right?

so, i am a linguist deep down. always will be. was one before i was a doctor and don't plan to give it up...

linguistic tidbits of my first few weeks in milwaukee:

1. right? as a response, as a rhetorical end of sentence. i say 'yep' or 'hmmm' or nothing. i think this is used in the exact distribution of the ubiquitous canadian 'eh'

2. weed. in kentucky if you say 'weed' in reference to marijuana, i think you are over 50. here, i haven't heard anyone say 'pot', which is what i would say. well, that is, if i for some reason needed to.

3. vowels. i never want to hear anyone here refer to southerners and their vowels. they are just as f'd up here. oh, and i'm not a southerner, you just need to travel here.

4. barley soda. i blame peter for me knowing this one. i appreciate that he felt the need to define it. i got it but won't be adding this to my vocabulary.

5. i been doing that for a minute. in response to 'how long have you had this pain?'. ok, to be fair this isn't specific to milwaukee, or evn the midwest. but seriously. if it had been a minute, you wouldn't be in my er. do you want my help. then QUANTIFY!!

i will post more as i come across them!

my first complaint

yep. it took one day. my very first patient of my career complained. she told the clinic director that i didn't listen to her and i rolled my eyes at her. i suppose the second is entirely possible, but i know i didn't mean anything by it. but believe that i listened - and i remember. anyone who knows me well knows that!

what she actually didn't like was that i didn't treat her problem the way she wanted me to. i wanted to investigate her problem and she wanted a quick fix. a quick fix that i thought would be dangerous. my attending stood by me. and so did the clinic director. i acknowledged what i might have done wrong. i accepted criticism on day 2.

did i forget to mention i stayed late on my very first day to fill out paperwork for this lovely lady??

new beginning

today was the first official day of doctoring. i walked into a room, looked right at a patient and introduced myself as dr. m. without laughing. not a bad day overall.

it is a bit surreal to take over someone else's patient population. this led to unexpected and rather surprising paperwork and emails today that required answering. how on earth am i really supposed to know is mr. white should or should not have his benzo refilled. thank god for my marvelous nurse. who, in addition to knowing the computer system inside out, shows incredible guidance in helping stupid interns.

if the rest of this year is like today, even if far busier, i will be a happy happy dr. chica.

oh and i got to staple a head. :)

new percentages

i started this to record, really for myself, how far along in medical school i was and now that is over. i reached 100%. now i find that a new discrete part of my life begs to be recorded. so we go back to 0% family physician - and in 3 years, i will hopefully be competent and even good at it.

i don't wish my life away by any means, but i like the discreteness of a three year block.

so here we are - looking forward to a year of 4 months of FM service, 2 months each of peds, surgery and OB, 1 month each of ER, NICU. a third licensure exam. meeting a whole new group of colleagues and patients. learning a new city, a new state.

a new life.

i'm ready.

100% there

a lot has gone on since last i posted.

1. Finished fourth year - after that family med month, there was inpatient psych (which i really should have blogged about), anatomy, research, university health (a wonderful rotation - no, really!!), pharmacology, trauma surgery, and family medicine offsite. then, that which i thought had become impossible happened...

2. i graduated. yep. i'm 100% there. that's me STM, MD. you know, if we put my other letters i'm, STM MD MA - which I think makes me a hallucinogen.

3. so those interviews...i ended up doing seven - Cincinnati, St. Joe's/MCW, Smiley's/Univ. of Minn., St. Joe's/Univ of Minn, North Memorial/Univ. of Minn, Tufts, Palmetto Health. i cancelled two - one in milwaukee and one at UofL. don't think i could be a cardinal anyway. was hard enough to be a tarheel.

aaaanyway, ranked five. matched at #1!! starting residency at St. Joe's/MCW in just a few weeks. yippee!!

