Snip Snip

Since starting at my new clinic, I have put in 11 stitches and taken out about 9. Heck...that was practically more than I did on all of surgery. We removed a growth from a guys face, took stitches out of a guy who got punched, and.........did an office vasectomy! That was my first time ever seeing one. Huh. Only one little cut about 1/2 an inch long. Took about 40 minutes all together. Who knew it was that easy? Guy was a little loopy of course and numb. But still. Clinic has been busy though, which is a good thing. My doc also sits down between patients, which is awesome! My other doc stood...all the time. Becky was not built for that kind of stuff. We have seen a lot of tendonitis and bronchitis in 2 days. I'm kind of over those.

MOVIE REVIEW!!!!! Iron Man

I say, "Matt, we've had it for a week. Let's watch Iron Man tonight." Matt: **sigh** "I guess. Not sure how that got to the top of the list. Wasn't my choice (looks in my direction). As long as you are okay with me reading through most of it, we can watch it." Movie in. Matt....not reading. The entire time. He watched it and enjoyed it. Take that! Okay, that isn't a movie review as much as a Sunday night review. What can I say. Good action. Took a little while to get into the plot. I guess you call that "character development," but when the only other guy in most of those opening minutes (other than the lead) is killed, it kind of makes you wonder why we had to develop his character so much. To show that the lead had a soul? I guess. Also this film, while I thoroughly enjoyed it, seems a little 'beneath' Gwyneth Paltrow to me. Anyone else with me here? Overall I like it and would recommend it.

Score: 7/10 - cool graphics, enough plot, good action...but still an action movie (not gonna score a 10 on one of those)

That went fast

In my head I told myself that I was going to be way better at updating since I am on a slower rotation. It appears as if that has yet to happen. Hm. The slower pace also has given me tons of time to think of awesome things to say here...turns out that also leaves me plenty of time to forget those awesome things. Sigh. This past week consisted of............nothing much except a change in the weather! We are finally warming up. Turns out We are supposed to have days in the 70s this week! 70s!!!! Oh. My. Goodness. That will feel so nice.

On Friday we had Dimensions. The morning was supposed to be all about meth and the afternoon all about ethics. Bfast and lunch were said to be sponsored by a drug company. We had a 30min presentation on a new drug. Annie googled it...couldn't find anything. Renee checked epocrates...couldn't find it. After the drug talk, they tell us...jokes on you, this was all fake. They even printed up pens! Basically it was to teach us a lesson about investigating claims on our own and not relying on drug reps to be fully honest. At this point in our careers, it is easy for us just to eat the lunch at clinic, not listen much, say thanks, and be on our merry way. As a real doc, we will actually have to invest more time and energy into getting the knowledge from trusted sources. Good lesson overall. They really had us tricked.

Friday night I went to the last "Fish Fry" of the Lenten season. We don't really do these up in the great NW, but they are common here. Many of the Catholic schools/churches have them. The busiest/best one in Omaha (I hear) is Holy Names, which is where we went. This was my first experience. At this particular one, you wait in line drinking as much alcohol (that you brought) as you would like. Get in the door, pay $9, and eat as much fried fish and fries as you want. It was a cool experience, but we had to wait 3 HOURS!!!!!! to get in the door. My goodness. This wasn't normal; the wait was simply because it was the last one and the weather was okay. It was fun, and I would do it again. But let me tell you, man are you stinky when you come out of that place. So much fried-ness.

In other news: nope, nothin. Went to late night sushi last night. Always yummy. Start a new clinic tomorrow. I hear he takes Wednesdays off. Awesome.

Zebra hunting

I have figured out what I seem to spend my time doing during clinic: zebra hunting. Most med students will know what that means. Basically, I am not looking for the obvious. I listen to patients thinking about what BIG thing they may have...rather than the small, more likely diagnosis. I don't know exactly why I do this. I think it may be because a lot of the questions we get on exams throughout the years try to give you small details that all link to a larger disease and not just the common cold. I guess that is something I can work on for the next 5 weeks I have of outpatient clinic.

Gonzaga men pathetically lost today. Sigh. The women kicked butt last night though. While the game was close the whole time, it was a great exhibition of what they are capable of. With the men out, though, I guess I will have to cheer for UWash. And Cornell. And a few other underdogs. It is amazing how few people here in the state of Nebraska get as in to March Madness. Maybe college is just a prime time for getting into it, but most of the "adults" I run into don't seem to care much at all. Meh. Their loss :D

The weather is trying to pick up. Last night Matt and I went to his school's "auction." We got a bottle of wine, but everything else was out of our price range. At the live auction, they did have a 9-week-old Shih Tzu puppy. Oh man did I want that thing. Matt claims he would have bought it for me had I given the head nod. I highly doubt that but still. Now all I can think about is getting a dog. Man do I want one. I know this probably isn't the time, but still. I just love them so much. And my sister is making me jealous of the new puppy she is getting. Sigh. I guess I will just have to play with it. Whelp....see ya

It's Back

I'm talkin about....movie reviews!!! Matt and I are big spenders again with the Netflix. We just do 1 at a time now but can also hook our computers up to the TV and watch instantly. Review at the end. You must read about my boring life until then. No skipping.

M4 schedule is shaping up nicely: anesthesia in July, paper in August (get to home for a bit, also going to study and take Step 2 CK), CT surgery at Bergan in October. I didn't really want to do surgery in the fall, but I will take a surgery I like in a month I dislike over a sucky surgery month any day. Whoop. We have our 4th round picks in tonight for a critical care month. I had the tough choice of going for renal, which is easy, or ICU/Pulm, which will be helpful. I ranked 2 spring months of renal first and the ICU/Pulm after that. I figure a nice easy spring would be wonderful. We will see how things turn out tomorrow.

