November 30, 2010

• Dr J’s Interval Events

  After a fairly intense ward service, I have been back on consult for a relaxing few weeks.

  Final thoughts on my first month of wards?

  *Holy jeebus, I learned a lot in the space of one year-did I really used to know this little?

  *It is way easier to do the work yourself than to have to constantly check up on others people’s orders; conversely, if you can trust those below you, life is pretty easy

  *I cant believe I am the deciding factor in somebody’s grades now.

  I mean, the med student still has to take the shelf exam, but at least 30% of grades come from evaluations and 100% of evaluations come from me, as I am the only spending any significant time with the med student. Now I understand why sometimes I just got straight B’s or satisfactories down the line…I may not have been outstanding or terrible, but you dont want to lie, nor do you want to destroy someone’s chances to apply for their field in the future. Apparently I developed a reputation as being a tough resident for constantly “pimping” my student with medical questions. Or at least asking him things to the point where he felt the need to complain to other students I was being hard on him, and they mentioned it to their residents just in normal conversation and those residents mentioned it to me. I figured I was just trying to prepare him for his exam, and never pimped in front of an attending, only gave reading recommendations rather than presentations and tried to teach everyday, but oh well, if thats being hard, then I feel bad for the next student I get.

  I got feedback of my own of course as well from my interns in a one on one session who if they were lying to my face, at least told me pleasant lies that I was helpful, low key, and good. And I got a very nice compliment from my attending on the service, who told me I was operating at the level of a 3rd year resident (I am a 2nd year) and he trusted whatever my plan for the patients was and would basically sign off on whatever I did. Given that my last wards service before this was as an intern, and one who failed the rotation due to a particulalry strict attending, this was great validation of all the things I had been second guessing myself on since that time. If one attending can give me straight 3′s (out of 9) and a mere few months later another attending with whom I have more responsibilites gives me straight 9′s, either i made a miraculous improvement, or I was not as bad that month as I had been led to believe.

  The last few weeks have otherwise been pretty eventful, although not in ways I can really come up with an engaging way to tell. Most exciting, I finally got my license in the mail.

  That’s right, I am now officially a LICENSED PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON. No more calling myself “almost Dr J” even in my head anymore. I shall not be performing any surgeries, but it is nice to know I am licensed to do so.

  I have been back on consult service this month, nephrology in particular where most of my patients are on dialysis and I have not been able to think of cool ways to present them on here. Maybe in time.

  I also have two grand rounds to present which are basically big hour long presentations to an associated specialty. This week is to the GI department (who I want to join) on applications of probiotics in GI. Next week is to the renal department (my current service) on papillary necrosis. Doing these presentations is a good learning experience and actually not as bad as I was worried it would be although coming up with an academic lecture for an hour is a significant amount of work.

  Oh yes, and for those of you following along with my relationship history (or until recent lack thereof) I have broken my gypsy curse and have now been dating the same girl for over a month. She is a PA student who I know from college, and of course there is more to the story, but I will leave that for another time. Suffice to say it is nice to be dating someone who understands my schedule as I am sure my fellow healthcare folks out there can attest to.

  So that is the update for the last month. More patient stories to come beginning next week, as I finish up renal and move on to my research elective (aka 2 weeks call of duty time)

   

  -Dr J

  • 1:18 am
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