Interview

Today was my interview at Einstein.  To be honest, I was dreading it, because my experience here has been less than positive.  I was pretty pleasantly surprised.  As not exciting as it is to be a student here, I think the resident training program is actually pretty good.  And for the first time, I was almost a little excited to do a 4 year instead of 3 year program.  I'll probably still go for a 3 year program, but I'll be a little sad to miss out on the off-service learning experiences that an extra year allows.  All of the faculty I talked with today were great.  I think I've just had the bad luck of working with attendings that were not so interested in teaching.  While this place may not be #1 on my list, it has definitely moved up to...on the list somewhere.

Yesterday was the last shift of a four-day stretch.  I was a little discouraged by my interactions thus far, but was trying really hard to be invested and enthusiastic.  The senior resident was great, but the attending was a pretty sarcastic and didn't especially seem to want to be there, so I wasn't sure how to approach him.  At the end of the shift I asked for some feedback, as I usually do.  He proceeded to tell me I suck.  Really, really, suck.  At first I was confident that he was kidding and smiled.  Then he continued to tell me that I super sucked, more than the usual med student.  I became a little concerned, but kept smiling.  When told me that I sucked so much that he was going to go home and write a song about it, I'm pretty sure I let out a huge sigh of relief as it became obvious that he was kidding.  He concluded by grinning and saying that I had done a great job, and that he was impressed.  It was a much needed boost for my morale, and I left with a much better attitude. 

After work, I met my good friend Christina at a theater in the old city to see The Book Thief.  The movie was fantastic, almost as good as the book.  I wish I had re-read it more recently, but the movie was great either way.  On the way there I happened to walk past Independence Square, and I'm maybe a little sad that I haven't spent more of my time here exploring the history of the city.  I had planned to see visit the Liberty Bell and whatever other historical must-see sites are nearby.  Instead, I've just watched a lot of TV.  Don't judge me.

I have 2 more shifts and an interview before I pack up and leave.  I've booked my train ticket to NYC for Friday, and even though things are going better, I am so glad it's almost over.  Even though I'm very much the introvert and have never minded being by myself, I think I need some social interaction.  I look forward to seeing Meme and spending the weekend with family before interviews resume next Monday. 

That's all for now.  Until next time!

One More Week

Here's a public service announcement:  "hurted" and "worser" are not words.  I do not care what dialect of English you are speaking, when you say those words you do not sound tough-guy gangsta, you sound straight-up ridiculous. 

In somewhat related news, I had my first "run from the gunfire" experience in front of Einstein as I walked to the subway yesterday.  I had just left the side doors of the building when I heard two "pops."  The Midwesterner in me initially thought it was firecrackers; the Midwesterner transplanted to inner city Philly soon considered it was quite possibly not firecrackers.  Moments later a flood of teenagers just out of school for the day went running down the cross street about 200 feet in front of me, and I decided if they thought it was gunfire, I should assume it was too.  I stopped on the side street and just waited.  In less than a minute a handful of officers were running toward the chaos.  About that time I decided I would rather continue up the street, toward the fleeing crowd, and get the heck out of there than stand around and wonder what actually happen.  I walked briskly toward the crowd and across the street to the subway entrance.  This incident pretty much finalized my decision to avoid a residency at Einstein.

Other than random gun violence, things are perhaps getting a little better.  My shift today was a pretty positive experience.  I think I'm just traveled-out and need to hug Aaron, pet my dog, and sleep in my own bed.  I'm exhausted. 

On that note, goodnight!

Philly

I left Las Vegas on a Friday morning, and I was never so happy to see Des Moines.  Aaron greeted me again at the airport, because he. is. awesome.

We had an awesome week.  I did a lot of nothing.  Watched TV.  Read books.  Watched more TV.  Don't judge me.  Somewhere in there we sprinkled in a Halloween party or two.  I'm not much of a costume person, but Aaron had the brilliant idea to go as Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler (from The Big Bang Theory, for those of you living under a rock), and it was easy enough. Most people figured it out, and we got a lot of laughs.

Shamy

 

That week of vacation was not long enough.  We watched some movies, lounged around...maybe I lounged around while Aaron worked.  Anyway, I wasn't ready to leave.  At all.  So perhaps that has something to do with my poor attitude toward my time in Philadelphia.  My time here has been...mediocre at best.  Einstein is not in a great neighborhood, and the feeling of being hyper-aware all the time is exhausting.  Some of the attendings have no interest in teaching.  There are a ton of med studs rotating with no interest in EM, and make their disdain very obvious.  The pods are way overstaffed with interns and med studs, so it's a challenge even to get a patient--let alone have the opportunity to shine.  In short, it's not been a great experience so far.  The highlight of the month has been taking the train to NYC to cheer Aidan on in the NY Marathon.  Lots of fun energy there, and always great to see family. 

 

So, that brings us to present day.  Never thought I'd be done playing catch up with this blog, but I've finally made it!  Until next time, I'll leave you with the only bit of sight-seeing I've done since being in PA:

 

The tree has been up for a day or two.  If you look closely, you can see where it already has some graffiti.  Pretty representative of my time in Philly.



