M3 Rotations Wake Up Call

Ok, so I havent written for a while, wow. Its the end of september today, and Iowa plays Minnesota at home for homecoming game, minnesota is 4-0 going into this game, we are 2-2 after losing to central michigan last week. This game is going to be huge!

So up to this point in 3rd year Ive done one whole rotation, surgery, and half done with my 2nd rotation, pediatrics. So, I got my evaluations back yesterday for surgery and also back for some pediatrics. And I am worried and kind of shocked.  Worried about whether the couple of bad evaluations will affect my residency. A couple of the doctors didnt say good things about me, well at least it will get me to pay more attention and shape up for the future rotations! Here are the nice kind words that I am talking about!!

Keep in mind, for this 1st one, I was late ONCE and I didnt know what JP was at the end of the 1st week, or didnt know she had it because I thought it was taken out, I don't know, it was a small thing, or at least what I thought was a small thing, that this DOC thought was a MAJOR deal. WOW.
Doctor 1:

“Keep reading -You need to understand a few things. First, there is a heirarchy in medicine and as a med student you should respect that. This applies to the 4th year students. They know much more than you about everything, so taking their advice would be a great idea. -No one is perfect. Respond more openly to feedback/criticism. Everyone makes mistakes, but it's how you repsond to this criticism that will determine how you do throughout your career. -you need to pay more attention on rounds and throughout the day about what's going on with our patients. Perfect example: we had a pt who had a JP in that we had been seeing for 5 days. When we discussed it, you claimed to not know she had a JP in place. This is unacceptable. To be a successful doctor you're going to need to pay much more attention to what's happening on rounds and less attention to your iPad. -The more interest you show, the more people will want to help you and teahc you. No one wants to take time out of their day to teach someone who isn't paying attention or doesn't care. However, if you show understanding and appreciation for their teahcing, you'll find that everyone (nurses, residents, attendings, etc) will take as much time as is needed to teach you and help you with things -Punctuality is an extremely important part of medicine. It's disrespectful to be late for anything, especially as the med student. -Try to be a better team player. Medicine, and especially surgery, is all about teamwork. If people can't trust you to do your job, the team falls apart. -None of this is a criticism on you as a person. This is just some feedback very early in your career that hopefully will help you to improve significantly as you go on. You're a good person. You just have to work on some of these things.”

The other two DOCS are below in what they said, and keep in mind I would "dissapear" when they told us nothing was going on, and we could go read, etc. I would go to the library, and so this is what came of that:

1  has not quite made switch from being a 2nd year medical student working on academic aspect of medicine to a 3rd year medical student on the wards. Max would disappear at times without informing or checking in with team. Work on being more of a team member within the health care team and with other 3rd year medical students.

Needs to work on being a team player. Is enthusiastic and enjoys being a part of team but at times did not take direction or suggestion well.  Anyways, I guess thats just life, I am going to work hard to learn from this and be better! Its just so crazy seeing how a little thing can become such a big thing. Anyways, I am going to go study a little now before the hawkeye game

 

The Quiz that Destroyed the Class

So I love med school because going into a quiz I know that I don't know everything and it's usually going to be just trying to survive. Yesterday we had a blood disorders quiz, anemia and blood cancer and clotting disorders was the main subjects.

My goal was to get a 50% because this unit is insane! I got in there and got a 68%. I am stoked. Thats a GOOD grade. In fact, average was 67% (before this quiz our average was 88% on all quizes). 


It is important for aspiring medical students to realize you cannot always be perfect. Now, time to get back at it.

-MD in 14 

Don't Mess Up On a Woman's Age

So, we have these program for M2 year called APD. Stands for Applied physical diagnosis. it's cool, we go to a hospital 4 times throughout the year, 2x in fall, 2x in spring semester and interview and do a physical exam on a real live patient in the ER of either rush or cook county hosptial.

 Anyway, I got assigned to Cook County, the busy County hospital. So last week I had one of these sessions. It's in a small group, 4 of us and an attending ER physician, they mimic 3rd year stuff, so it feels like real rounds. After we interview the patients, we have to present the pt just like a real round during 3rd year.

Well, I muffed up 2x in my presentation. After I had a 5 minute conversation with my pt about how I need to ask her her age and not just date of birth because my mental math skills aren't great, we laughed about her still being young and under 30. Well, as I presented to the doctor during our rounds, which i forgot to mention are at the bedside of the patient, and yes mine was aware that we were there, some aren't, but mine was. I said "miss blah, blah is a 30 year old female who presents with kidney stones. Well I messed up, the pt cut me off mid sentence and yelled "Hey, I'm NOT 30!!" ahh, hell naw, I rounded, I'm an idiot I immediately thought to myself.

