It's November already!?!?!

I really have been trying to blog more often, i swear I have. There are a hundred random moments during the day that make my mind go off on tangents and I tell myself, "oh, I can think about it more when I blog about it"...but that sadly hasn't been happening. Why? Well for starters, I'm easily distracted and when I start writing, i get up to eat and never return to my thought lol. But mostly, I've been crazy busy this month.

 Last month was Toxicology which I LOVED!!! It wasn't busy, but I kept myself busy reading non-stop as not to feel like a total idiot during rounds and able to understand the genius talk happening around me. Also, not to mention I didn't want to fail the end of rotation exam, which, by the way was a success! I loved it so much that it made me really contemplate trying for the fellowship. BUT, i know it's incredibly tough and before I get ahead of myself here, I need to match into a residency first!

This month i've been on ICU at County Hospital and it's been awesome! The hours are long but I love running around being busy. Not to mention, I spend most of the days in the ED admitting people and sneaking away to watch trauma's come in :) Most people dislike the county hospital because it's pretty ghetto and also IN the ghetto. But this is exactly why I love it. The patient population is very different from the annoying stuck up scottsdale people. Our population is mainly lower-income people most of which are spanish speaking only. I love the humility, gratitude, and family bond of most of my patients. I've never met harder working or more grateful people in my life. This is not to say we don't get our fair amount of crazies, we certainly do! But i'll deal with the crazies and insane social issues for patients that will actually thank me everyday for my help, try to set me up with their sons, and invite me over their homes for dinner parties when they recover :)

So I've been learning lots the past couple of months! I'm trying to fight the common theme that students get "dumber" during 4th year. I can totally see how that happens though. It's easy to set your schedule up so you're not in demanding rotations that require lots of reading. I think the thing that keeps me going is the fear of internship. I'm not necessarily scared of being an intern, I know i'm going to make many mistakes.  I know that in the beginning, i may not save lives, I'm just hoping not to hasten people's death, that's all lol.  As expected, I've also had some really touching/disturbing cases at the hospital. Sometimes I wish i didn't speak spanish so I didn't have to tell a crowd of visitors their family member has cancer or is most likely going to die over night. I usually use running as a tool to sort of let the emotions i hold back at the hospital just melt away. But this month i haven't had time for that much :( I'm training for a marathon but I'm really behind. So some nights the stress sticks around. It hasn't been too bad, but I literally almost invited a patient to my house for thanksgiving dinner last week because I felt so sad for him. Anyway, it's been a great month so far and I'm loving it in all its ghetto-ness!

In other news, interviews! I actually have one tomorrow at the county hospital for prelim year and then another this Friday for emergency med in Michigan at Genesys Reg Med Center! This whole waiting for interviews and match is stressful, but I'm just happy to be offered interviews at this point! I'm sort of getting used to the not knowing where I'll be next year, this seems to be the theme of my life. I don't love  not knowing anything past a few months, but I have faith that wherever I'm going, it's in the right direction and it will work out.

I'll finish with a few funny/cool happenings over the past couple of months:

-examining (trying to) a pt tweaking on meth and having her tell me that I have beautiful skin right before she peed on herself
-being told in less than 10s how to put in an a-line (arterial line) on a drug overdose patient and then actually doing it for the first time ever with no supervision
-being told by a charge nurse that I manage my pts very well :)
-handing a urinal to a pt and having him throw it right back at me
-breaking the doors that lead into the SICU (surgeons love that)
-charge nurse yelling at me for sneaking into a trauma
-knowing protocols for NAC (antidote for tylenol overdose) that my residents didn't know


Until next time...