No "Butts" About It!

My final two weeks as a medical student I'm working with a team of gastroenterologists. And I have to say, I have never seen more butts in my life! Of course, the bread and butter of a GI doc is doing colonoscopies. So naturally they see a lot of "behinds" before taking an interesting journey up the rectum and through the colon with a snazzy camera. I akin it to watching an episode of the Magic School Bus and playing a video game at the same time. If you've never seen a colonoscopy before, check this video out on youtube:

Of course, I've been doing a lot more than just traveling up people's colons. I've seen my share of GI bleeds and pancreatitis (which is a true reflection of the plight of today's society, aka: everyone's an alcoholic these days). Then you have the run of the mill gallstones and cholecystitis, meaning people eat too much fat. And of course there's lots of other cool disease. What I like so much about the gastrointestinal system is that everything is so mechanical. Something breaks and you can just go in and patch it up. Polyp in the colon? Remove it. Stricture in the esophagus? Stretch it. Simple. Easy. Saving lives.

So this week will now be my last as a medical student. I'm trying to take in as much as possible and really learn instead of slack off (kind of like cramming in as much as you can right before a big test). But I might be working a little harder to try to distract myself from the upcoming residency Match. Five days my friends. Five days. And hopefully at that point I'll have some good news for you all. In the meantime, enjoy my little video and if you're 50 years or older or have a family history of colon cancer, please schedule a screening colonoscopy.  1 in 20 people are diagnosed with colon cancer, and a colonoscopy could save your life!