4 weeks of craziness!!!

Yes, it has been 4 weeks since my last blog and I think I forgot most of the things I wanted to discuss!!! :) But since this is a medical blog predominately, lets start with that....then I can briefly discuss my adventures and what is coming up.

My final 2 weeks at Maimo for psych was okay....nothing too crazy or dramatic. I was in consultation and liason which basically means we do floor consults all morning. We get calls from the medical teams on the floors asking us to rule out delirium....or depression....or to evaluate the patient's competence for medical decisions. I saw a few interesting cases. One woman in her 80's who was grossly cachectic and severely depressed. She was not eating on the floor at all and although she wanted to go home, they would not discharge her until she ate food. She had been depressed for 12 years since being in a car accident that killed her mother, left her with 2 broken hips, and severely injured her husband. It was very sad to see this patient discuss all of the things she was able to do....walking to the store, playing with her grandchildren, cooking, cleaning...etc. Now she says she spends most of her day sitting in front of the tv with her husband....both unable to fully move around or enjoy life. It reminded me alot of my great grandmother and her final years. And it also empowers me to be very conscious about my health and activity level now (eating well, exercising, etc) so that when I am that age I can still move around and enjoy life. At least, that is what I hope I will be doing. Because I can envision myself being totally depressed and upset too if I was unable to do the simple things in life.

So, I started Emergency Medicine at Coney Island on March 29th. So far it is going okay. I was really looking forward to learning as much as I could on this rotation so I could use that information to wow my attendings on my 4th year emergency electives. Unfortunately, it has been mostly self teaching on this rotation. A new director was hired, who is looking to make alot of changes in the department (and he has already started implementing some of those). The attendings are mostly internal medicine doctors who aren't fully versed in emergency handling of patients. So, I have been getting more of a internal med view of treatment. Also, many of the attendings are very busy and don't have the time to teach or discuss cases. The good thing is the Director gives us about an hour of his time per day where we go over an interesting case and discuss emergency management. That is the most useful hour of the day. The rest of the time, I scavenge through the ED looking for interesting cases and look up the management and treatment options. I also have been spending alot of time studying for my upcoming Step 2 exams, both of which are in May.

Now, onto the outside of medicine things.....I had the nice opportunity to go museum strolling with Kat at the end of March. I got to see The Frick, MOMA, and The Whitney. All were great!!! I especially liked the MOMA exhibits....very powerful.

This month is full of exciting things as well. This wednesday I am going to an off broadway show with Kat. I then leave Thursday morning for Vermont. 4 days of hockey, friends, and fun!!! On April 23rd I am going on a dinner boat ride in Manhatten which I am totally looking forward to. And, on April 25th is my 1/2 marathon in Central Park. Yesterday, I did a pre-trial 13.44 mile run which took me 2 hrs and 24 mins to complete. My first 6 miles were great, about 10 minutes/mile. The last 3 miles were very difficult and tiring. I think I was running about 14 min/mile.....mothers walking behind strollers were passing me :) My knees were screaming at me to stop around the 10 mile mark but I pushed on. I wanted to be sure I could run the full 13.1 miles before race day. So, for the next 2 weeks I am going to run much shorter distances (no more than 10 miles) and work on shortening my time. I would like to run the full 13.1 miles in under 2 hrs and 15 minutes.

May is even crazier....with Step II CS on the 14th in Chicago and CK on the 18th in Manhatten. But once that is done, I get a nice 12 day break where I get to go home and see my puppies!!! I can't wait for May 19th!!!!

Take care and I will try to blog before I leave for Vermont.....try being the important word in that sentence!!! :)