Temporary Shower

It is interesting the range of growth and regression one goes through in the third year of medical school. I had a moment of awe today as I realized just how much I’ve learned since starting this journey. What use to be hard; pre-rounding on my patients, writing notes, reading labs/images is now second nature but I am also awed by how much I have regressed. I use to walk into patient rooms scared to do harms; my senses hyperaware of their pain, feelings, history, and mood. Now, I find I am cavalier….more concerned with the scut then the patient. This morning, for instance, I was stressed about a particular patient whom I knew nothing about and by some unfortunate circumstance ended on my to-do roster. I went into his room to get the 24 hour events and he proceeded to give me a play-by-play of his entire last week. At first, I was frustrated by how much time he was talking. I rushed through a physical exam as he talked and churned my mind for a good excuse to leav...

Happy New Year! It has been so nice coming home to family/friends after a vacation away. I have decided nobody should come home from a vacation just to start working right away! Dave and I celebrated Christmas with my family and his. We had several game nights (one more to come tonight) and we ate a lot. In the words of my sister, we have gained a “layer of winter fat”. Here are some pictures from Costa Rica So much eating every day!!! Weirdo and her boyfriend Too fat for a two-piece haha Sad to leave I have slowly started to study again but I really have very little motivation. After getting some rest and reflecting back on the last few weeks, I think I was definitely burned out. I really am not doing too bad overall but I think I could afford the break I talked about in my last post. Haha….the competitive side of me still wants to regain my motivation and try for honors in surgery but I think for my mental health in the long run, I should probably slow ...

So here I am more then halfway done with third year. I am flying home right now from a lovely vacation in Costa Rica with my husband, my sister, and her boyfriend. I can't say that I am happy to be going home. A large part of me wanted to just stay in Costa Rica and never return but I have accepted the fact that time seems to move more quickly when you are having a good time. The only good thing is that I will be returning to family and friends and another week of time off. I kind of broke right before I left. I moved in with a friend when I started burn and I was fine the first day but by the second night, I was so sad I didn't know what to do with myself. Part of it is that this year is so isolating and moving any from Dave was hard. Intuitively I knew it was only for a week and I needed to do it so I can make the 6am work time but it was hard. It was also hard because everything was so new: the resident was new, the location was new, the nurses were new, the attending w...

I can’t believe I am done with IM! It was a beast! I have never studied so hard in my life! I actually finished last Wednesday since last Thursday was Thanksgiving, It was nice that they gave us some time off because I am pretty burned out. Haha. I had a checklist of things I wanted to do during those 4 days from doing my laundry to pre-studying for Surgery but with all the family parties, birthdays, baby showers, etc, I didn’t even make it half-way down the list. The important things are done though and I feel refreshed from having a few days off. I seriously think I need a week off between every rotation! Here are some pictures: I was going to update the blog sooner but to be honest, I hadn’t gotten my shelf scores yet and I was scared I had failed. I talked before about how internal medicine covers 80% of what we need to know this year and to be honest, even with all my studying, I didn’t feel great coming out of the exam. The question prompts were long and I fe...

I wrote last week about how I was contemplating medication to control my anxiety and after much debate (mostly internal), I have decided to try my next rotation without meds. This was not easy for me because I’m scared I’ll feel miserable again but I think part of me knows it is just how third year goes and looking back, I’ve been through much worse. I think I just need to a) start getting up an hour before work so I can study (and feel better about myself) before the day starts and b) stop studying 30 min before bed. With that said, I am determined to live by the following advice from a friend for the next 2 month: In other news, this is my last week of my research elective and I am glad to have caught some of the transition from summer into fall. We celebrated the moon festival with game night and I celebrated having weekends by squeezing as much fun in as possible. I have one weekend left and I’m planning on hiking,  date night, and maybe a movie. I’m super excited! ...

I have been battling some really bad anxiety since starting med school and after going through psychiatry, I realized that some of what I feel is not normal. I am usually pretty laid back but when I get stressed, I can get overly anxious and preseverate on everything I need to get done. This is of course not healthy. Though I don't expect to be stress-free through this process, I do think my anxiety has been affecting my day (mostly because it keeps me awake at night). I sought help via the school therapist and she referred me to a psychiatrist who recommended a medication called Citalopram. Normally, Citalopram (an SSRI) is used for treating depression and while I don't think I have depression, the same drug is useful for treating anxiety. I have basically one week to decide whether or not I want to try the med and I am really on the fence. As someone who prides herself on not taking a lot of medications, talking about this is hard. On one hand, I have been doing fine the p...

At my school, we get 4 weeks of elective time during third year. These are technically fourth year elective but they try to give you some time to figure out if you like something outside of the core clerkships. I was thinking of using 2 of my weeks to explore PM&R or Cardiology but in the end, I decided to do 2 weeks of research and 2 weeks of opthalmology. This is because I am interested in Opthalmology but not really interested in anything else so I'm going to use the research time to a) study and b) finish up some on-going research and hopefully submit an abstract to ARVO. I had a good time on opthalmology overall. I like the first week more then the second and I certainly like that there is not exam at the end but since I am studying for medicine, I didn't really slack off. Dave and I did squeeze in some fun though: a movie (mission impossible....so good), dinners with our families, massages, and I got to go on a hike and get a manicure with Felicia. Next up is 2 ...