Feels like Home

So yesterday I walked out of our cave of a classroom and into the bright (80 degree!!) sunshine and I just knew I couldn't waste such a beautiful day studying. So, instead of coming right home after class I drove to Golden for a run along the creek. I loved it. There's not a thing I can do on this whole planet that makes me feel happier and more alive than running along Clear Creek in Golden with the (somewhat nauseating) smell of hops and barley wafting through the air and the sound of running water in my ears. A little eighty degree weather and I forget all about how much I've hated the cold in the winter and get to thinking about where I someday want to make my life permanent.

On days like yesterday I get a hankering to open my own practice in Golden, find a community of people who could really be my patients and not just a face that's about to have an intubation tube down its throat. It's days like yesterday that make me want to go into OB/GYN. I could see it now.... My own fertility clinic, complete with accupunture (do you have any idea how easy it is to get certified to do that when you have MD behind your name?), therapeutic massage and yoga, and birthing suite. It would be a really fulfilling life, especially if I could find partners to run it with me. However, there's a lot between here and there. And the idea of an OB/GYN residency is so daunting it almost makes me want to knock the idea right off the table. Also, to go into fertility treatment, you need to do a three year reproductive endocrinology residency, and there are currently none of those in Colorado. It's a long road to starting your own practice, then you have to hope and pray you'll make the investment worthwhile. It may not be as great as it's made out to be.

Of course, I could always still go into anesthesia and live in Golden....

I think the only place the decision will be made is on the wards in my third year. I'll end up loving something, the other will go by the wayside. In the end, for all my contemplating-while-running yesterday all I really got for it was a good workout, a lot of stress relieved, and a cherry pink sunburn. Damn. Totally worth it though.

Oh yeah, and we got to go to see the Avs play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs!!! It was a great game too! J'Adore Theodore! And the best part? My Avs won 5-1!!! Here's to winning on Thursday! Fingers crossed!

Well, There's only about 7 weeks left until summer (less than that even!) and that makes me happy. We're starting on the pulmonary block and it goes for three weeks. If it goes really well, the pressure will be firmly off for the kidneys, which is my ultimate goal. I want to be able to learn as much as I can about them (because they are pretty important) but not to have to worry about every miniscule detail just to honor the exam. It's funny how med school can do that to you, make you miss the forest for the trees. All I know is, it will seem completely trivial to know how many potassium ions are exchanged for sodium ions in the distal convoluted tubule of the kidney if someone comes in with high blood pressure and I don't know how to treat it.

My Favorite Day

I love test days. I love coming home and realizing that I have nothing to do. Sure, there are things I can do to prepare for the next three weeks (until our next exam) but they aren't so bad and they're pretty mindless at the moment. It's been a pretty good day altogether. The exam went alright (ask again after I find out how it really went) and afterward I went to the library to check out some serious fluff - a nice Sophi Kinsella novel. It's a vice really.

I also stopped to get a bottle of nice crisp Reisling to drink out on the front porch in the beautiful Colorado sun this afternoon. I bought the bottle before the clock even hit 10am, and I don't feel bad for a minute. Why? Because I know, unlike Vitamin C and E and Hormone replacement therapy, alcohol has been really proven to reduce the risk of a coronary event. Thank you cardiovascular exam for practically prescribing this afternoon's activities.

In news of other vices, I am also watching the finale of Rock of Love 2. J can thank me later for getting it out of the way when he was not around.

Heartbreak

My poor Avs....

One of those days

Do you ever have one of those days where you are so sure you're forgetting to do something that you actually look down as you leave your car to make sure you remembered to put on pants? That's what I felt like today. I still don't know why, but I do know that I had my pants on all day.

Random.

Well, for what seems like the 47th weekend in a row, I will be studying through this one. We have yet another test on Monday. It's almost hard to believe that the last one was only two weeks ago, and at the same time it seems like no time has gone by at all. Maybe it's just because I don't feel like I've learned anything... I feel like that more often than not, but I know that my little pool of knowledge has really been filling lately. All this cardiovascular stuff seemed to be a big mystery a month ago, and now, even though I don't know it all, I feel like I could diagnose and treat heart failure like a good family practice doc should, all the while knowing that for the tough stuff it's "refer, refer, refer...." Not that I plan on being a family practice doc, but if I was destined to cater to the aging population I feel like I almost could at this point. At least theoretically.

Although it's been a frustrating week at school, it has been an interesting one, and one where I learned a lot, if not about heart failure, then about myself. I'll explain. We started our psychiatric unit. Now, I am not learning that I'm crazy, although I know that's what you're thinking, but I'm learning about my own preconceptions and how they shape the way I think about patients. Wednesday we had our first psych interviews. I noticed that as long as a patient is describing physical symptoms, what they do for a living, their family, etc. I am doing alright. Once they start talking about their spiritual beliefs, though, I start to get tense. I think that it comes from a couple of places. The first is that I don't want any one else's beliefs pushed on me, and whenever someone starts talking about it, I feel like that's what they are trying to do. I know this is not the case, and in reality it is probably an important part of how they deal with their illness(es). It's irrational, and I realize now that I need to look out for it and head it off. I also feel like part of my tenseness is my desire not to insult anyone. I don't know all there is to know about spirituality different from my own, and I don't want ot step on any toes by being culturally insensitive. I might not have learned exactly how to handle myself in these situations yet, but I feel like I've learned to look out for my own reaction to this kind of a situation, and it seemed to me to be an important step on my path to becoming a fully functioning physician.

