2nd Year!

Well, it has been a really... really long time since I have posted. Its really pretty terrible. Almost a year! Jeebus. Oh well. So I am a second year resident now. Let my blogging schedule be a testament not only to my ADHD but also to the business of 1st year. Only now do I find myself with enough time to think about doing this again.

Its not that I never have free time. I do, its just that this ranks lower on the list. Not really a huge deal.

Anyway, I am going to treat this kind of like a "christmas" letter sort of thing. Some brief updates on whats going on with me, where I am at, and where we are going. There is a lot, and its crammed in pretty tight since it has been so long since my last update. And we are going to have bullet points... because they rule.

1. Finished first year! The light at the end of the tunnel is just that much brighter. Totally jaaaam.
2. Became a "Here Come The Mummies" fan. If you don't know them check them out. Image below:
   
   
3. Had a Few Parties: Check out Mandi's Musings for more details there. Can anyone say "Snowball Fight in Summer"?! Oh, and more parties to come.
4. I'm now an Uncle. Congrats to my sister, looking forward to meeting my niece soon.
5. Now on a quest to be the favorite Uncle: And no, I have no qualms about using money to achieve this.
6. Looking for Jobs: Have a few good leads on some positions after residency. As soon as I know and I think to update the blog there will be more on this to come. No spoilers yet.
   
7. New Interns: Now that I am a second year I get to work with the new class, they are quality people all around, and it has been a good time. Those poor suckers...
   
   

Well thats it in terms of updates. All and all life has gotten just a tad easier. Its pretty nuts to think of myself as over the hump of residency. I have 2/5 of my inpatient rotations done and my schedule is front loaded... by the end of March I am cached out with inpatient rotations and rounding weekends for the year. After that its the 3rd year glide. I'm pumped.

Its not all fun and games though. I have some big tests I have to plan for. And once again we have a possible move on the horizon. Even though it would be 1.75 years away, its crazy to have to start thinking about that again. And Mandi and I's relationship is maturing. Almost three years together! Time has flown by. And while that is definitely a GOOD thing, as with any marriage, partnership, friendship we are growing, and while growth is always good, it requires adjustment. Mostly by me, lets face it that lady is GREAT!

That should sum it up. Christmas is coming faster than I can believe. Santa (JonG) already has my list.

Keep looking up.

Tiger Striped Doc

Psychiatry has begun.

Booyah.

This is what I am talking about when I am talking about rotations. Lots more free time, no rounding on the weekends. It makes me long for second year. But, I have more rouding ahead of me, much more. I guess I will enjoy this as I can.

In other news, I am Team Cover today. TC is the resident who keeps watch over all of the residency patients for those residents not around to be there themselves. Maybe they are on vacation, maybe they are on an away rotation, maybe they are sick. It matters not, for TEAM COVER is there to save the day. Meh, thats far more glorious than it actually is. In reality is me sitting in a chair doing paper work and answering the odd phone call. On the typical day there are anywhere from 4-8 residents doing something that requires cover. During peak vacation times or the flu season, sometimes we have as many as 9-13 residents gone. But today? Block 7 when no one is allowed to be on vacation? Yeah, there is ONE person out doing a rural medicine block. And even this guy only needs his mail box checked, not even his hack box. So here sit, with no work and 2 hours to do it.

But hey, you won't hear me complain. It has afforded me the chance for an update.

And speaking of date, tonight is date night with the wife. W00t! And, thanks to the generosity of my mother and her $50 gift card to the Lob, we don't have to go to Sams and just eat samples. Not that there is anything wrong with that ;)

ICU almost done!

Merry Christmas everyone, not sure whether I will get another update in before the big holiday. And even if I do, two Merry Christmasses never killed anyone. At least not anyone I know of.

I get to write today because I have a rare quiet bit of time in the ICU. As my rotation draws to a close I am finding myself with little to do. Our census was thankfully small today, which means I had some extra time after rounding in which to sit down and enjoy myself online. Huzzah. and I am discovering that there is a really cool thing about working in medicine, and in the ICU in particular. I get to be really happy about business being slow without feeling guilty. If I worked in retail and business was bad I would feel bad about the fact that I was wishing the business ill. But here in the ICU when business is slow, it means that people are healthier, and thats a good thing, company be darned.

