Remember the Julia way back in April and May, who was so scared for third year that she more than once just considered quitting, debt or no debt?
I don’t even recognize her anymore.
There’s no doubt in my mind that this is where I’m supposed to be. Every day I’m reminded why I love medicine so much. It’s the best feeling in the world, knowing that yes, while I’m clumsy and still gawky, I love doing this, I can do this, and yes, other people believe that I can do it too.
I’m on internal medicine right now, which is basically taking care of ill patients in a hospital setting. As long as they’re not dying or we’re concerned that they could die (those people are in the ICUs), they come to us. Everything that I learned in class last year, yep, I’ve gotten a patient with it. I guess I should have studied glomerular nephritis a little harder, eh?
Just to give you a clue into the workings of the hospital (I had no idea before I started), I’m work with a team of another medical student (detour: I really miss working with Chris!), two interns (about two months post-med school graduates), a resident and one of three attending physicians (licensed, qualified phyisican) that rotate every week or so, The attendings are hospitalists, which means he basically admits and takes care of any one sick in the hospital who’s not needing surgery and those patients get passed down to us.
The first week was dull. Really dull. Our team hardly admitted anyone, I sat around a lot, clueless as to what exactly I was supposed to be doing and just feeling like I was wasting my time. But slowly, the patients starting trickling in and I started getting more involved with their care, and it’s been fabulous since then. I’ve had more than one patient actually think that I was their doctor… of course, I straightened that out really quickly, but it was a nice feeling to think that others thought I was competent enough.
And the last couple of days, I’ve taken on enough responsibility that I’m functioning as an mini-intern. I’m deciding the plan of actions and ordering tests (all of this discussed at great length with the attending of course!) and I’m admitting patients and doing their history and physical, then making sure that everything is arranged for their discharge when that happens. I think my interns and residents like me, and my attending told me that I was doing a great job… I seriously danced around my car after that.
I didn’t mention that my attending is hot, did I? The kind of geeky athletic hotness that wows me every time. I seriously doubt that he’s a day over 30 (yes, that my friends, is still young to me!) and looks younger. Of course, he sort of has a girlfriend, but that’s so easily forgettable. Me likes eye candy. Hence part of the reason for the dancing.
Chris is on psych right now and having a terrible time. His resident is a pain and apparently has depression, and he really hates the “medicate them up!” attitude–his parents are both psychologists with thriving therapy practices, so I think he has seriousy misgivings about the overuse of antipsychotic drugs. I think he’s found one specialty to completely cut off the list! I only get to see him about one a week, but we talk every couple of days, so it’s not too bad.
Not much else going on with me. I tried really really really hard to get LNB finished before you headed off to college, Marissa, but it didn’t work. Maybe a Christmas present?
Wow, actually a happy post from Julia, with no blubbering? Amazing! Folks, this is a once in a lifetime occurrence here!