When you first start out as a medical school student, well actually even before that (maybe as a college hospital volunteer, you are relegated to doing the "scut" work...all the inglorious things no one wants to do. Medical decisions are left up to the doctors and you are expected to carry out those actions for them...in some cases you aren't even trusted enough to do that, instead you watch on the sidelines. After 4+ years of being on the side line, you start to itch to be the quarterback making the plays...and then you get to do it and although you fumble your way through it most times...it feels amazing. Even still, you only make the plays that the coach (your attending) wants you to make, you make suggestions and recommendations, but he/she has the final say on where the ball goes.
In medical school this "getting put in he game" thing only happens for the briefest of momentous occasions, but in residency the expectation is that the plays are ran by you every single time and for the most part this is how it happens, but occasionally you get switched to a team, rotation, where you are out of your league or the attending is really just a big ball hog...and suddenly you're back on the bench as water boy...it doesn't matter why you are back to being on the sidelines, the one thing that does matter is that it SUCKS! But you make the best of it and you try to learn by watching the game being played by someone else...it's just that its a poor substitute for the real thing.
That was what GI was like. I came to work each day, gathered the "facts" about the patient and handed them off to my attending, who would then run them for a touchdown. No patient was "my" patient and even the charitable question of, "What would you do with this patient?" was nowhere in sight. In this rotation I got all of the rectal exams...none of the glory ;P
I guess writing this I feel like a immature punk complaining about what I didn't get, when I should be thankful for all that I learned...and I did learn quite a bit. I learned about caloric intake, nutritional requirements in relation to different diseases and food intolerance's. I better understand the paradoxically simple, yet complex, treatment of constipation in the pediatric population and thanks to my presentation I have a much better handle on managing GI bleeding in the pediatrics patient...but no matter how much I learned on the sideline during this last rotation...there is still that kid inside me that was whimpering day in and day out, "Put me in coach!".
In that respect I'm REALLY ready for my upcoming rotation, Wards, cause I may have just started vacation, but as far as medical decision making goes I've been on vacation all month.
Newbie Doc
