Tuesday, January 19, 2010

I'm alive!

WOW! It has been a LONG time since I last posted! I'm an MS3 now! I've survived step 1! I've even survived my surgery rotation! And I'm married!

I figure no one reads this but me, but I read a few old posts and thought wow! I didn't remember that! So maybe it turns out this is a good way to remember how exactly I felt during medical school.

So far I've finished my neurology rotation, family medicine, pediatrics, surgery, and right now i'm in my first of three months of internal medicine. Neurology was fun, I enjoyed out patient pedi and especially the mito clinic with Dr. Koenig. All the genetics is really interesting. And some of the biochem is interesting too :) Family medicine was bearable only because of the few children I saw. Also my 2nd attending was sick for about a week. Woo study time! Pedi was a really great rotation. I really enjoyed working with the kids and it was hard being done, knowing I had nothing else to look forward too. Surgery was surprisingly fun. Never want to do it again, but I'm glad I did it. My attending at Hermann is being deployed again to Afghanistan, and I wish him all the luck, all the protection, and all the power of healing I can. He is doing God's work taking care of those soldiers (whether he knows it or not). I also learned I cannot deal with open, infected, malodorous wounds, as evidenced by my excellent vasovagal response. And the knot on my head (no worries, it is gone now).

Surgery was also a good rotation because it opened me up to a specialty I never thought I'd want to do.... radiology. I've always enjoyed looking at imaging, I'm a very visual person. But on neurosurgery, we had a neuroimaging conference, and I was awestruck. The radiologist was able to diagnose the tumor just with imaging!!!!! IMAGING! PICTURES! TECHNOLOGY! All without having to cut into the patient once. Also it helps that MRIs of the brain are one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. So now I am seriously contemplating pursuing radiology for my career. Wow, who would have thought! I was supposed to meet with the residency program director today to talk about if I'm even competitive for such a specialty, but real life intervened and she was needed to keep reading in the chest room. Hopefully I'll get to meet with her soon. It is really hard to give up the idea of being a pediatrician since I've wanted to do it for so long, but I've realized just because something is comfortable doesn't mean it is the best thing. I like it fine, but do I LOVE it? I don't know. Talking with patients all day makes me really emotionally exhausted, and I don't know if I want to come home to my family every day not having any energy to give them. Family is important too. Cause I'm married! wooo! But we still don't live together. Freaking post office not letting people transfer into Houston. But oh well, we survive and move on. We will be together one day.


So....if anyone out there is reading this, let me know what you think about radiology! Woooooo!!!!