SWAG MED

So since starting second year (hell yeah!) there’s been an interesting demographic shift in the crew that goes out and “drinks socially.”  

Last year I would look around and it would be all of my friends/bros/lady-bros/classmates.  Our class was just very tight and hung out together all the time.  

This year I look around and there are two groups of people: Second year dudes and first year girls.  And that’s it.  Last week I went out and there were literally no first year dudes or second year girls.  

Early last year the second year guys tried to do the same thing to our class, come out and bitch sweep us, but I guess they weren’t very good at it.  Or we’re just too fking awesome. Or a combination of both.  Probably choice C.  

This year, however, the first year guys have us to deal with, and we are good at swooping bitches apparently.  

Personally I find the situation very funny.  

At the same time the first year guys must be very frustrated cuz they aint getting any play, and the second year girls have admitted to being old news.  It must blow ass chunks for the single ones cuz the guys in our class simply don’t pay attention to them anymore.  I guess that makes us dicks?  But it’s always on to the fresh ones. 

Moral of the story: It can suck to be either a first year guy, or a second year girl.  Thank God I paid my dues already, cuz at the moment the beginning of this year is the tits.  Literally. 

Hey guys,

I know I have not posted in forever.  Things just get lost in the whirlwind of day to day life.  I am going to make a concerted effort to post regularly, at least 2 times a week.  If I don’t, give me a virtual kick in the ass to get me going again.

This is hard.  Facebook has made us all social retards already.  Add diseases and fear and mistrust and the fact that I don’t actually know anything useful at all, yet I have to remember to ask about a checklist of things that I don’t quite understand, into the mix and it’s like a social holocaust.  

The first time I interviewed a patient it was terrifying.  Like shit the bed with your girlfriend right next to you terrifying (exaggeration but you get the point).  And that wasn’t even a real patient, it was a fake standardized patient in a nice safe standardized room.  And it still sucked.  

The first time I interviewed a real patient it was a strange mix of being scary but also more natural because it wasn’t some fake patient, and I wasn’t being watched by a preceptor like some dressed up monkey in a zoo.  So by the time I had interviewed like 20 or so patients I felt pretty good, it was starting to come a more easily.  

Enter summer break, no patient interviews for 2 months.  

Today I interviewed a patient again for the first time in a while.

I did fucking awful.  Like the Thunder’s play in game 5 (for the record LeBron, winning a championship doesn’t make you less of a douche, it just makes you a douche with an expensive ring.  Congrats, all that separates you from Wall Street is a college degree) awful. I presented to my attending and forgot to ask about so many things that I looked like a complete moron.  He asked where the patients pain was and I had no idea because I hadn’t asked.  All I knew was that there was pain in her foot.  No shit it’s in her foot we’re in a foot and ankle clinic.  My attending actually gave me an “are you fucking kidding me?” look.  I left the room wanting to punch something.  

I realized that interviewing patients is a skill that has to be practiced, and quickly gets rusty.  By the second interview I was back in patient rapport mode, and my second presentation was better.  My attending was praising the lord that his doctor brain probably doesn’t believe in.  Just for the fact that I was acceptable at a basic skill that I should have already been acceptable at.  

Practice your skills, or they leave you like a Hollywood housewife.  Lesson learned.  

Right now I’m spending my summer doing research in orthopedic surgery.  All I can say is fuck surgery hours.  Derm it is. 

Sup everyone. 

I recently had the displeasure of being a patient myself, and while it sucked, it was interesting to see things from the other side after having done a year of med school.  So here’s the back story.

About a month ago a friend and I were studying for our final exam.  Which was shitty.  While doing so we decided to take each others’ blood pressures.  No reason, just cuz we could.  That turned out shittier.  My blood pressure came back high, in the pre hypertensive range, like 140ish over 75ish.  That did not make me happy.  But I figured it was exam stress and coffee and everything else and when it was all said and done my pressure would come back down.  Like a boss.

