Thursday, June 22, 2006

News

Knees, Hips, Ankles, Shoulders, elbows, lest we forget wrist, and even some knuckles, such is the life I lead right now. I'm on my way out right now, so this will be short. I have fully adjusted to my "up at 4:30" schedule. No cases this morning, so it'll be clinic all day. Not just clinic, but prisoner clinic. WOO HOO! Get excited.

Procedures seen that have been cool:
Dupuytren's contracture release
Recurrent carpal tunnel release with hypothenar fat pad support
ORIF of 3rd and 4th MC
TKA

I don't really have time to explain right now, since I'm jetting in 2.5 seconds to make rounds and then team rounds.

Oh, had a patient yesterday that was high on some kind of narcotic at the clinic. Tried to examine her foot, which had been broken for 7 months she claimed, she was almost screaming. So, my staff came in and man handled her foot and told her to get off her ass and walk on it. Ballsy. I liked it!

More from the land of bone and joints soon. Time for rounds...

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Orient yourself!

So, yesterday and today was full of orientation to the third year of my current adventure in life. It started today at 7:15 and ran through about 4, not bad considering that I have at least another full day of it. 7:15 came around early since I was out at a bar last night after having cycled 62 miles with "ze Germans," Daniel and Sven. Cool guys. We were only supposed to go 35 miles... oops. So, I was a little sore and a little hungry and able to get a buzz on 4 beers in under 2 hours.

So, as I stated we were orienting ourselves to clerkships. As always, people were late, lost, and lonely. My day started with yet another plunge into the Relationship Centered Care initiative, ie. Dealing with and Giving Bad News. We have talked about this topic a multitude of times with a multitude of situations, although the one today caught me a bit off guard. But, before that, we listened to about 75 minutes of talk about how to give bad news by an overly excited and enthusiastic Ph.D, who knows little about medicine, but loves behavioral science. Frivilous, no. Excessive, yes. Exhausted already and it's not even lunch time, yes. As she meanders through her slides and includes a participation section, I continue to zone out and my eyes glaze over. She must have known I had little tolerance for her talk.
(Either say we are going to practice with patients or I'm going to have you practice on each other. Don't drag it out for over an hour and pretend that we care.)

There is one thing that I have come to hate already, other than a handful of people that have already rubbed me the wrong way, my pager. The last person that had my number set up his/her pager to get news on the hour. It is pretty ridiculous. Not as ridiculous as some guy today while we were going through a sterile technique training. Let me set the scene for you. The OR that we were practicing in was non-sterile, the instruments were non-sterile, there was no patient, and we were gowning. We all had scrubs on. This guy set himself apart from the others, making himself look like the biggest dork I've ever seen. He was wearing his pager, which isn't needed for another 2 days, his phone, which didn't have a signal in the OR, and his Palm, which is obvoiusly not needed for this activity, all clipped on to his scrubs. Walking, talking Craftsman series, lifetime guarantee TOOL. Although, let's be serious, medicine is full of people that lack people skills, bedside manner, and are generally socially inept.

More from clerkship land soon. I start on the ortho service. I hear the hours are good, and that there is no weekend or overnight call. We'll see come Thursday.

It's 22:30 and I'm almost exhausted, but hungry again. Stupid metabolism...

Monday, June 05, 2006

Busy

I'm busy getting things worked out for my clerkships. I don't have internet. I'm moving things around and into my apartment. All the while trying to maintain 200+ miles on the bike and 15-20 miles running a week. So, as soon as I get internet, start my clerkships, and have less time to exercise, new posts will be had.

Oh, and I met one of the coolest people over last weekend. This person blew my socks off with the amount of wit, intelligence, sincerity, and athletic ability SHE possessed. She is awesome. Unfortunately, we don't live close. I think about her a lot. She made a serious impression.

Props to one of my good friends who did a century yesterday. I, on the other had did 5 hours on the mountain bike and 3-4 miles of running on Sat. Nothing compared to a century, but a decent attempt at exercise.