Hopefully I can still manage to have a good time for part of the weekend. Tonight my all time favorite sports team - the Colorado Avalanche - take on someone else's favorite sport's team - you know who you are - and I can't wait to see them mop the ice with them yet again....Go Super Joe!

Tomorrow we have some plans to hang out with some friends, so hopefully I'll have lots of studying done by the time we get going. Back to it for now, gotta get ahead before the puck drops!

I'm paying for what exactly...

This is what I ask myself about 10 times a day. So this morning, I show up at 8 like I always do, the first lecturer gets done early (in about 35 minutes). This should be a bonus, but the 9:00 lecture had to leave town for a family emergency and so that lecture is cancelled. Again, should be a bonus, but we have a required small group from 10-12 so I'm not going anywhere. So I study for an hour then head to my small group room. Small group facilitator doesn't show up. Why am I still here? Because I have yet another required small group from 1-4. This is the biggest waste of my life ever.

I find medical school a highly inefficient process. The small groups are all required, and we have to sign in next to our photographs to prove we were there. I feel more like I'm in middle school than in medical school. I don't get a lot from small group because I tend to have looked at the material ahead of time and most of the other people in the group havent', so what's review to me is first glance to them and I sit there wondering why I am wasting 2 hours of my life listening to stupid questions (yes, there is definitely such a thing as a stupid question) that could easily have been avoided had I been at home studying. I'll never fully understand why small groups are required. First, I understand that not everyone learns the same way. Some people don't get anything from lecture and do better teaching themselves, or do better discussing in small groups. Hooray for them, they don't have to show up for lecture it's not required. Some people, like myself, get nothing from small groups but find lecture very helpful, so while I go to lecture religiously because that's how I learn, I still am forced to go to the stupid small groups where I want to pull out my hair and eyes. Oy.

Anyway, I guess it's just one of those days. I think I might go buy myself lunch with my free time here. Sitting here stewing about it is just putting me in a seriously bad mood. Hopefully this session this afternoon isn't totally ridiculous, but they usually are.

April Blizzards Make me Pensive

Well, ok, it's not really a blizzard. It's barely even a snow, but the clouds have that oppressive over-white look to them when they really want to dump all that cold, mucky nastiness all over the place. Having a bit of extra time today has given me the opportunity to hit the blogs again and actually add to mine! Exciting to not always be reading about congestive heart failure.



I am so ready for spring. The cold weather makes me want to curl up on the couch and not move. Not very conducive to great studying and definitely not conducive to the gym. J and I both agree that this is our week to get back on track though. Tonight is the NCAA Championship game so tonight is pretty much out, but tomorrow it's back to it.



I haven't really been back to work in the gym since the bad news, it's hard to make myself do it. But, I definitely don't want to be lame and let myself go just because something didn't go my way. If we're going to try again I have to get it together and make my body capable of handling it. It freaks me out if I'm being honest. What's the addage, once bitten twice shy? I know that I know too much about this. I've been studying human physiology for the past 4 years, and I've picked up a lot of information that makes me scared to try again at all. I feel like a lot of the stuff I've learned has the unfortunate side effect of robbing a bit of the naive hope that I'd like to have and replacing it with a realism that delves into pessimism. It's not a great feeling. I think it's totally normal to want reassurance that next time will be fine, but it's a reassurance that really can't be given by anyone, and that makes it all the harder to swallow.

All of these issues have made me think a little harder about what I want to do for a career. I love physiology, which is the study of the dynamic changes going on in your body at all times, and how it should function normally, and this is why I love anesthesia. An anesthesiologist needs to be able to assess a person's physiology at any given moment and monitors all aspects of it from the cardiovascular system to the kidneys to respiration and the nervous system. However, after the last few weeks, OB/GYN still looks appealing. I think this past month would have been so much harder had I not had a fantastic doc who treated me like I really mattered as as person and not just as a patient and thus a paycheck. I think that in OB/GYN you just have more of a direct impact on your patient. At least one that they'll remember.

I guess I can't spend too much time worrying about it right now. If I want to have a chance at doing anything I still have to pass med school. Better get on it.

Well done me

Wow, the test went really well. I have to say that with everything going on, it's a little shocking. Takes a bit of the edge off the rest of the semester if I do say so myself.

Also, for the bread, if you're trying to cook it, I recommend 18-20 minutes rather than 8 to 10...

Today we had a pathology session about heart valve disease. We saw a few hearts from people who had died. The instructor offered to let us come to an autopsy any time we want, and morbidly enough, I think I might. I don't really think that pathology is the field for me, I mean it could be, but it's unlikely. But, that said, it is something that is an important part of medicine. I think if I can sit through an autopsy I can stomach a lot more than I thought I could. I'll let you know if I take him up on it.