I can say that it has been a busy month, even though I have had some fun times as well. We had a pretty kicking party at the Sawlaw House. It was the 2009 Sawlympics. Wes brought a truck load of snow, and everyone else brought truckloads of booze. I bet you can imagine how that worked out. Having friends who drive Zam at the ice arena definitely has its advantages. I was lucky enough to have gotten the bulk of my Christmas shopping done before this rotation started, but I have still be pleasantly surprised that I have had as much time as I have had to get out and get whatever shopping I hadn't finished done and over with.

Its certainly going to be a fun Christmas this year. Mandi and I finally have paychecks, and a monthly budget that is soundly in the black, even with loan repayments. This has left us with the ability to be as generous as we have always wanted to be, to those who have always shone us such generosity. Christmas has always been about giving for me (even though the getting is fun too), and its nice to finally be able to have some real fun giving. I am especially excited that we have been able to buy gifts for the Siblings. All 15 million of them it seems at times, but all the same it was good stuff.

That said, my Attending Physician just alked in, it seems that its time to get rounding. Merry Christmas to everyone :)

Anniversary and the ICU

I am gearing up for my big push through 12 straight days of work, including 3 calls, one of which is whole house. So let me explain that. Normally there are three residents that cover the hospital. Typically its two first years and a second year. One of the first years and the second year cover the hospital. So any patients of our clinic, of other FMS clinics around the area, and any patients without doctors or who are from out of town are taken care of overnight by those two. The other first year (or sometimes a second year) covers the OB department by him/herself.

Now, I prefer FMS call. I am just not an Obstetrics kind of guy. Not my thing. And I think that FMS call is usually paced a little better. You get called more often, but its more consistent, and even though you have to run about through the hospital, you don't feel terribly hurried most of the time.

OB call however, there is oftentimes way more work to do than one person can do in a night, and its a common occurrence for certain things not to get done, in favor of C-Sections and Deliveries (you know, the important stuff).

Well, on a whole house call night, its just the two FMS covering residents, and there is no OB resident. Which means that two have to do the work of 3. As well, that extra one that we are covering is often too much work for one.

Basically, it sucks. And I have to do it on Thanksgiving. The nice part is we only have to do one of these an academic year, typically. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, 4 retreats, and a few random days. At most we do three in our 2 years doing in house call.

On top of this, I am on ICU. Which means before and after call I have to round on my patients. So I will be covering the whole hospital for 24 hours, likely without sleep, only to have to go and try and fix the sickest patients in the hospital. Don't tell me I'm not a badass ;)

And I am not necessarily complaining, just sharing. I knew I signed up for this. This isn't really a surprise. But its not fun either. I will be missing turkey and pumpkin pie this year :( But thats the way it goes sometime. Hopefully this is the last time.

On a much more fun note, Mandi and I are celebrating our 2nd anniversary tomorrow. I can't believe it has been 2 years already. Time sure does fly. She's the love of my life, she is God's joy for me incarnate. And she is my greatest earthly blessing. I love my wife. A lot.

So happy anniversary to us.

Been a while.

As usual, I have been slacking off on my blog posts. I have been doing better with the Awesome blog, but this one seems to always take last place on my list of things to do. Its now November, over halfway done with November, and I am just finishing up my Surgery rotation. Not going to lie, Surgery was pretty sweet. Hours were a lot more regular, and there was less call than when I am on service. One would think that I would have the chance to update my blog a little more. But nope, instead I filled my time with as much fun as possible.

Work is definitely going well, being off service does make it seem better, but even considering that I would say that it is going well. I am finding that despite call, and the paperwork, I am still getting to spend time with my wife, and my friends. Just this weekend I had Mark and Wes over for a night, and that was fun. Got to have some nerd fun, which was a welcome relapse into the times before the party-house era.

It is also ramping up to Christmas time, which is exciting for me. I have actually managed to get my Christmas shopping almost 100% done! I am pretty proud of myself, as this is about as early as I have ever gotten it done before the week of Christmas. Mandi and I have taken our new income status and gone a little crazy on our family. All of my siblings will be getting something this year, which is fun. All of Mandi's sibs as well, including Vanilla Bean and Kati. It is wonderful that God has afforded us the blessing of income, with which we can be generous to those that we love. Nothing is more fun than giving gifts.

