Sunday, August 1, 2010

So Excited

I start High Risk Obstetrics tomorrow and I've gotta admit - I'm pretty pumped. I didn't think I would be excited to start a rotation but I really am now. What the heck? I guess I picked the right profession after all. Speaking of which, so have 11 other people in my class. That makes 12 of us. There's 6 spots at UMC. Oy. Let's hope everyone else wants to travel, because I really want to stay here!

We had a little orientation Friday which lasted about 45 minutes, much better than the orientations we had last year. They managed to drag them out into all day affairs. The funny part was when the secretary looks at me and tells me that the course coordinator really didn't want her to give me a syllabus, but she felt that would be cruel, so she did. (Thank God!) Whenever I see this doctor I'm not supposed to mention to him that I have a syllabus. Everyone else has one. They're all doing the routine courses though - Labor and Delivery, Clinic, Operative Gyn. I think the director was afraid the syllabus might constrain me to situations that aren't conducive to learning, such as sitting around the hospital waiting for women to labor. I get that.

Is it terrible to say that I'm glad I don't have a partner on this rotation? It was nice during 3rd year to have partners to split up the work, but I'm afraid that during 4th year when you're trying to do a good job, work hard, and impress the residents and attendings things could get a bit competitive and ugly...

From the looks of this syllabus-that-doesn't-actually-exist it appears that I'll be in clinic out at the fancy new building a few miles from campus on Mondays and Fridays, then assisting with c-sections and hospital work Tuesdays-Thursdays. As far as tomorrow goes I'm just supposed to show up at clinic at 8:00, but I have a feeling the rest of the month will consist of much, much earlier mornings.

I'm pretty pleased with the schedule though. Mostly Monday-Friday with the exception of working 2 Saturdays for 12 hours each. These are my call days. One will be from 7A-7P and the other from 7P-7AM. I have 7 days off in August, today being one of them.

I'm using today to write that dreaded essay for my computer course. I know, I know - I should have done this already, but I just got carried away enjoying this month "off." My goal is to get this stinking essay done before Mad Men comes on tonight.

Other updates in the academic world:
-Got my Step 2 CK score back. It went up!!! Although I can't really say that's a surprise. I studied a lot harder for this Step and worked hard to figure out what methods worked for me and which ones didn't. Now that it's time to stop studying hard core I've finally figured out what works. Typical...

-Got a first draft of my personal statement written. Still gotta do that C.V. Meet with the dean Wednesday.

-Switched my schedule around, putting in more slacker courses where possible :)
Here 'tis:

July: Computers in Med
August: High Risk OB
September: Peds Clinics
October: Labor & Delivery
November: House Medicine
December: OFF
January: OB/GYN Clinics
February: Review of Pharmacology (slacker course)
March: Review of Anatomy (slacker course)
April: OFF
May: Plastic Surgery (this will only be for ~2 weeks since we graduate during the 3rd one :) )

I think I'm finally happy with that schedule. It's slightly front-loaded with alternating heavy and light schedules. I think that'll work well for me.

Anywho, back to this stinking essay. Hope everyone who started their August rotation today has been having a good one so far.

*** As I was reading this post I realized I can drop another one of the electives I have scheduled. Score! Now which one gets the axe - review of pharm or review of anatomy? Hmmm... Decisions, decisions. Wish I could drop Computers in Medicine!

2 comments:

tinyletters said...

12?? really. Who are they?

OleMissBabyDoc, M.D. said...

I hope HR is fun for you, I'm thinking about doing that one myself (since it's the probably the most helpful thing for neonatal except for NICU month).