 2 hours on a futon in a living room without a/c and without being able to brush my teeth (that was the worst part), picked up my bag and keys in the morning, and was back in the good old bronx by 9:30am. then i showered and brushed my teeth for like 20 minutes and then passed out and woke up not long ago. now my circadian rhythms are all fucked up but it's a well documented fact (i have several case reports i can cite) that general tso's chicken will cure pretty much everything, from altered sleep biorhythms to broken bones to depression. it does it all. and it just arrived.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 8:42 PM |

there's a lull right now. i have about 15 more minutes until the wash cycle ends. why does the laundry room have to be as hot as a damn firepit?

radiology is cake. i'm taking friday off. it wasn't even my idea. the senior resident suggested that i take 3 day weekends (um, ok! duh!).

friday, hot chip is playing south street seaport for the river to river fest. i'm going to try to get an in-person interview done after they soundcheck at 2pm. pretty excited about this. this is all being made possible by the fact that i won't be going into work on friday.

tonight is the "hooray we survived the first month of internship" party for all of us interns and residents. it was supposed to be at some outdoor bar in this 300 degree heat but because it's been so hot, it's been postponed. so tonight's party is a self-pay. whatever. it's in manhattan, i don't have to be in until 9am tomorrow, i'm going to try to catch a ride with someone down there, it's all gravy.

our chief resident totally make dorky jokes like "we're going to elevate our transaminases and depress our mental states" and warnings about the heat like "let's avoid sever hypernatremia and malignant hyperthermia" or something similarly nerdball. i know you're the chief, i know you LOOOVE medicine, but jesus man, reign it in a bit, mmkay?

last night a number of us took a field trip into the city (bed bath and beyond, specifically) and loaded up on some much needed housewares. i got a lamp, a bathrug, a dishrack, and a microwave. i still need a smaller bedside lamp, and a vacuum cleaner of some sort.

after the shopping, we ate at mustang grill, which had a pretty damn tasty cubano sandwich and delicious fries. also there was a drink called the silver snake or something which basically tasted like 3 shots of tequila and a splash of lime. unfortunately, it was a bit of a meatmarket, but hey, for those fries, it was kind of worth it, sort of.

wash cycle is almost over. READY THE DRYER SHEETS

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 5:54 PM |