Vacation

It's weird but I am on vacation right now, after just one week of work! All vacations are prearranged by the department and my first one happens to be in my 2nd week. I actually chose it because I wanted to have my next break in October for my much anticipated trip to Hong Kong (yay!) Having this break early also allows me to take care of my stuff back home, as well as getting some relief from my night float week. Everything works out perfectly!

Call Gears for a Peds Intern

I got a bit bored during the night and decided to take out all my gears and took a picture of it with my phone. What's not included is the tiny peds stethoscope that I usually wear instead of the general one shown here.

Night Float

Night float is one of those things that you just have to love to hate. It's a system that swamped out after the ACGME's so-called "80-hour rule" came into effect in 2003 and now has been adopted by a lot of residency programs. Instead of having the same resident staying overnight during call, there is one designated floater who works just night shifts - usually for 5-7 days (sometimes this can be 2 weeks or more depending on the program). The great benefit is that most of time you won't have to stay in the hospital for 24+ hours continuously. What sucks, of course, is when you are the floater and have to work during the darkest hours. Trying to sleep in the morning is no fun but it's such an necessity and the sleeping eye cover becomes my best friend. You'll end up feeling tired all time too with your now messed up sleep pattern. Even during down time, I can't sleep well because I am always afraid that one of those suckers will go off when I am asleep. I keep the room light on to prevent falling too deep into sleep.

That said, I enjoy walking around the hospital during my down time - imagine having the clean, brightly-lit corridors all by yourself... where you can hear your echoing footsteps and a time where you can just sit anywhere and read. It's the only time you can stand behind the windows and stare at the stars and totally infuse yourself into this moment of solitude...

...until the call phone goes off again. Back to work.

What a Night!

The very first thing in my mind as I walked out of the hospital entrance in this warm Sunday morning: "Is this what I signed up for??" I was overwhelmed. At the beginning it looked cool wearing so many gears on your scrub pants - an on-call phone, a trauma pager, and my own pager. 20 minutes later the trauma pager went off - "scheduled c-section for a twin gestation, OR#1". Alright, what do I do... luckily my R2 was next to me and she went to the OR with me (it's a twin afterall...we need two residents there). I walked into the room and help prepared the resuscitation kits, and then boom - we have a newborn covered with a sticky layer of cheese... alright what to do next...

"dry the baby first!" said the respiratory therapist.
"Here, suction the baby"...
"Give the kiddo oxygen"...
"Ok, let's let go of the O2 mask"...
"Here, remember how to put in the OG tube?"
"Yeah, just stick the whole tube down the throat... you are not going to hurt him."

At the end it was a job well done because the baby is breathing pretty well on his own. I wrote my little resuscitation note and walked out of the OR.

"Maybe I should get some water," I thought.
"Emergency c-section for a non-reassuring FHR tracing. OR#3."
"Darn it!!"

So there I go again - back to the OR. Another 20 minutes have gone by. Out of the OR.

"I could really use some water now," I said to myself. Ring~~Ring~~
"Hi, this is nurse xxx calling from the peds floor... the baby in room xxxx is NPO tonight but no IVF is ordered. Do you want to give him some fluid doctor?"

Whoa. What did you just called me? Oh yeah I am a doctor alright, even though I don't feel like one.

"Geez, what kind of fluid should I give?" I was speechless for about 10 seconds. I've decided if anything, the nurse on the other side of the phone should know more about this than this clueless doctor here.

"So what do we usually give?"
"We usually give D5 1/2NS doctor."
"Okie, let's do that then. Just a moment while I calculate the amount."

Another problem solved. This went on until around 1:30am. I tried to take a nap...

4:00am - Ring~~Ring~~. "Yes doctor, we have a few newborns for you to examine in the nursery."

5:30am - finished examining 3 babies. Time to work on the progress notes for the ones that are here.

7:40am - Finally my shift is over and I am a free man. I graciously handed over my call phone and pager to the Day Call person.

It was a warm Sunday morning. The morning sun warmth has never felt so good. Time to get some sleep and prepare for tonight - Round 2.

It All Comes Down to This

15 years of preschool to high school, 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and all the time and money I spent in preparing for the USMLEs, applying and interviewing for residency - it all comes down to tonight - my first day as an intern. I am nervous as heck, digging through my peds notes this morning but couldn't put any data into my brain... we'll see what happens!

I am scheduled to do 5 days of Night Floats too... what a nice way to start the year, by messing up my sleep cycle for a week!

Orientation Week

Today marks the first day of the 5-day orientation for my residency program. I met a lot of new faces today, and at the same time it's refreshing to meet two familiar faces - two of my schoolmates whom we knew back in medical school. You see, graduates from my school come from all parts of the country and I didn't expect any one of them to be in the same program as me. But there it is, I have not one, but THREE other people from my school in the same program. A bit unusual, but it works to our advantage!

This week is probably going to be the most relaxing week of the whole intern year... better enjoy it while it lasts.

Keeping Junk

I keep a lot of relatively junky stuff - used train ticket stubs, tourist maps, useless toys from drug reps, name tags from meetings and interviews, etc. I keep all the letters and emails sent from my friends, as well as all the businese cards I received from all walks of lives. I know many of these things are just taking up space in my room, but often times it's difficult for me to let go. I live my life forward, but at times I am a person of reminiscence. Looking at my random collections brings back memories, and sometimes I try to reconstruct events in my mind from what I can still remember. Things do change, and some of these fond memories, unfortunately, now bring me a sense of sourness. Nevertheless, I would rather keep these memories than to lose them - who's to predict if these memories will become sweet again in the years to come?

Now should I keep these loose papers in a box or take them with me to San Berdoo?

It's Now Scientifically-Proven: Men Are Sexual

Man Meets Woman, Man Thinks Sex? (WebMD)

When a man and woman meet for the first time, men may be more likely to think about sex -- or at least more likely to admit it.

That's the core finding of a study in June's issue of Psychology of Women Quarterly. The researchers included Maurice Levesque, PhD. He worked on the study while at the University of Connecticut and now works in the psychology department of North Carolina's Elon University.

I think...

I think I am finally starting to get over it now.