Bloggin on hold until this MusculoSkeletal Exam is overwith next Tues!

This should hold you over with Halloween coming up!
Pretty creative.




and the now classic:

Funny.

But you are still going to lose.


I love the part with the moose.

Loitering

So I was exiting the main entrance of a big hospital tonight and hardly anyone was around and it was cold (Winter is setting in already)when I looked ahead to see a bunch of teens loitering outside, smoking, and sitting up on a retaining wall that had just been built as part of a new addition. I thought surely I would get some wise-crack, smart-ass comment thrown my way as I walked towards them in my tie and white coat.

them:
"Ummm. Sir. We are just waiting for my father who is in surgery. I promise we are not loitering. I swear."

me:
"uh, guys...I wouldn't give a shit."

Laughter.

them:
"Ah, dude just wants to get home. He don't care."



Guess this white coat thing really does influence the way people see you.

FAILURE.

I have been fortunate thus far in medical school. I have been working hard and killin' the grades (not something to discuss with classmates and since no one really reads this, who cares?)but it ain't easy. So when I prepare for exams, I am stressed and tired. And when I go to pick up those grades, I typically get anxious.

Lately, however, I have become a bit more complacent. After battling through the first year and making it, I now feel pretty confident that I will at least pass. I also don't really seem to care about high-passing (>90) anymore either.

So it was a bit of a shock the other day when I strolled into the curriculum office to pick up my Geriatric course grade and opened the stapled piece of paper to find a 63 accompanied by a big fat F! For the record, Geriatrics was suppose to be a side-liner of a course, a little annoying monkey on your back while you dealt with the gorilla in the room: Neuro. We had had 2 test, 5 assignments, and had an attendance requirement and I had not gotten one grade back yet. Therefore, I had no clue where this 63 was coming from: was it the final exam? The paper? Did they miss that I had attended? WTF? HOW COULD I FAIL GERIATRICS? Yet, I believed it. I had hated the lectures, not paid attention, begrudged the monotone nature of the course director. I could have missed something. I could have spaced because of my complacency, distraction, and hatred for the 8th lecture on the same frickin' thing.

I came home pissed and bummed. I sort of fretted about it in bed for an hour before I could fall asleep. I felt sh#tty. I was sort of a dick. I was going to have to restudy, retake an exam, and lose one of my 2 precious retakes that the school allows us before they throw us on the 5 year plan (an extra $70,000). Failing= pride hit, potential money disaster,extra work, and having to re-read the 10 page document on multiple reasons for urinary incontinence.

The next day, I showed up to class and informed my close friends. They assured me it was an error and that I could not of failed Geriatrics. I felt better. Maybe they were right? I emailed the course director and stopped by offices. Noone. Anxiety prevailed for another day before I finally contacted the assistant course director. She had failed to include my final paper on restraints for the elderly- 25% of my grade. I felt like suing for mental anguish. She corrected the grade and announced that yes, I had indeed HIGH passed. WTF?

The point of this post? I have got to handle failure better. It is going to happen in this process again and again, regardless if it has not happened quite yet. There is no way I am going to avoid failing some test, getting yelled at by an attending, failing to make a diagnosis, or screwing up a procedure. The practice of medicine is laced with failure and the clinical years are going to be heavier than these didactic years. I need to become familiar with failure and accept it when it comes my way.

7

P is for Pain and Pharmacology

Ahhhh.....

it will never end and I am just starting!

Just trying to stay afloat.

Learning about Rheumatoid Arthritis right now and guess how fun the pharmacology part is? Non. Zero. Pain.

• Acetaminophen
• NSAIDs
• Corticosteroids

• DMARDs-disease modifying anti-rheumatoid drugs
o Methotrexate
o Antimalarial drugs
o Sulfasalazine
o Leflunomide
o Etanercept
o Infiximab
o Adalimumab
o Rituximab

For one disease. And ohhh...their names make no sense? No sh@t! Plus, for every drug name, there are 1-10 trade names that are unrelated. Talk about a pain in my arse.

Medicine.

First 2008 presidential debate: 34.7 ... vp debate: 45.0 ... last night: 42.1 (prelim)

To all of you out there that tuned in to see the feisty, "sexy" Palin in the VP debate but have been skipping the Presidential Debates (you know the debate between the guys that will actually run this country), I say this:

YOU ARE MORONS.

http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/10/second-debate-r.html

3 solid examples of why corporate CEOs should not be running our healthcare system.

1. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/08/politicians.meltdown.aig.ap/index.html
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/07/lehmanbrothers.banking
3. http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/23/news/newsmakers/skilling_sentence/index.htm?postversion=2006102409

A Morbid Run!

After a long day at school including 2 hours of patient encounter scenarios complete with video, timed SOAP notes, and patient feedback (read: kind insults), I went for a run along the ocean.

