Week #6....check!

One more week of internal medicine down. It seems forever ago that I started. But, time has flown by just a little bit more these past 2 weeks, I think mostly because our residents are trusting us more and more each day and allowing us to do more and more. Unfortunately, this is our last week with this resident crew. Next week, we switch resident teams, floors, attendings and call nights. Good thing I didn't buy that $150 Pink concert ticket for October 5th. I may be on call that night :) So, here is a recap of the last week, starting with last weekend!!

Mit and Roberta came down to the city....YAY!!! Morgan, a friend from Roberta's work, flew in from Australia. He had a hotel room at the New Yorker, so Mit and Roberta came to hang out in the city on Saturday. We had brunch at Friend of the Farmer, which was excellent. We then strolled along the East River, headed to central park, sat on a bench and "people watched", headed back to the hotel room, got ready for a night out, had Mexican food at a restaurant in the lower east side, headed to the slipper room for a burlesque show. As always, the slipper room didn't disappoint me!! It was a great night, and I'm so happy that Mit and Roberta came down. And of course, it was really nice to meet Morgan.

So, on Monday started Week #6. As always we had some interesting patients. Lots of "chest pain" and "shortness of breath". I loved the patient who complained about SOB but refused to quit smoking cigarrettes or smoking crack/snorting cocaine. Her response was "how the hell does that have anything to do with my asthma?" I give our attending lots of credit for trying to explain it to her but she still didn't get it. I'm sure we will be seeing her again soon. I was on call Tuesday night and we had 1 very interesting case. A woman who just gave birth the week before came in with shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, and heart palpitations. It turns out she had these symptoms during her last month of pregnancy as well. The diagnosis: pregnancy induced dilated cardiomyopathy. Fortunately for her, it is reversible. The other interesting case was assigned to our floor on Thursday. 22 year old female with tremors, sweating, palpitations, anxiety. One look at her neck gave the diagnosis away....she had a huge thyroid. Blood samples were sent to test for antibodies but everyone is in agreement that it is probably Grave's Disease. The good thing for her is that it is completely treatable as long as she is compliant with medication. The hard part will be the next few months of trying to figure out what her medication dosage should be.

I also had 2 preceptor meeting this week. My preceptor is very good. Not only is he Director of Pulmonology at the hospital, but he is a walking textbook of everything!!! Which makes my meetings with him interesting since I never know what he will ask. The interesting thing is this, every meeting with him he makes a comment about how me and the other student there are dumb. He will make a reference to our IQs and then laugh. Or, he will flat out tell us we are dumb and laugh. I can't figure out if he is really joking or if he is really serious. I think me and the other student do very well with our presentations and answering questions. I feel like pulling in some other students from our program for our meeting and asking the doctor to talk to them. I think in a few moments he would realize that we are intelligent students. I was hopefully planning on asking for a letter of recommendation from this doctor, but not i'm not too sure. My other option was seeing if he would be my preceptor for my medicine sub I elective in 4th year....working my butt off....and hopefully getting a letter then.

Which reminds me, on Tuesday we had a meeting with a current 4th year student about next year....signing up for Step 2....scheduling electives....etc. I have been busy trying to plan my 4th year as to what I will take and when. After 12 weeks of surgery and 6 weeks of medicine, my heart still belongs to Emergency Medicine. I'm sure that won't change after peds, Obgyn, and Psych. I have decided that I want to do a rotation in Emergency at Maimo and one at Methodist. Hopefully I can get them both in before September. For the rest of my electives I am thinking about Neurology, Cardiology, Anesthesia, Peds Emercency, PICU, Family Medicine, Radiology, and Dermatology. If I have extra time available, I may also try Ortho and MICU. Of course, a 2 week course in U/S would be great also. You are probably asking why family medicine?? Well, in order to practice in California or Texas a student must do that elective. I don't want to lose any future opportunities in any state. I'm still trying to plan out my timeline and I'm just hoping everything works out. Of course I will keep you updated!!

Well, I have lots to do today in terms of studying and paper writing. Next saturday I am seeing Brandi Carlisle in concert. And, if I'm not on call 10/5, I will try to land some Pink tickets. So I have to get as much work as possible done between now and then. Take care everyone.