Nine days and counting

So my fake empathy paid off! I had my digital review and it went really well. Apparently, I am not meant to be a radiologist/pathologist/bad doctor. Bonus.

On the down side I have so much studying to do I may never see the light of day again. And when I looked in my rear view mirror today as I drove home I realized that I looked every inch as tired as I felt and that was an incredibly scary revelation.

And to end on a good note, we tried a new recipe for dinner and it was awesome! It was really easy too. It's called Moraccan Stewed Chicken and I got the recipe out of J's Men's Health. Let me know if you're interested, I'll post the recipe the next time I have it in front of me.

I hope everyone's week is plugging along stress-free. If it is not stress-free I will be happy to feel some real empathy for you if you are so inclined.

Ten days of class...

So yesterday I had my physical exam assessment that I was dreading. I spent the whole day freaking out about it, then when I got there it was just another exam. Not a huge deal. Tomorrow I have my "digital review" of the patient interviews. Everyone who has had theirs so far has said they were fine. We had to interview two standardized patients. For those who don't know standardized patients are actors who are paid to come in and act like a patient with a particular story. The funniest part of all this for me is our empathy training that we had using these standardized patients. Think about it. How hard is it to feel empathy for fake emotion. "Yes, I feel much fake empathy for your fake sadness, we'll do all we can to help you out...." So contrived. I understand the point but c'mon. You can empathize with patients or you can't. A one day session on how to look epathetic (empathic?) is not going to help those who are incapable of human interaction. They will be radiologists and pathologists, or really bad docs...

Sweat it out

Well, I got over my latest panic attack in no time. Over lunch yesterday we had an 'experiential' session for my complementary alternative medicine where we worked on something called "mindfulness meditation." I had read about it before hand in our psych class as a type of treatment for anxiety. So, it was an awesome coincidence that I was having my mini-panic attack yesterday to see how well it worked. And it really worked. I highly recommend it to anyone who gets a little too tightly wound. Many clinical psychologists work on it and if they don't they could probably recommend someone. Really great stuff.

Today when we got done with class I took the big R for a longer run than he's used to. Longer run than I'm used to for that matter. I thought I might have to drag him the last 1/2 mile. When we got home this is what he did for about 2 hours:



I can't really blame him though, I didn't do much more than that. I did get my hair cut this afternoon and that always makes me feel better. Like a fresh start. I will enjoy tonight before I have to spend another weekend studying up for this physical exam skills assessment. Hope the weekend treats us all well!

Panic again

Well, at least it was a bit of a reprieve. I actually do have another exam on Monday, it's an assessment of our physical exam skills where we perform the exam on a standardized patient and then videotape us. We also are videotaped conducting a patient interview, and then a few days later we will go through it with a faculty advisor. I don't know why this makes me SOOOOOO nervous. I worked for 6 months at a clinic where all I did all day was interview patients. But there's something about knowing big brother is watching that totally freaks me out. Yet another crappy weakend on the way. And lots of physical exams for J. I'm sure he's thrilled too.

Content

It's a good day. I sure didn't think it would start that way though. Today was the day we learned to conduct psych interviews for suicide patients. For those who don't know, that's a touchy subject for me. Just about 7 years ago exactly I had an incredibly difficult and life changing experience with suicide. Not long after that I decided to pursue medicine, and I've been dreading this lecture/small group ever since. But, I got throught it. And no,they didn't throw us into an interview with an obviously suicidal patient (would that even be ethical - to know a patient was suicidal and send in the med students?). Instead we interviewed kidney patients. It turns out that those with kidney disease are 3 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population. But our patient was not suicidal, just an all around great guy coming in to share his story and plug the Donor Dash as well. He had a great attitude all things considered and I'm happy I got to meet him. I also felt so much better knowing I could get through this morning and not be a basket case. I think maybe a few years ago that wouldn't have been the case.

The day got better from there. I had my preceptor this afternoon and did an entire annual exam by myself. I know this sounds less than pleasant, but it makes me proud, especially knowing how uncomfortable a lot of people would feel even trying it. And even after this morning, my hands stayed steady. And it's always awesome to spend some time with Dr. B. He makes me laugh and he's a great mentor. He answers a lot of questions for me and I learn a lot, and he treats me like a colleague and not just a student. I appreciate it. I think this summer I'm still going to meet with him and the goal is to deliver my first baby (you know, for someone else). Very cool.

Tonight J is out on the town at a Rockies game and I'm at home watching one of my favorite movies (Saved!) eating Brinner and having a Blue Moon. I should probably be studying, but the test on Monday went exceptionally well (after all the time that went into it, I'd be worried if it didn't) so I don't feel a lot of pressure to do much of anything right now. Cheers to that!

Burn out

Yikes. I feel like I'm barely crawling across this finish line. It's only twenty past 8 and already I'm ready to go to bed. I'm almost ready to though. I guess on the plus side, even though the week was filled with not much other than books, I won't be going into the test tomorrow sleep deprived. The unfortunate part that I might not be making clear is that I still have 3 weeks of lecture and then finals week. The big deal about this test is two fold: first, if I do well on it, I don't have to overexert myself for the rest of the semester. Second, this is pretty much the stuff I want to do for a living, and so I want to get it right. So, I appreciate the well wishes for summer (!) and I will stick them in my back pocket for only about another month.

Ok, I can do this. Time to suck it up and try some practice problems, then off to bed. So. Tired. Of. Studying.

Sprinting

Well, I'm almost to my favorite day. Prettty soon the test will be here and then it will be over and I will be one happy girl. I even got my lazy butt out of bed this morning to get an early start on studying, and I gave up going to a movie with J and his fam so I could stay here and study. I'm impressed. But, unfortunately, despite my plans to the contrary, my study break did not involve a nice jog with the dog. I saw it was windy, so instead I sat on my butt, watched an episode of Scrubs and ate 1/4 of a bag of pretzels. You win some, you lose some.

So, the rest of the weekend will consist of keeping up this last little sprint. Someone in my class at the beginning of the year told me her boyfriend kept telling her "you're such a sprinter, but this is more like a marathon." And so far, that's pretty much shown itself to be true. The unfortunate bit is that although it is truly a marathon, you still can't win unless you sprint at the end.

T minus 48 hours...