Today was one of those days that if you look at all the things you have to do...you would flip out and end up a bum on the beaches of CA (not that I've been thinking of it or anything ;P) The first half of the day consisted of showing our replacement residents how to run the NICU...given that we only have 5 hours to do this task, it was a hard one in itself. These poor guys seemed pretty flabbergasted at everything they had to do and learn, we must have had a similar look on our faces at the end of our first day, dazed and confused (but not the kind from having too much fun - very much the opposite). In 5 hours these new residents had a crash course in 3 different computer systems for tracking health data, learned how to present a NICU patient to an attending in rounds, got slammed with multiple math equations for calculating IV nutrition/medication dosages/feedings, and stacked nicely on top of all that was the diseases and histories of our little kids that we were handing off to them. Now that I'm on the outside looking in, I can see why it was such a brutal first day for me. Since we were pressed for time today, we "experienced" residents (sarcastically speaking) did most of the work, presentations, and notes. The few things that they did do they did really well, I think probably better than I did on my first day...but I'm not surprised, I'm not one of those people that picks things up really well right off the bat, I need lots of repetition.
After that we were off to our new places. My new one, as mentioned before, is GI. It's nice in a way, all we deal with everyday is that long tube that runs from your lips to your ...pooper. At first you think that it seems simple and that studying will be pretty straight forward, but the GI system has a lot of pathology involved with it. If you think about it although it is one "system" of your body, it's composed by many different things. The small intestine is as different from the large intestine as your teeth are different from your anus...each part being different, there is a lot of different tissues and really with each different type of tissue there is multiple things that can go wrong with them (that's not to mention the effects that each different tissue has on the others...which adds a whole new layer of "what-the-heck" to the equation.
My first day on GI was really simple, I met up with my attending who was in the middle of sticking a long black tube, that looks disturbingly like a rubber roto-ruter, up a 3 year old child's butt; she pauses in the middle of this looks over at me, smiles friendly-like, and says, "Hey, come watch this." (Only in medicine). If they've ever shown colonoscopies on TV, I'm pretty sure they left out the sound effects (Oh My God). This kid was playing base trombone in his own personal band...among other instruments to still be invented. Having worked in some way or fashion within a hospital for 6 or so years, I've developed that "poker face" when things like this happen...but it still made me chuckle a bit (on the inside) to have 7 people standing around this kid, with all these "noises" being made and everyone of them as emotionally "monotone" as the next - I'm pretty sure they were wearing their "masks" too (or maybe I'm just immature...maybe that's why I'm a pediatrician). Anyways that doesn't keep me from feeling sorry for the kid, he's got some kind of immune system problem that is basically causing an allergic response on the wall of his colon - the tissue looked a lot like you nose and eyes get when you get a cold, red, irritated, and injected with little red vessels. It's weird when they take "biopsies", it's a nice way of saying they put in a small wire with a metal set of "jaws" on the end that takes bites out of your colonic wall - it looks as traumatic as it sounds - but I'm sure it's exaggerated quite a bit since the video is blown up on a big screen TV.
Anyways I'm going to check on him tomorrow and see how he's doing. After that I have GI clinic, which I'm still kind of in the dark on...and then I'm off to our new house again. My father-in-law drove up early today and as of 7pm tonight we have unloaded about 2/3rds of all the crap my wife and I have accumulated over the last 3 years...fun. Hopefully tomorrow we will be finished totally and we can get the hell out of this small cramped hotel room...it felt really awesome standing in the wide open spaces of my house, can't wait!!!
Newbie Doc
Just a quick note, I don't know how we would survive without family. When I first started out in medicine, I was in college. It seemed that even the most difficult things, I could handle by myself (most times, if not with a little struggle). But as you move on up the ranks and into medical school, you get more and more stretched, until you barely have time to keep up with old friends. It seemed that, as independent as I would like to be (I don't like to be a burden to others if I can help it), more and more I've had to lean on friends and family to help me out, now to the point where I don't know what I would do if I hadn't been blessed with such great people in my life. I'm not saying you can't do medicine if you don't have a good support system...I'm just saying I don't see how ;)
Thank You all for being there for us - We don't know what we would do without you : )
