Immersion

"It doesn't matter whether you like ballet, you have to respect the ballerina." -patient

"A'ight." -attending

Rotating is the bee's knees. It is better than I could have imagined, it's exhausting and exhilarating, and apparently I love rounding and trying to explain feedback loops to patients. There are distinct benefits to being fresh off the test, but the #1 disadvantage is becoming quite reluctant to study for the next one.

Medicine is cray and amazing and human beings are weird and wonderful. for more details, do ask and I'll talk your ear off. The residents and attendings are incredible at integrating teaching into their day. Basically...I'm good.

More attending quotes to round us off!
- on consulting services: "You go to the barbershop, you might get a haircut."
- as I struggle to find foot pulses on someone with X's marked on her feet: "Sometimes, X marks the spot."
- with some of my diagnosis ideas: "Where the hell did you pull that from?"
-"Fab."

Bollywood nights

I wanted to make the first blog post of 2013 exciting for all y'all, but alas, no such luck.

1. I helped place two splints today, and no one got (more) hurt. huzzah! I was also put in charge of a small child at one point and that was much scarier.

2. It is Week 3 of Project: Work Out with People Who Know What They're Doing (trying to do continuous quality improvement on myself) and my legs may actually be on fire.

3. "Our understanding of growth factors is expanding rapidly." Don't be like that, textbook, I don't have time for your punz.

Sushi tomorrow! Finals always. One day, classroom learning will be over.

Daylight saving(s)

I spend too much time reading fan fiction.

Psychiatry has been bleeding into neurosurgery for the past few weeks. Are you more interested in the driver or the car? What about the music playing in the car? What's driving the driver? Does it matter that it's easier to fix a car? (Is neurology even real.) This metaphor has fallen apart after much dissection. I really hope the guy I talked to on the psych ward doesn't have Creutzfeld-Jakob. (Dramatic med school patient story!! He probably doesn't.)

"The language of DSM-IV has become so influential in the discussion of mental disorders that the categories have been reified. Rather than being guidelines that attempt to gather similar individuals together, they have come to represent real entities (as is God created a specific disorder [such as Generalized Anxiety Disorder] while he or she was creating rose bushes)." -our psychiatry professor

"It's not ambiguous. If he looks like he has schizophrenia, he has schizophrenia." -favorite neurosurgery resident

"I'm confused. Brains are for cutting." -another resident

Last medical thing: peds. Sudden realizations came one after the other yesterday. Kids get better. They have full decades before them, not a few months of questionable quality. But don't bring an iPad near their heads. 

Election fatigue. I voted a few weeks ago and have somehow even convinced my mother to vote. Amelia and I saw Billy C, so that was exciting. Big Bird was there too. 

Time flies when you have (made and) eaten so much spinach tortellini today. So much. Oh, I also got locked in a stairwell the other day and finally got out via an emergency exit, climbing through a hedge, and clambering over a wall. All while holding brain slices. True story.

The Last Month

About to leave for a couple weeks of Quality Family Time as well as getting six more countries under my belt! Excited. I am excited for this school year too. If last year was about learning to even recognize what a building block is, then hopefully this year we'll learn how to put the blocks together.

I know I have told most of you about how awesome my lab is, but here is a reiteration: my lab is awesome. I am such a fan of everyone there, and the whole environment is so different from my previous lab. Also, paper(s) in the works, so keep your fingers crossed and eyes peeled!

Gratuitous sampling of lab lexicon (mostly so I don't forget):

• Warsh (penalties for saying "wash" instead)
• Yestuhday
• Quite good ("quite" means "sort of" rather than "very" in British English!)
• The grapes are in the fridge. (shhh)
• I'm sick of this shhhit. (must be said in eastern European accent)
• Not sports cars, but luxury cars
• You're weak and unmarried!
• Whenever a med student is mentioned, one must mutter, "Bloody medical students, can't get away from them!"

We get so much science done.

Arrogance

Neurosurgery is an arrogant profession. Astronomers study the stars but never touch them. Particle physicists see God in the vapor trails of their atom-smashers, but cannot see the particles themselves, cannot reach into protons and feel the quarks with their fingers...These scientists must be content with the shadow nature casts upon their instruments and photographic emulsions. But not the neurosurgeon, for whom the greatest mystery of creation resides in a few pounds of greasy flesh and blood. Only the neurosurgeon dares to improve upon five billion years of evolution in a few hours.

- Frank Vertosick Jr., When the Air Hits Your Brain

From the back cover, the part I don't want to think about:
"He retired from surgery due to Parkinson's disease in 2002..."

From a lecture on dying:
"You don't really have to pay taxes. You can evade those. But everyone, everyone, gets sick and dies."

Summer means immersion, reading for fun, finding and sharing as much free food as possible, and avoiding discussion of my impending nuptials (you're all invited!).

I am growing more convinced that schmoozin' is an important, cultivatable skill. Also coffee is so delicious and breakfast joints are the best joints.


Italics!!!!!1!

Almost there

I just saw a picture of spilled purple glitter and thought it was a poorly-differentiated carcinoma. Also, all sidewalks look like they have leukocyte infiltration these days.

Wildly excited for summer, it's only three exams away!

P.S. This blog still exists, apparently.

Confusing

Last week, I scrubbed in on a spine surgery and actually helped the resident with the surgery for a whole hour, a task third-years are only sometimes allowed to do (bragging forever). I even managed to not faint or kill anyone. It was the best thing ever.

Yesterday, I took a quiz and got my lowest score of any med school thing. Is this a wake-up call or something? More studying, less actually-medicine stuff? I'm confused. Back to the books, I guess.

Thoughts, ramblings, and advice welcome, as usual.