4. moved to milwaukee. obviously necessary considering the job thing. that's more or less where i am right now. surrounded by the smell of cardboard. slowly the boxes are getting unpacked and our fabulous duplex is looking like home. i have never lived somewhere that i could just throw the windows open and cool my home. it's lovely. yesterday, we drove downtown and j hadn't seen the lake yet (um, that would be lake michigan). when i said, hey there's the lake (like you could miss it), he said no it's not, we are going the wrong way. um, seriously dude? i know i have no sense i direction, but there is only one gigantor body of water around here.

so far i love it here. i suppose we shall see what happened with odd hours and little sleep. j is still looking for a job or basking in the glow of being the doctor's husband. he is officially the househusband until he finds a job, once i go to work. he desperately needs to learn to cook.

i won't lie. this isn't the easiest thing i have ever done. i'm scared and underconfident. i'm worried that my patients won't get good care if i am the one providing it. i keep reminding myself that residency is an apprenticeship - right now i know a very little about a lot of things but my knowledge base will change. i start on ER, the OB, then NICU....NICU?!?!? i have assurances from a good friend that i can make it.

Travel and training

A few days from finishing the first rotation of my fourth year, I feel I should pause and consider. I am finishing a month of family medicine clinic - which was really a lot of reading time and a little clinic - a schedule for which I am amazingly thankful. Because they allowed me some free days I have been able to study for boards, sleep, and go back to having a normal life.

I have also had the privilege of remembering why I really do love family medicine - the variety of ages, genders, family structures, pathologies. I can't get bored, which is good since I tend toward it anyway.

I continue to plan residency interviews - truly surprised at how many I have been offered. I admit to overwhelming underconfidence where this is concerned, but I didn't expect to hear so quickly. The first programs didn't wait for grades or all my letters of rec. I have scheduled at University of Minnesota (x3), Medical College of Wisconsin, University of Cincinnati, University of Pittsburgh, Tufts, Palmetto Health in SC and am waiting for dates at University of Louisville and Aurora Healthcare in Milwaukee.

Step 2 CK on Thursday and then I am free of exams until February (I think). One weeks until psychiatry AI. Looking forward to it.

And so it begins

I am now officially one week into fourth year which means, for anyone keeping track, that I am 75% doctor. What else does this mean? - Well, that I have eight rotations to finish in seven months, two boards exams to take in the next three weeks, residency to apply for, interview for, and try not to freak out about among other things in my non-medical school life.

First, third year. It's over. 'Nuff said. I am not going back to that, ever. I truly hated five months of it, the rest was actually fine. If I had to specialize in what I did those five months, I'd quit. Without regard for debt or self-worth. I would quit medicine. Without regret.

Luckily, I don't have to do either of them. Which brings us to residency applications. ERAS - the bane of fourth year existence. That which keeps fourth year from being quite the mythical promised land that classes before us have waved as taunts. I dutifully took time away from surgery studying to work through the application, find letter writers, write personal statements. Last weekend, I completed the mad dash through finishing it, so I could get the application posted. On Monday I submitted the application and on Wednesday morning I posted my personal statement (thanks to family and friends who obediently read not one, but two, drafts). Then I sat back to enjoy my family medicine clinic rotation and await November when my Dean's letter is submitted and the interview offers trickle in.

How laughably delusional and naive I apparently am. After submitting my personal statement at 10 am on Wednesday, I received an email about noon from one of my programs. I thought, how mice off them to let me know they got my stuff. WRONG! I mean, they did let me know, but then, THEY OFFERED ME AN INTERVIEW. Got that? Within three hours of finishing my application I had an offer. From a program I like. That has, by the way, been followed by five more since. I am stunned and completely excited. I have heard from three of my favorite programs. I can't believe it. Within four days of putting my application up. Wow.

The list so far (all categorical FM right now - I won't hear from the combined for a bit):

University of Cincinnati/Christ Hospital
Tufts University
Medical College of Wisconsin - St. Joseph's Hospital
University of Pittsburgh - St. Margaret's Hospital
Aurora Health - Milwaukee (I'm turning this one down - it's a funny subject for a later post)
University of Minnesota - I don't know which program yet