Well... getting gifts is pretty fun too. And I'll be honest, I already ruined two of my gifts. My wife, in her amazingness, bought me a Bears polo, and after much convincing she gave it to me early, seeing as how the Bears are unlikely to make the playoffs it would be nice to have the polo before their season is over :). The other ruining was a little worse, because it involved me being a jerk and assuming that my wife would never actually get me the PS3 she had said forever I would never have. Well, I'll shorten the story and just say that I got the PS3, but there were hurt feelings involved, Mandi wasn't given the chance to be super generous like she wanted to be, and now I feel like a jerk. But we've mended, as we do everytime. And now we have both gotten our big gifts out of the way. Who am I kidding though, Christmas is going to be ridiculous as it always is. We are spoiled every year.

ICU rotation is coming up, it should be interesting. I have worked in the ICU a bit on call, and I have already had my medicine rotation so I am hoping for no huge surprises, but one never knows. I do know that its in-service, and that means I only get two weekends. It also means that I am going to have to work the weekend of Thanksgiving, which is a bummer. All day and night on Thanksgiving day... whole house call. Bummer. And then again on that Sunday, regular call. All the while in between I will be rounding. Its especially a bummer as I have sort of become the go-to guy to shop early on the day after thanksgiving.

Hopefully I get the chance to update before then though.

Birthday Weekend

So its my Birthday Weekend. And yeah, the birthday lasts the whole weekend in this family. Thats a tradition from Mandi's family that I have to admit is a lot of fun. Its also my weekend off from work, which is nice. MNPS is almost over now, I am done with call, and I am ready to rock and roll all weekend.

A bunch of my buddies have come down to celebrate, and two of them, Mark and Ethan bought me a really cool present: Descent. This is one of the headrunner games out of Fantasy Flight, a game making company known for their detailed, and visually rich games. And Descent is no exception. Its not dissimilar to a game from my childhood... okay, from about a year ago as well: Hero Quest. A lot of fun, and a good way to spend the day with friends.

Tim came over with Shaun, and they brought me a 40 oz of Cobra, that was totally awesome too.

All the while, my wonderful wife has been busy whipping up some delicious meals for my friends and I. She has been more wonderful than I could ever ask her to be. It was Cinnamon Struessel Muffins with a side of pineapple this morning. Pulled pork tonight. Talk about a good time.

So far its been a wonderful birthday weekend, and I am looking forward to more.

On call.

So its 05:55 and I am sitting at the desk in Labor & Delivery. One of those rarer calm moments, waiting on results and physicians to call back. More of the same really. This is also hour #22 of this particular call. I don't know whether it is depressing or exciting that I only have a full, regular-person's work day between me and blessed sleep. Probably a little bit of both.

It was an interesting night, but nothing that I can talk about of course. Overall I can't complain, hard to do that when I know what I have waiting for me at home, a beautiful wife, beautiful house, with some Filippo's pizza and my new TV. Should be a good time.

I can tell you right now that I am definitely "done" with MNPS (OB). Just not my cup of tea. I understand the noble nature of the field, and I will be the firs tto admit that OB/GYN's do a lot of good work, and do tons of good for their patients. But the lifestyle... I don't care if it brands me as selfish, but I can't imagine ever having this kind of lifestyle. Nothing is worth this too me. Even the noble pursuits of medicine.

And I wonder if that isn't part of the problem. Through this false image of the "altruistic" doctor who puts their perception of the patients' well being above all else, along with this misguided ego-driven idea that only "I" am the one who can properly care for "my" patients... we have created this bizarre social dynamic in which we elevate ourselves as martyr's while being highly paid and increasingly resented by the patients who's best interests we believe we should be, and are working in.

I think it would be far better if we admitted that we are just people. And that sometimes breaking continuity of care is okay. Because if it came down to me having "my" doctor after 22 hours on call, or someone else's doctor who is working a regular, reasonable 12 hour day... I would pick the "other" doc everytime.

Of course, these patients, they are getting some "other" doc who has been on for 22 hours. Where is the benefit there?

Again, this isn't a personal complaint. I will do the work. Its hard, and long, but its doable. And the light is there, ever present at the end of the tunnel. I have no doubts that I am one who can go that distance. Heck, I'm cocky enough to believe that I can even do it with relative ease. My comments are more along the line of pondering what is best for everyone, patients and doctors. And not even everyone, but myself, in the future, when I can chose when and where I work. And while I might not be able to say definitively what will be best, MNPS has certainly shown me what is not.

Maybe thats the point? I hope not, because I got that point a long time ago.