Clinic was clinic this week. I got to work out 6 days in a row, which is a high for me since....psych I guess. Some days I really like talking to patients; then some days I don't. It isn't that I don't enjoy talking to them; I just don't enjoy all the side stories all the time.

My weekend was uneventful. Happy hour and bowling on Friday night - the 2 times I have gone out on a Friday w/o Matt, he has beat me home. All other Fridays he isn't home til way late. Selection show tonight. Gonzaga got screwed. I know we messed up in the tourney, but #8?!?!?!?!? Really?!?!?! They better win.

Movie review: Goodfellas

As I told Matt before we started, I have never watched a mobster movie front to back. They always get too long. But I did it this time!!! And I enjoyed it. While it looked kind of fun to have people who would have your back all the time and put lots of money in your pocket, that whole "I'm gonna kill you because you looked at me wrong" thing doesn't seem like as much fun. This movie also made me glad I wasn't alive in the 70s...or much of the 80s. Man was the furniture ugly. And the clothes. And the hair. Yes, this is a very girly review but tough luck. I think there was a good balance of action, story, and character development. Also kids...don't do cocaine. The end

5^2

I am now five squared. Tada!!! When I was young, 25 always felt like an "adult" age. Turns out I was wrong. Still don't feel like an adult. Weird. Wonder when that will happen. Now for some nerdy House-math-fun. So....with my birthday on Sunday, all 6 of us House's are odd numbered - 59, 57, 29, 27, 25, 23. Wait, the fun doesn't stop there. Amanda is 3^3 (27); as stated before, I am 5^2 (25). The remainder of the family...prime numbers. How weird!?!?!?!? It will be that way until dad's bday in August. Go us! Some more slightly morbid fun. Grandma was 97 when she died; Grandpa was 67 --> both prime. Grandma died on 11/18, Grandpa on 3/26. Add...both equal 29, which is once again...prime!!!! Okay, super nerd is done.

We have started picking schedules for 4th year. Creighton does an online lottery, 1 round at a time. You submit a list, in order. The computer then randomly numbers every person in the class and goes down the list putting everybody in their 1st available choice. For the next round, you submit a new list (can be same stuff, it just isn't saved over). New random order, down the list of students til all get the first thing off their list that is still available. And so on. We have 7 rounds I think. The first 2 are "student choice," then surgery, then critical care, then sub-internship OR 2nd critical care. The rest after that are student choice. Of course their is complaining. People think it isn't fair, but is really way ever fair? Plus...life isn't fair. I may have a slightly different attitude had I not gotten my first choice - anesthesia in July. Still though, they try to do the best they can, we should cut them a little slack. The next round of picking is due tonight, picked tomorrow. We will see how it goes. Some things are always popular - renal medicine and radiology together were chosen by about 1/4 of our class in the 1st round. Wow. I guess it is because both are easy. I want both of them but not badly enough to do either in the first round...or 2nd.

I had a marvelous birthday with way too much food, sushi, peanutbutter chocolate ice cream cake, and laziness. It was simply wonderful.

9-5

I am entering the land of working from 9-5. Not sure if I like it. We will see. I started my Family Med rotation today. For Creighton, we do 1 month of ambulatory care (basically outpatient clinic run by an internal med dr) and 1 month of true family med. For ambulatory I am working with Dr Gupta, who did a combined residency in med/peds. Meaning her clinic is pretty much like a family medicine clinic in the fact that she sees every age of patient, which I enjoy. After 1 day I can tell I prefer to see both adults and kids, not just one age group. She definitely has a packed schedule though. Her office is close to Bergan, so she often goes on her lunch our to discharge/see her patients. Meaning....Becky got free lunch again!!! It is hard to get yourself to think in the realm of clinic again: looking at the big picture, asking more than what the chief complaint says, different medications. Hopefully I can get into the swing of things again. It is great though when you start a rotation because you don't have to study right away. Glorious.

Finishing up surgery was fine. Ortho was a little busier than I wanted it to be, but that is okay. Last Tuesday we had 7 surgeries back to back to back. The surgeon bounced from room to room. Man was that a day. We stayed on time though, which was impressive. Our OSCE on Thursday (standardized patients) went fine. The program we use on the computers is pretty messed up, but I survived. The shelf...went. There weren't too many questions about which I had ZERO bit of a clue, but maybe I just thought I knew the other answers. Sigh. We will get our results in a few weeks. Then we will really know.

Gulls (that is girls w/o pronouncing the 'r') weekend in SD was great! I forgot my camera and swimsuit, but that didn't ruin anything. It poured on Saturday meaning the zoo was out of the question, but we made our own fun. We got soaked going from our parking spot to the mall. We got soaked at Hotel Del Coronado when we were walking around. But that is why God didn't make us out of sugar. Friday involved seafood dinner. And wine with nutterbutters. Saturday involved breakfast at the hotel, shopping, sushi snack, wine in the hot tub, rain, dinner, and...wine. On Sunday morning we went to Old Town San Diego. It would have been great to be there with a tour, so they could teach me (I had to read a lot of signs to learn this time). We then met up with Rachael for some oh so yummy brunch!!! Rach said it was a good sharing place. Amanda and mom right away agreed to share. Rach looked at me to ask me...I just gave her a death stare. While I didn't finish all my food, it served as a nice snack in the airport later in the day. I was sad to come back mostly because the weather there was GREAT. I will take 55 and rainy over 15 any day. Sigh. Well, real world.