MS3

I started my 3rd year of medical school a month ago, and it has been quite a busy month. I brought it on myself though- I purposefully put my surgery rotation first because I knew it would be the most time-intensive and exhausting rotation, plus I am pretty certain that I do not want to be a surgeon. So, the idea was to more or less get it out of the way. I know I won't regret doing it first once it is over and the rest of the year feels a little less stressful in comparison to surgery, but in the meantime, I have been thrown in full-force to the fast-paced and demanding world of doctoring.

Mark will be the first to tell you that surgery is not my favorite. While I have really enjoyed starting to finally be involved in patient care and have really liked my residents (they de-stigmafied the "super-demanding, overly-intense and often angry" personality profile they sometimes get), the OR is just not my home. 90% of the time I spent in the hospital this month was in the OR with the patient under anesthesia, and I tend to enjoy my time in clinic and on the hospital floors more. I'm glad I confirmed that though, and now I have at least a little more direction as to what I want to be when I grow up. Also, I have learned so much this month that I know will make me a better doctor in the future even though I won't be going into surgery. I definitely will not forget this experience!

For the month of July, I was on Surgery C at Parkland Hospital, which is the Colorectal Surgery team. Lots of guts and butts. My hours have been really long- waking up at 4:30 AM most days and getting home about 6:30 PM, working Monday-Saturday, averaging about 70 hours/week. Mark has been SO understanding of my inability to stay awake much later than 9 o'clock most nights. ALSO- he has found a new talent/hobby that we will blog about soon, I'll just say that it has helped me out tremendously and it has been a huge surprise that he enjoys it so much!

Starting tomorrow, for the month of August I will spend 2 weeks on Trauma and 2 weeks on Emergency General Surgery. My schedule changes big time- I will be on what is called "Q3" where I am on-call every 3rd night. That means I stay in the hospital for about 24-28 hours every 3 days, but the other days I'm only there for about 4 or 5 hours. So, I'll say goodbye to Mark Monday morning at about 5 AM and not see him until he gets home from work on Tuesday night. Kind of a bummer, but it will only be for a month and only every 3 days. I am NOT an all-nighter kind of girl, so we will see how it goes!

I am learning so much about patient care now that I am finally in the hospital and starting to do what I came to medical school for. For the past two years, medical school has been predominately classroom/lecture work, but now I am full-time in the hospital. It is a HUGE learning curve. I know a lot about disease process and physiology, but I know very little about how to take care of patients in the hospital. Even the everyday things like how to dress a wound properly, how to manage IV fluids, what to pay attention to on a daily basis to track a patients progress. Most of the time I feel really dumb, but I have to remind myself that it takes time to learn all of this stuff and everyone in my class is in the same boat. I don't know how many times this month I was asked a question and had no clue what the answer was. But, I know it will come and I will just have to keep reading and asking questions. It can often be a frustrating place to be though.

I LOVE seeing patients everyday. I have really enjoyed the relationships I've made and I have learned so much from them. I've learned that you can't expect to approach different people the same way and expect the same results. It is so important for me to know my patients well so that when something changes, like Mr. J this month who just wasn't himself one morning and ended up having an infection in his abdomen, I can be aware of it. I've also become intensely well aware of how much of a blessing my health is. Some people are just sick all their lives- one thing after another just keeps breaking down. It is so difficult to watch, yet so important for me to be present for. It is going to be such a great privilege and responsibility, and one of the main reasons I chose medicine, to be there for people when they are vulnerable and hurting. I am going to learn so much this year and on about what my role is in that situation, which brings a lot of mixed emotions. On the other hand, it brings so much joy to see patients get better and go home, and it makes the hard work worthwhile, to learn what I need to do to help patients get better.

I think that's enough for now. I fly through a lot of thoughts and emotions lately and I want to remember them, so I'm going to try to keep writing more.