The Bunny Slope

I started my 4th year of medical school in July.  It is kind of hard to believe that my last year of school is finally here!  On one hand, it has been a very long road and I'm ready to move on, but on the other hand, it is a little intimidating to think that I'll have an MD attached to my name in a matter of months.  In the mean time, 4th year is amazing.  Aside from a set of board exams, this year has no tests or grades and is much less stressful than the past three.  There are three required rotations which include a sub-internship which is a general inpatient month where you are treated like a 1st year resident, an acute care month which is an ER or ICU month, and an outpatient clinic rotation.  Other than that, there are 4 elective months for a total of 7 months, leaving a solid 4 months for vacation!  Hooray!

My sub-I was in July and I was on an inpatient team at Children's that was half general pediatrics and half endocrine patients.  I worked hard that month, but it was so exciting to finally take real responsibility for my patients.  During 3rd year, there is always an intern (1st year resident) seeing the patient along with you, and they are the ones who are responsible for the patient.  Often there are things going on with a patient that you don't know about because you aren't the primary physician.  As a fourth year, you make decisions, write orders, call consults, answer nursing questions, and generally take full responsibility for the patients and although it is much more work, it is so much more fulfilling.  There were some real challenges that came with those responsibilities, including dealing with a stressed out Mom who vented all of her frustrations on me in the middle of the hallway one day, but I learned so much from even that unpleasant experience.  The fact that I enjoyed my sub-I so much was real confirmation that I chose the right career path!

August was my outpatient clinic month, and I did 1 week in the pedi endocrine clinic, 2 weeks in the pedi rheumatology clinic, and they let me spend 1 week out at Camp John Marc for Camp Joint Adventure!  It was so awesome to spend time at camp again.  I worked mainly with the horses, which was a totally new experience for me and I have a new appreciation for the hard work it takes to work out there.  It was really refreshing to spend time outside and get out of the hospital/clinic for a while.  I hope there is a time in the future when I can be in a camp setting again, it is such a neat place.

September was a dermatology elective, affectionately known as derma-holiday because I averaged 2 days of work per week with a few lectures here and there.  I learned a little bit, but mostly enjoyed some free time and studied for my boards which I took at the end of the month.  No more tests for the year!

October was my acute care month which I spent in the neonatal ICU.  It was a completely different world.  For the first week and a half, I had only the lower-level care patients, but by the second week, I started taking care of a baby who was born at 27 weeks.  That translates to a little over 3 months early, and he weighed 1 lb 12 oz.  Tiny.  Unbelievably tiny.  The first day, it was scary to even touch him, but I got to know my little friend pretty well by the end of the month.  He had a lot of major issues to face in the first few weeks of his life and he was by no means through the worst of it when my time in the NICU was over.  There were a lot of babies who had a pretty rough start to life and there were some difficult times, but I'm so thankful for the experience.  I got to know a few mothers well, spending time with them daily at a point in their life that held so much uncertainty.

This month is Radiology, and the start of interview season.  I'm missing a little over 1/2 of this rotation for interviews, and the rest of it is super easy.  I go to lectures from 10-2 some days, and other days (like today, where I'm drinking coffee and watching Let's Make a Deal as I blog) I have nothing!  I've spent some time thinking about what I'm going to do with my free time over the coming months.  I've decided to pick back up with the Rosetta Stone and get better at Spanish, which was basically decided for me when I became a Lopez.  I also became a member of Pinterest, which I'm hoping will inspire some fun crafting and delicious new recipes, but so far I've just spent a lot of time browsing.  I grew up playing the piano, but when I realized that may not be the easiest instrument to always have around, I got a guitar.  I took lessons for a little while in college, but haven't played in a while so I have big dreams to self-teach, but we'll see how that goes.  Other than that, I'm open to ideas for new hobbies!

Next month I have off, and then in January I'm taking "Philosophy of Medicine" which has some interesting reading/discussion topics.  I won't lie though, I was also attracted to the elective due to the schedule....Tuesday/Thursday for 2 hours.  Yep.  I'm about to live life.  I'm hoping in February to be able to take a Public Policy elective where I'll spend 2 weeks in Austin learning about Medicare/CHIP/WIC