Clerkships looming

We have two exams next week, Monday and Wednesday. On the one hand, I'm not too worried about them, there is a relatively small amount of info to know for them. On the other, trips to Canada and general thumb-up-my-assedness have left me a little behind on the studying front. I also have a friend coming into town on Friday night so that whole evening is shot as far as studying goes. I might be pulling my first all-nighter in med school on Sunday.

We had a meeting today about 3rd year clerkships. Those are the rotations we do through all the different departments in the hospital like pediatrics, OB/Gyn, surgery, etc. The Dean of Students started the meeting by telling us all to relax and not stress about them. He then went on to describe in intricate detail how our performance in these clerkships will invariable decide the course of the rest of our lives. "No pressure, but if you do poorly in your clerkship evaluations, you will be stuck in a residency in Yuma, Arizona, working mostly on ailing pack mules."

Well, it's 1:30 AM and I have another chapter of interstitial lung disease to get through tonight. As you can tell, life here is like a William S. Burroughs memoir these days.

"Big white warning flags"

On each Tuesday, my school looses the 2nd year med students into the hospital wards to wreak havoc. The way it works is that we are assigned patients in pairs, we go to the patient's room, barge in, ask a million questions, grope and fondle, then meet with an attending physician to discuss what we didn't find. We know nothing. We're blind rats in a maze looking for odorless cheese that doesn't exist.

Last week I found a previously undiagnosed heart murmur in a patient. It was so faint that even the attending physician, with years and years of experience, could barely discern it. This week I saw another patient with an undiagnosed heart murmur and I missed it. This one was so loud and obnoxious that you could hear it just by walking in the room, with your iPod on, and your last name is Beethoven or Keller. Apparently last week I proved the blind squirrel and acorns theorem.

They make us wear white coats when we go to the hospitals. They only go down to your waist - the stigmata of the med student. Once you graduate, you get the full knee-length coat. One would suppose we wear these mini-skirt versions of lab coats to give the illusion to the patients that we are in fact some kind of pseudo doctor-like being. The four of us (2 pairs of students per attending Doc) in my hospital group have come up with an alternative hypothesis though. No other physicians in the hospital wear white coats anymore. Interns wear scrubs and clogs, residents wear khaki's, oxford shirts and brand-name running shoes, attendings wear Armani suits and Bruno Magli's. Med students wear big white polyester warning flags so that all the other MDs in the place are alerted to the fact that, if given any responsibility for patient care whatsoever, we will most surely kill. I'm beginning to understand why my school charters two small yellow buses to get us to the hospital from campus rather than one large bus.

Trying to find blogging time lately

"2 years ago, you know what I used to do at night? Nothing! Sit on my ass and do nothing. Or play softball, or drink with my friends or play with my dog or fuck my girlfriend. You know what I do now? This."

I said this to Minerva earlier tonight while we were studying about Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. We've both been down about how ricockulously busy med school is right now. All last week I was in one of those "my god, what have I done?!" modes. But I'm out of it now and am doing all right, thanks.

I owe a few stories about Montana and the Dude, this I know. The board that NW Airlines lost is still that, lost, and I have heard nothing from them about it. I may have to take them to court. That should be fun, looking forward to it.

I also took another trip up to Canada for some boarding East Side style. East Side style basically means sliding down a face of glare ice into about 3/4" of man made snow on a flat run that runs for 1/4 of a mile down to a 45 min lift line.

OK, back to lung pathology. BTW, everyone, quit smoking. now. You've been warned.

Finally, The Dude and I were talking at XMas time about this blog. He mentioned that I should write more (of course) and that I should open up more and write less censored versions of what goes on here in school and in my life as well. I'm still debating it because I get worried that people here at school and others that I know will read it and get offended. "Fuck that, who cares" was the Dude's advice on that note, but I'm still mulling it around. Mayhaps...mayhaps.