The ocean was unusually calm. I mean almost glass-smooth which it almost never is here. It seems that the lack of any waves for 24 hours allowed for anything dead in the ocean to show up on the exact beach I was running on. I mean it was a carnage run.

1 dead dog (I think), 3 dead seagulls, 1 dead seal, 2 dead big fish, and lots of crustaceans that seem to have had better days. It was certainty entertaining.

Why am I writing about this to you all?

No clue.

Melting the lb's @ Work

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/health/nutrition/18fitness.html?no_interstitial

I have always advocated for a little sound proof room in the back of our tiered classroom in our medical school... little speakers could keep the lecture flowing into the students while the walls could keep the machine noise out of the classroom. Would be rad!

Not so sure I could type at the same time though.

Online Fire Fights

in response to my blog comments at movin' meat which I discussed in a previous post.

I get so annoyed with online debates. Barely ever bother but I sometimes do get sucked in!

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=20056539&postID=4186700177525066188

Hat trick! 3 posts in one night. And the start of a new 7 years tradition.

Here at 7 years, I plan on having tribute posts for my commenters. They mean that much to me.

First up: Dr.J

What can I say? A liberal, intelligent D.O. student? I mean, does it get better than that? Yes. It does. A liberal, intelligent D.O. student that has a farm, cooks like a mad woman, and still finds more time to do great things during medical school than anyone else I know. You should see this woman's Macbook calender. Holy crap.

Well, because this is an anonymous blog of sorts and because I don't have any video of you anyhow, I am posting a great video of a another tall minority that shares your name. Dr. J.



so, get an alias and start commenting so that you too, can be featured here on 7 years. (anon comments suck)

love
7

ps. please do scroll down for more interesting posts from tonight below including a librarian scandal!

God, I am a rant filled blogger lately.

Shadow Fox over at Movin' Meat wrote an excellent peice on universal health care and the debate surrounding health care as a human right. Check it out:
http://allbleedingstops.blogspot.com/2008/10/healthcare-is-not-right.html

I could not help but sound off. Here is what I posted in his comments. Where do you stand?

7 years comment:

"First of all, I would like to thank the cosmos that I have found a liberal Doc blog. For the past year of medical school I have been floating around the blogosphere reading horrifically conservative med blogs. I will not name names but I believe that although so many Docs are annoyed by the system, at the end of the day they go home to a comfortable living situation, add to their savings, and enjoy the lifestyle of the top .5% of the world.

I have seen too many people write off Universal Healthcare and chose to vote conservative just because they don't want to shell out taxes and are afraid a big change will rock the boat. Their boat. Case in point: Nurse K's comment. She does not want to lose what she currently has. She is fairly set. She works hard and does not want any compromises in how she lives. This is a moral standing point that she is not likely to change although it is one, that in my opinion, is constructed on FEAR and insecurity.
(As a sidenote, I am suprised that a nurse would have such confidence in a private health insurance company. Has she not gotten sick yet and have them deny her claims with every slick trick in the book? Good for her.)

Well, this debate comes down to a moral standing point. Am I willing to risk my lifestyle and make sacrifices in the hope that more can enjoy basic human rights and humanistic benefits like healthcare, disability, and other social gifts? I am. It is called social progress and it is what has gotten us from roaming, feuding tribes of primitive men and women to the societies that exist today. If conservatives were left unchecked we would most certainly still have slaves, a domineering church, and not be making strides in the rights of gays/lesbians. While every group, including liberals, need their checks and balances, I believe social conservatives such as McCain and Palin constantly just keep us 50-100 years behind in social progress.

I think there is a lot of complacency and apathy that goes on within conservative thinking. It is short sighted. What goes around comes around and when the top tier gets too high above the populaces, it will equalize eventually. Why not begin with a new wave of social projects that does not leave the historically marginalized and the unfortunate in the cold?

We have an inefficient, unequal, shitty health care system that needs an overhaul. Insurance companies rape and pillage. Docs give away services. Primary care nurses have to spend their days calling in preauth's for medications. Patients get treated by overwhelmed and overloaded docs. Nothing works here. What are we trying to preserve?


Why the f@ck are we all afraid to change?

Wall street just ran people into the ground. Their savings, their retirements, their homes... Why trust health care to the same people? Why corporate care and overpaid CEOs? The government may not be perfect but 1 system, social equality, and money spent on people instead of battling with health insurance companies sounds like a good plan from where I sit as a humanist, future doctor, and social liberal.

Please pardon the rant grammar, I need to skip the proofreading and get back to studying."

7

Feisty Librarian ?

So, I was watching this video of McCain that the AP has deemed sarcastic and irritable and all I could pay attention to was the giant "Abortion" Book just to his left ear. Did a feisty librarian place this book in a strategic location to make a point? McCain is commenting on Palin with an Abortion book next to his head. Just seems a little fishy.

Word to that librarian.

Also, notice a Sacrilege book on his right? I won't go there.

You heard it here first people.

ps. use the "enlarge" feature on the player to see the book more clearly.