I managed to get out of Austin before traffic hit, and I made it to Corpus at exactly 6:00 pm. Anita and Sharon had already arrived, so we went to Driscoll (right behind the backyard, pretty short walk!) for dinner. There, we met Amy, a third year from A&M who's sharing a house with us. The house where we're staying at has four bedrooms, two with one full sized bed, two with two twin beds each. Anita and Amy each claimed a room with a full bed. Sharon has her own room with two beds, and I'm sharing with Elizabeth. Our room is pretty large, so we still have our own privacy.
Tuesday: The four of us got breakfast together and then went to 7:00 a.m. morning report, where cases that were seen in the last 24 hrs were discussed (with minor pimpage from a few attendings), and then the four of us reported to Dedie, the med student coordinator, for a tour and discussion of our schedules and stuff. My schedule looks all right; we get weekends off except when we're on call (I have one weekend call and two weekday calls), and each week is different. I have 2 weeks of inpatient, then 1 week of ER, 1 week of primary care, 1 week of specialty, and 1 week of NICU/PICU (not in that order necessarily). The order of our rotations is staggered, so we won't be seeing each other much except at home.
Elizabeth and I are both assigned to inpatient for the 1st two weeks (so it's a good thing we're rooming together; we have to wake up at the same time) There were no senior residents on the floor today, so we followed two PGY-1 residents who just started their own rotation on Monday, so there were times when neither of us knew what we were doing. My intern, Ann, graduated from TCOM this past spring, and she'd done her peds rotation here too, so she was a big help. In the morning we did rounds. My one patient of the day was a 4 year old who was hospitalized for asthma exacerbation. He was in a hurry to get us out of his room so he would watch the MMPR movie. I asked him which Ranger was his favorite; he said red.
Afterwards I had no idea what to do. I struggled with the H&P, and writing it up was even harder. We were allowed to leave at 4, but Elizabeth and I didn't get out until 5:50 because we had trouble with what we had to do. I was sooo tired.
Wednesday: It was Fourth of July, so I slept in...to 10:45 a.m. =D I decided to explore Corpus and found some important stores (Sams, B&N, the mall) along the way. In the evening, Sharon and I went to Sue's July 4th bbq at her house (it was located across the bay so it was a 30 min drive), and we brought Amy along with us. Luckily Amy got along well with the other TCOMers, until we started discussing OMM and then she had no clue what we were talking about =P It was cool hanging out with Jennifer, Liza, Myriah, etc., again, even though we'd just seen each other last week. Jen and Venessa didn't come. Even though most of us did not talk to each other during the school year, everyone was mingling tonight. Afterwards, we all went to some Indian Point Park (or something like it) to watch fireworks, but it was rainy so we only got to see a few sparklers. After that we went our separate ways.
Jennifer and I (don't we look tired?)Thursday: I had one patient this morning, a little 9 month old girl who had viral gastroenteritis. Elizabeth and I got to watch Ann do an LP (lumbar puncture) on an infant, and she got it on the first try! Very impressive; it's all about finding the landmarks. =) Sadly, I dozed off again during noon conference; I need to sleep earlier. At 4:00 we had a lecture on epilepsy and seizures with a pediatric neurologist, but toward the end of lecture I got my first page (I was on evening call) and had to leave early. My job: do an H&P (history and physical) on a 3 year old girl suspected of having child psychosis. According to her mother in a previous doctor's report, the girl reportedly killed her sisters' two pet birds out of spite. But when I saw her, she was all smiles and sunshine. If anything, she was just a normal 3 year old with an ultra short attention span. I presented by findings to the senior resident, and she agreed with my assessment that the girl probably just had a conduct disorder. After that I followed Ann to the procedure room to watch another LP. The problem: it was hard to get any CSF out of this baby. Ann attempted two LPs, one of which was traumatic. The senior resident attempted 3 and fared no better. Since the poor baby got stuck 5 times, they decided to try again tomorrow. I then joined several nurses and a young patient (a girl hospitalized for dehydration) in watching fireworks from an empty hospital room. "Mommy, can I get fireworks spelling out my name for my birthday?" the girl asked. The mom shook her head and declared that she's been watching way too much My Sweet Sixteen. After that I was able to go home, 1 hr early.
Friday: Since I had a patient on call last night, I had to present her case at today's morning report. When it was my turn to present, I was late standing up and stammered a bit. Despite that, people paid attention because a little girl with behavioral disorder was a nice break from all the cellulitis cases and pneumonias that the other residents were talking about, and afterwards one doctor said I did well. I didn't get pimped, either. Sharon later told me that several people came up to her thinking she was me and told her she spoke well, also asking when she'll next be on call.
I guess it's a good thing I made a good impression, but people asking when I'll be on call?!The interns had to take a quiz today, and Elizabeth and I were given a copy too. We were able to answer some questions, like childhood development landmarks and drug reactions (what causes miosis and what causes mydriasis?), but there were others that were harder. We all had to attend Grand Rounds today, in which a doctor talked about how emotions and feelings intertwine and how we can get in better control of our emotions. I didn't really see my own patient today, but I did see a little boy with herpangina and watched two more LP attempts on the little girl from yesterday (both of which failed). The little girl also had thrush, so I got to see my first thrush case. In any case, the best part of today was going home after work knowing I had the weekend free (sort of; still have a paper to write)
Sharon and Amy went drinking tonight with Marco, one of the residents, and a few of the Corpus crew guys, but Anita, Elizabeth, and I chose to stay home. Too tired to party =)
1 comment:
So detailed. I like the pictures. Keep them coming
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