Family Medicine Rotation

I think that I have found my calling in life. Family Medicine is definitely a great route. I loved pediatrics and I love working with pregnant women so I think that this would be a great fit for me. I worked in a Community Health Center where Chris Hyer works and it was a good time. I spoke mostly Spanish and really enjoyed the diversity of the illnesses that came in. The doc that I worked with does C-sections and so there is the surgery aspect also. I feel somewhat relieved to have an idea that I can be happy in medicine especially after my internal medicine rotation.

Ditching my mom on her birthday to climb Nebo

Instead of going to lunch with my mom on her birthday, I went to climb Mt. Nebo with my roommate and some other people in our ward. It was a pretty cool trip. We left late because there was a VIDA race that morning. We started climbing around 2pm There was some snow especially at the top. When you are climbing on the spine of the mountain it is a little crazy when you don't know if your footing is very secure. Fun hike and definitely easier than Lone Peak. The best part of this hike was peeing at the top and the urine stream would turn at 90 degree angle.

Panama Planning Trip

During my family practice rotation I went to Panama for a couple of days to plan the future of VIDA in that country. We met with the chiefs of a community, Irgandi, where they have no access to doctors for 3 months of the year. They have problems with infant and maternal mortality rates during this time, diarrheal illnesses, malaria, dengue, and a list of other diseases. We are working with the health department to help teach the people simple things that they can do to help prevent illness along with building gardens to help with their nutrition. While there, we marched in the island breast cancer awareness campaign. It was a great trip and we got a lot of things planned. I also read A thousand years of Solitude, something not medical.

Cardiothoracic Surgery Rotation

What an awesome two weeks! Not only did I get to see and do some pretty cool things in heart surgeries, but the docs were so great to take the time to teach. I would have never have thought that surgeons would be more laid back than internists! I had such a great time with this group. I was able to help out with valve replacements and bypass grafts and removing tumors. I was able to learn how to cut and how to sow on patients with supervision. I pulled drains and chest tubes. One chest tube I didn't have the patient hold his breath and I heard air go back in, which could collapse his lung and prolong his hospital stay 3 more days...luckily he was fine on xray and not symptomatic. I had a hard time sleeping that night because I was worried about him. But now on to family medicine.

Internal Medicine rotation

Internal Medicine rotation was rough. During most of the rotation, my stomach was so tense that I would have diarrhea and want to vomit. Mostly because I felt that the attending physicians were going to attack me for something I didn't know. On my third day of the rotation, my attending asked me a question about diabetes management that he had mentioned in a noon lecture series that I couldn't remember what he said because I was eating lunch and it was the first time I heard about diabetes management. When I asked him what the answer was, he wouldn't tell me and told me to find it out for myself. I looked for four hours for the paper he was talking about and asked other students, residents and interns and couldn't find the answer. I finally found the answer and he never asked me the question again. I finally felt that I got the hang of internal medicine after two weeks and then I switched to cardiology where the whole game of learning what the attending wanted started again. This time it was more complicated because my attending didn't like guidelines. It was a pretty traumatic two weeks and then I got the hang of it. It was interesting when my attending told me that patients feel that doctors are like gods. I thought that the god complex was just a myth....

Lone Peak

I went hiking with my roommate Benj, his sister Katherine, and friend Wendy Lee. It was a pretty crazy hike. We started at the Draper side although it was supposed to be the prettier and less of an incline... The problem was that there was a huge fire there a couple of weeks before and had burned the mountain side and it was still steep but had 2 extra miles of flat. It did have an awesome view of the valley as you could see both the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake (two of the most beautiful lakes in the entire world!) We also could see IKEA which the girls ended up getting a picture of. We came across wild raspberries and elderberries and ate enough to almost get diarrhea but we didn't. Along the trail there was a cabin that some brothers had made and had actually saved a couple of people from freezing to death when they were caught in a blizzard last year. It smelled like urine but it was pretty cool that they had taken the time to build it.

Lone peak had a incredible view and it was kind of freaky having to balance on rocks with sheer cliffs of a couple of hundred feet on both sides of you. But it was worth the climb. On the way back, I led us down the wrong canyon (as there are many trails to get to Lone Peak) and luckily Benj had his GPS. We ended up having to do a little rock climbing. It was quite the adventure. We finally made it back to our cars after 16 miles and 12 hrs of hiking. It is a good hike and not for the weak hearted but it is one I would recommend for the view and the experience.

My pediatric rotation

I just finished my pediatric rotation and thought that I should write a little about my experience.

Pediatrics was great. It was so cool to go to deliveries and see how the babies turn from blue to pink and to be able to warm them up. It was sad to see babies going to bad situations and feeling helpless. Watching circumcisions was a little traumatic though. Out patient peds was fun besides having malaria at the time. I think that it would be pretty cool to see kids grow up. A lot of the visits were healthy kids and making sure they were alright which was good. I spent a couple of days with oncology and got to do some lumbar punctures which was pretty fun also. I was nervous but I think that procedures could be good to do. I really liked inpatient pediatrics and following families day after day and seeing the progression of their health.

Embarrassing moments:
My attending physician has a reputation for being strict and giving poor evaluations to both students and residents. I actually really enjoyed his teaching. When I went in for my evaluation I tried to convey this. I said "I really like that you tell us what we did wrong after every presentation....you are not like those nice doctors that say you did a good job." He immediately replied asking me if I thought that he didn't give any positive feed back. I told him that we were all happy with him. Never the less, the next day he brought a bowl full of candy for us.

Our last day, because our attending only wears bow ties, we all dressed up with bow ties. It was pretty funny and quite a sight to see us following him around dressed like him and we received plenty of comments.