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9.2.13

Internal Medicine : Morning Reports

My life these days in the Internal Medicine rotation has been quite the roller coaster. I have come to realize that this was not the moment I should have picked to make my lifestyle changes to finally go ahead and try to control the diabetic I am doomed to become. I recently re-started doing Pilates in an effort to not only fulfill my New Year's resolution (the first one I have done in YEARS), but to control my hormones, etc. and hopefully get at least a core (because I'm convinced I lack one). So in order to do this, I have started with a personal trainer and he made me a training schedule that I am supposed to follow. Ok, I started this in december, but went to Germany, got sick, stopped and ate every yummy marzipan anything that crossed my path. Back then I was only able to do this once a day, if at all, and now since I have to wake up at 5 am to get to the Morning Report at 7 am (more on that later), I figured I might as well start with my Pilates at said ungodly hour.

As you can clearly see here, I am even failing at SLEEP
So far, the day I started doing this, I got sick with the cold. I am secretly thinking that it may be my body actually trying to sabotage my workout and thus confirming my suspicions that I am really allergic to exercise. So, that was that. But then to get myself more motivated, I got me a yoga mat, some workout clothes and thus forced myself to do this because now I have to so I tell myself this was not money gone to waste. 

One thing that I found though is that Pilates gave me so much more energy. I know, I know, you are reading this and rolling your eyes, big shocker, I know. But for me it was shocking because for the first time I was experiencing it. See, I have never been a sporty girl. I abhor sports, and anything that requires sweating. Ugh, Puerto Rico makes it impossible. I swear, the humidity here makes exercise twice as hard. So me doing sports, regularly, and finding out the things that everybody who has done exercise before, like endorphins and whatnot, was a revelation. Not only that, but doing these exercises in the morning has given me a sense of accomplishment and something to cross off a to-do list (which my inner OCD person loves), and also it has given me energy for what I came here to talk about: Morning Reports and my loathing of them. 

Mr.J calls Morning Reports "Mission Control", and it is at its core, what it should be like. But it's not. It may be my hospital... actually, it is my hospital. Here, they do things differently. Instead of reporting patients and what happened overnight, and discussing conditions and treatment, they do questions from a question bank to prepare the residents for their test, making our time there completely and utterly IRRELEVANT.  I don't know what we're doing there at 7 am. I can even hear the Sassy Gay Friend (youtube it) telling me : "What, what, WHAT are you doing?". What am I doing there? No idea. Right now I have taken this time to study for my tests and catch up on Twitter or Pinterest or God-knows-what. And I may not even care anymore because now I am high on endorphins at this hour. 
Mission Control

Being here in rotations in third year of medical school is fun though, it gives you a preview of what you'll be doing when you grow up. You don't actually do any of it, but at least it's better than sitting around in a classroom and seeing patients, talking to them, reminds you why you got into this in the first place. You forget why you got up at 5 am and why when you were driving to the hospital it was still dark outside. 




The perks of getting the cold, getting asthma. Plus side, cool mask. 


3.2.13

Internal Medicine... Ramblings of a third year medical student

Morning Report... nobody is actually listening. 

Finally, the much anticipated rotation is here: internal medicine. I have been looking forward to this rotation since... Forever. Why? Because I would actually be doing what I believed I would be doing for the next 4 years. Internal medicine is the stepping stone for two of the things I like the most in Medicine: endocrinology (hormones) and hematology/oncology (blood and cancer).

Behold, the apocalyptic hospital beckoning me at ungodly hours. 
But the reality has been quite the opposite from what I expected. Reality has been quite... anticlimactic. I have basically been running around the halls of the hospital, moving on from my sedentary lifestyle to going up and down stairs, looking for records, writing the progress note and...that's it. We are not allowed to do much there, just follow the residents and the attending physician. Basically, annoy them to no end with our questions on how to write the damn progress notes. I guess I can't complain much, since I don't really have to answer any questions because questions here are directed to the residents and interns, and we obviously know nothing.  I have to get up at 5am to be able to get to the morning report at 7am (where we don't actually learn anything because we are too sleepy to function), and then we get out at approximately 4pm. It doesn't sound like much but I get home absolutely exhausted. To top things off, no real endocrinology (although diabetes is rampant) and no hematology/oncology cases... Yet.

I need to buy this book. Notice my emerald nail polish. 
So all my dreams are sort of crumbling down at the moment. To be fair, it's my first week. One pro to my list of cons is the fact that my attending physician may be (on the risk of sounding borderline) the best in the world. I have never encountered such a caring doctor. He combs the hair of the patients, rubs their backs, gives them massages, holds their hands, I mean, I'm on the verge of tears every time I see/hear him talk to the patients. And that, my friends, is totally worth it. Plus he takes his sweet time explaining EVERYTHING to us which is fantastic for us, and really bad for the residents who just want to finish and get the hell out of there to study. Which reminds me, I have to go back to studying. :(

What I should be doing, instead I am here, letting out my frustrations. 



But I feel I miss OB-Gyn, I miss psychiatry... And now I don't know what to do with myself. One contrast I see is the feeling I got when going to the OB-Gyn rotation. I don't know if it was my group of classmates or what, but it didn't matter how early I had to get up, I always found myself with energy to last me throughout the day, even into the night until my shift was over at 11pm. Also, going to the psychiatric hospital was amazing, no rush, no stress, everything just felt good. Here I am stressed, annoyed and I don't want to be there at all. I don't know if it's me and perhaps I just need iron supplements, but I just have no strength! We'll see what happens.

The "doctor" is in. :)