Then later I said aloud that she smoked 2 packs every day, when it was 1 pack every two days. I felt real bad. It was real embarrassing messing up the age of a WOMAN right in front of her! I laughed real hard after, and so did the doc and my classmates. Anyways, the practice history and physicals in the ER are great. We have all the tools, a stethoscope, the blood pressure cuff, ear and eye instruments, the hammer, all the stuff we need for a complete physical exam. its crazy. we get to be doctor, its definetly my favorite part of this year. Also, I'm going to try and shadow my ER doctor within the next week or two! PEACE

 -MD in 14 

2012 First Post- It's Been to Long

It's already two weeks in, today is January 15th 2012! I had to write today because of the poem to the left. Ive been meaning to blog for a while, my last one hasn't been since I think maybe October, which seem like a YEAR ago, for real. Why? Because we have learned so FREAKING much! We ve covered GI, kidney, various cancers, and heart diseases. That was all in the fall semester so far. We also covered tons of BACTERIA and how they cause disease, mostly in November.

 On top of all that we have learned close to I am guessing near 300 or so different drugs, which I have forgotten over half of those at least, if not more like 90% of them. The drugs we learned last semester (last year! its wierd saying last year already, AHHH, time slow down a little please) dealt with Cancer drugs, Nervous system drugs, and Heart Drugs.

Wow, so much. Then we got 2 weeks for christmas. It was awesome, and literally the fastest 2 week break of my entire school career. I had Jennie visit me in Chicago for the first few days (we went on a helicopter ride, it was SICK!) relaxed at home with family, went to Iowa city for a couple days, and then celebrated New Years Eve with the dwgs in Chicago at a hotel and a club. It was such a good break, loved every second of it because I knew it was ALL WORK once back in Chicago. And its true, all work. My method lately has been skipping class and relying on the recorded lectures called "Camtasia" for my learning. Its so efficeint for me. I can stop and pause and take notes without being MAD confused all the time in lecture. Also my schedule is SO screwed up. Its crazy, I've been waking up at like anywhere from noon to 3pm, even as late as 5pm and then working out quick, eating dinner and then getting to the library/ study rooms at school by 9pm at the latest.

 Then, I stay up untill ALL NIGHT, usually till 7am or later studying. Its EFFECTIVE. Sometimes I get distracted and watch youtube. Like tonight I did that, Ive been at the school all night. I watched a supercross race before I came over. Then studied hard, but then got distracted by what we are studying on youtube. We are learning about WORMS, and so I youtube searched them, and got caught up into a talk show called "Tyra", where they had tapeworm diets. it was disgusting. What we are learning right now is absolutely disgusting. We ve started out the new year by learning about fungus infections, parasites, and worms. GROSS.

The poem on the left sums up EXACTLY how I feel. After listening to hours of lectures of this stuff, you don't wanna eat meat, go outside barefoot, walk on the beach, eat fish, be around kids, or travel abroad, especially to Africa! This shit SCARES the hell outta you. On top of that, as I'm studying, every time I itch, I think I have a worm infesting me! While I was studyn tonight, my stomach cramped a little, I was thinking I had a worm since every worm infection goes into the GI tract. So ye, this stuff affects you, it really funny though! and makes u def scared of the world thoe lol.

The poem is dedicated to Dr. Lint, our microbiology professor. Its the M2 course where we learn about all this stuff. Dr. Lint is a funny professor, he tells the best stories to the class and shows all the crazy pictures of disease. He precludes each picture before he shows it by saying "are you ready for this one? This one is Nasty" (its funny in his peculiar accent). Then, he shows the picture to a collective gasp of the class. Dr. Lint is outright my favorite professor that we have had at Rush. I wish he taught all our classes. He actually keeps stuff interesting. and he is hilarious.

Now, we are learning about the various lung diseases right now. When I was told how medical school would be it was no lie. year 2 is learning PATHOLOGY and PHARMOCOLOGY, which in simple terms is learning a particular disease, how it works, important findings (in med terms, its called HALLMARK findings) who is at risk, and then a few key drugs to treat it. Now pathology and pharmocology are separate classes, but at RUSH they keep the topics of the two very similar which incredbily nice. So now we just learned about different lung diseases in pathology class. In pharmacy we are learning the drugs that treat these diseases. So, summary of year two if you asked me? DISEASE and DRUGS. Now, the cool part about 2nd year is you feel like your learning some cool stuff and you can actually feel smart on the floor instead of wanting to curl up in a corner and hiding under a blanket.

What have I gained this year? I ve gained some confidence in talking about disease when I see it. It s a cool feeling, a feeling of legitamcy and a little feeling of maybe what it feels like to have that sweet MD (mmm cant wait!) Now, we also do clinical practice here, and my next post I will do now before I forget addresses that! Overall, 2nd yr is CRAZY as HELL, much harder than last year, and I am constantly reviewing last years material to understand this year's material. so my advice to someone about to enter medical school? TAKE COPIUS NOTES, ha I sound smart huh?

 I mean really, take good notes and SAVE them. I take all mine in notebooks my each subject and make sure their are well written, yea it takes effing forever, but I can reference them quickly for background info about this years stuff. Example: I forgot entirely how the lung works, ( I remembered it was a balloon for air lol), and I looked up exactly how it all worked in my notes. anways, next post, then its off to help my buddy move his stuff to a new apartment, sleep for a few hours, get my ass up, do a workout, and then its same old song and dance! STUDYING LIKE A BOSSS!

-MD in 14