Life is Good :)

I cannot believe how fast everything is going by. I just finished my first week of a very important showcase rotation. The anxiety of the first day at a new hospital where you don't know anyone is so stressful, but at the same time I was so excited. I think the more rotations I do, the more comfortable and confident I am. I can only hope that the physicians, and most importantly the residency director, see that. It feels so good to get to do something you truly love doing and get so much fulfillment out of. I feel very lucky coming home each day knowing that I'm doing what I know I was meant to do.

This week really was a hodge podge of all kinds of patients. I got to counsel a patient with new onset diabetes and map out a care plan for him. I also spent a good amount of time doing physicals, which is paramount to family practice. If you can do a thorough physical in a timely manner, then you're golden. I did a morning of maternal-child health, which I got to round on newborn babies and their moms, as well as some sick children in the hospital. I was assigned to a child with an asthma exacerbation that just wasn't getting much better on the current treatment regimen. And being a medical student, the doctors like to give you a lot time to examine the patient, doing your charting, and do some research. So I got to really learn a lot about asthma management in a pediatric patient.

One of my favorite things to do is well-child-checks, which I got my fair share of this week. I saw a lot of infants, which I used to be kind of nervous seeing babies but have grown quite comfortable with it recently. I think now that I'm a mom, I can totally relate to the parents and try to make them feel more comfortable. Also, I've become great at going through developmental milestones since I just try to think back at what Killian was doing at certain ages. I know each kid's different, but it's nice to have my own little model at home to learn from. I was able to talk about the new car seat recommendations with a young mom, and talk about post-partum depression with another. It felt awesome being able to help fellow moms like myself.

I'm having such a great time on my rotation, but unfortunately it has to get interrupted next week to fly down to Pennsylvania to take my COMLEX PE exam. Yes, another test! This one I have to see 12 pseudo-patients, only having 14 minutes to get a history and examine them. Then you get 9 minutes to write a note on them. Seriously? 14 minutes?! I challenge you to time how long your doctor spends in the room with you, and I bet it's a lot longer than 14 minutes. Despite most "acute" visits only getting scheduled for 15 minutes, most doctors take longer than that, which is why they're always running behind! But it's not like a buzzer goes off at that 15 minute mark and they dart out of the room without finishing parts of their exam or discussing treatment options. So the idea of being timed seems pretty unrealistic to me.

So this will be my official LAST exam of my med school career. After today, it's just rotations, interviews, the match, and finally graduation (which is eight months away in case you were wondering). Oh, and by the way, I just found out today that I passed my COMLEX written exam that I took a few weeks ago! One step closer to finally being a "real" doctor.