Fast forward about 4 weeks, exams are done, feeling like a total baller with the whole summer ahead of me.  Re take blood pressure.  Still high.  Crap. 

So I decided to go see the doctor.  I went to a primary care physician first.  In the office my pressure was still high.  So what does the good doctor do?  He tells me to diet and exercise obviously.  I exercise but my diet is crap, so I did need to work on that.  Then he proceeds to prescribe me ACE inhibitors. 

Wtf.

You really want to put me, a young man, on a lifetime blood pressure control drug?  After one reading?  Now I’m no expert, though I’m pretty close, but even I know that ain’t right.  The worst part of it was that he didn’t even tell me that the medicine (Lisinopril) was an ACE inhibitor and what it did or how it worked.  Or side effects.  (Btw ACE inhibitors lower blood pressure by inhibiting Angiotensin II converting enzyme which does some other technical bullshit and are generally well tolerated.  The important point is that generally this isn’t a drug that you just go on for a little while and everything gets better, its a drug that you have to take chronically). 

I left thinking to myself had I not understood what was going on that would have really sucked.  I have no idea how serious the condition is, what the treatment does, nothing.  I would have come away with more questions than answers and it seems to me that isn’t really the point of going to the doctor. 

Anyway, I’m tired so that’s all I’m going to write for now, I’ll finish the story later. 

Peace.

Sorry for not posting in FOREVER but studying for my final exam consumed my entire life and soul.  I have escaped from the depths of hell, like a boss, and am finished with my first year.

Now its on to the last summer ever and all the epicness it will bring, and I’ll have free time to post more regularly. 

Swag on.

So I got a question that went a little something like this

What does the admissions board think of retaking a class to get a higher grade?

I asked around and the answer that I got was that it really depends.  Apparently if you take a class twice the AAMC averages the two grades together on your application, so if you got a C and you retake it to get an A you wind up with a B.

So retaking a class really depends on how poorly you did, and whether it was a science class or a humanities class or part of the core curriculum etc.  A bad grade in a non science class won’t bring down your science GPA so you might want to devote your time and energy to a different class and not to retaking it.  If you failed a class, especially a science class, that might be a different story. 

So again, and I know this may not be that helpful, but it really depends on your situation, so I would say trust your best judgment and instinct. 

Peace!

Whats up people?

Everything is more fun when it is interactive.  Everything includes, but is in no way limited to, lecture, orgasms, ping pong, and the pharmacology of opiates.  So I would encourage anyone has questions about the med school process, or applying, or choosing or anything to ask away. 

You can find the question button by clicking the gear in the top left and then clicking the question mark.  So ask away bros, and lady bros.

Peace.

So I had some clinic time today, which usually is my favorite part of the week, but today for some reason I was dead tired. 

Anyway.

I work in an outpatient spine clinic.  Some of the patients there have some pretty fucked up shit going on, and some are just faking for drugs (I saw some that I suspected today, one started crying on me during a physical exam because of the “pain.”  Now I don’t like to be cynical, but I’ve never seen someone in so much low back pain that hip rotation made them weep bitter tears).  All in all it can be a pretty tough environment, I dunno how my preceptor does it all day. 

During the little down time we had my preceptor was talking to his peer about their board exams, where they basically present case studies on bad ass operations they have performed. 

You know, like four levels anterior posterior discectomies and fusions. 

No big deal.  I drilled giant metal screws into someones spine today and changed his fucking life. 

Eventually the conversation came around to mistakes they have made.  And here’s the secret.  Every surgeon has made every mistake possible, and once they make it they rarely make it again.  Because that’s how you learn. 

Old spice had it right, experience is everything.

So don’t the fear of making mistakes hold you back.  Mistakes are how you grow and better yourself. If you never make any it doesn’t mean you are perfect it means you are a pussy who is afraid of experience, making decisions, and taking risks. 

Go forth and swag on.