Added Honors

I'm officially done with my first month on medicine wards. Academically, I've been thinking of the first month as kind of a write off; I'm probably not going to hit the cover off the ball, but I set out to try to get through, learn things, and not embarrass myself too badly.

Which is not to say I didn't pursue any extra goals. I made it my mission on rounds to be the guy that pushes the computer (the rolly kind is called a C.O.W. in a hospital). I figure I've pushed it about a million miles, and that I deserve some special commendation for that. Maybe a cow-shaped lapel pin?


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Risk Management

Am I sure that Vaccines don't cause autism? Yes. But even if I weren't, it'd probably be worth rolling the dice, just to make sure that I didn't meet the same fate as so many of my Oregon Trail characters. Jorgen is dead; set pace to grueling.

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Ergonomics

A lot of what is prone to bug us about our more ambitious peers, I think, is the willingness to do tangential unnecessary work, and then to tell us about all the extra work they just got doing. They don't just read the explanations for questions they get wrong, they reread the pertinent chapter of Harrison's. I'm not against people doing extra work; I'm against constant unsolicited reminders that you're doing it.

Pictured below: some extra work one could do to bump the degree of difficulty up on a call night.

It would be good for your glutes though...

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The Cold Calculus

I'm not particularly afraid of pimp questions. Sometimes I get them right; that makes me feel good. Sometimes I get them wrong; that makes me feel nothing. I would probably learn more if I had fear to drive in the lessons, but what can you do?

In any case, I've noticed a pattern. The attending generally starts off with the assumption that you're an idiot, and then you gradually work your way up until you start missing questions. Then there's a compensatory drop in difficulty, which I feel may sometimes be an overcompensation. Your mileage may vary.


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Unpracticed

It's called trans-esophageal auscultation and it's all the rage.


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One Week

So far, being one week in to JMS is less like the Barenaked Ladies song than I would have hoped. I would have hoped it was exactly like that.

There's a lot going on all at once in internal medicine. My personal preference is to only have one thing at a time going on, or sometimes none (ie, when I am sleeping). Nevertheless, my day is largely split between stretches where I'm on my own and nobody is paying any direct attention to me, and stretches where everyone is moving around in a big medi-globule where there is a lot of attention paid all the time.


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The Gunner, Defined

People describe the phenomenon that is the gunner in many ways; I believe this gets to some of the essence of it.  


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Dressed to the .9s

 

This is a test post, more than anything else, of the blog 'Pros and Consult' - a forum in which I intend to display poorly-drawn .jpgs about medical education and the things that occur to me.  It is much like a virtual refrigerator, in the sense that I'm going to put stuff up on it... imagey stuff... that is not of high enough quality to frame.

The mood for this one struck me when I was trying to get my costume ready for the first day on JMS (T minus 30 hours now).  I guess I would feel a little bit better if it had a racing stripe, some fringe, or more flair options.  But then again, you have to start somewhere.

First days are rough!

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