Las Vegas

Leaving NY was bittersweet; I had a fantastic time with family, but I was definitely ready to spend some time with Aaron.  In true Aaron fashion, this is what was waiting for me when I arrived to the airport:

We had less that 2 days to spend together, but we made the most of it.  I got home late Friday, so Saturday we spent the day at the World Food & Music Fest downtown.  We ate gyros, Israeli hot dogs (is that a real thing?) and the most fabulous Nutella crepes that ever existed.    Here's some photo documentation of the fun we had.

Best.  Crepes.  Ever.

 

 

Afterward we roamed around Downtown Des Moines, stopped for coffee, and went to church.  Sunday morning came way too soon, and we were back at the airport. 

 

Las Vegas was even more ridiculous than I imagined.  Literally slot machines everywhere.  In the airport. in gas stations, restaurants, everywhere.  I gathered my rental car, picked up keys to the house, and was surprised to find I was staying in a house with minimal furnishings.  No soap, no toilet paper, no bed linens, no living room furniture, and worst of all--no internet.  Blah.  The rotations at Nellis & UNLV were...okay.  Not really anything super exciting.  I'm definitely glad I ranked SAMMC #1 on my military rank list.  I think the best thing that came out of the rotation was a great roommate and new friend who is also rotating at Einstein ER after LV.  It was also great seeing Josh & Charity Baker while they were in town for the AOFP conference.  We went for dinner and ice cream, and afterward I accidently drove down the strip, fulfilling my obligatory LV Strip experience. 

 

Overall, the views in the desert were beautiful, and the weather was nice, but I missed actual grass and the ER experience was just pretty good. 

 

Next post:  Vacation & Philadelphia!

New York

It's been a few weeks, but I'm still feeling determined about keeping this blog going.  I looked through the pictures on my phone today, and realized that there are tons of experiences from the last few years that I barely remember.  I'm hoping documenting them as they happen will help keep them at least a little closer to the surface. 

After a glorious vacation, I flew to New York for a rotation in Emergency Ultrasound at Maimonides Medical Center.  Maimo is located in a predominantly Hasidic neighborhood, and the patient population is extremely diverse--English-speaking patients are the minority.  There are about 70 curtained-off patient rooms, and they are all full, all the time.  There are patients in the hallways, double parked in front of other patient curtains, and just everywhere in general.  Pure craziness.  It made it hard to maneuver the US machine next to patients needing scanned, but we managed and I learned a lot.  The people were great and it seems like a program where I could learn a great deal, but I'm going to have to get past the fact that no one has their own space to work (or breathe). 

Without question the best part of this rotation block was spending so much time with my family.  I stayed with Joyce, Mike, & Jackson, and was able to spend my ample downtime with them as well as Jeannette and family.  Even without the pampering it was great to spend time with them, but there was definitely some spoiling going on (show tickets, mani/pedi, shopping).  I look forward to visiting while I'm in Philly (my current location), and I definitely wouldn't mind ending up in a program in the area.  Having some connection to a new city is nice, plus I love the fact that you NEVER HAVE TO DRIVE!

I was able to experience September 11, 2013 in  New York City.  The day has a lot of meaning wherever you are in the nation, but it's quite powerful to stand across the river, looking toward Manhattan at the skyline where the towers once stood.  I actually spent most of the day at West Point, receiving a personal tour from my cousin Robert, who made the tour even more impressive with his understanding of the history surrounding the area.  A few days after 9/11, I worked a clinical (non-US) shift in the ER, and cared for a man in his 50s with pneumonia.  He was a paramedic, and responded to the destruction on 9/11.  Since then, he's had recurrent respiratory illnesses, as well as PTSD.  It was another one of those wake-up moments that I had while at BAMC; these are real people with very real scars.  I didn't realize how detached I was until meeting someone intimately involved.  In the same vein, I cared for a Hungarian woman who had survived the horrors of Auschwitz.  Her memory was not good, and she was a little difficult to assess, but she was incredibly sweet and had an inspiring story to tell.  These are the kinds of experiences that slip away over time, but hopefully I can hold on to them by writing it down.

Tribute in Lights, NYC 2013

Boards

I find the government's priorities completely out of order.  On the eve of a likely government shut down, just thinking about the hypocrisy of approving a budget that will be blatantly ignored makes me a little crazy.  But on to more pleasant things.

After my stint in Texas, I spent a glorious 2 weeks in Des Moines, slept in my own bed, and spent every possible minute with Aaron.  I was even glad to see Meggin (the cantankerous dog).  It wasn't all fun and games though; I worked at MMCC least one day, and spent the rest studying for COMLEX PE and CE.  I flew to Philly for less than a day to take the (stupid) practical exam, and the next week I rocked the multiple choice portion.  When I wasn't studying I was working on residency applications and dragging my feet about writing a personal statement, which I find to be the most painful task on the planet.  It's all a bit of a blur, but I'm sure we did a few fun things (I hope?), something beyond my much anticipated daily walk to the mailbox & garden (thrilling).  Unfortunately I can't think of anything at the moment, which is terrible. 

So, in retrospect, it might not been exciting enough a time period to be post-worthy, but to me it was fantastic and just what I needed.  NYC memories next time!

Texas

If I'm going to chronicle the last few months, I should probably start with my time in Cedar Rapids, which was the first block of my fourth year of medical school.  I enjoyed the ER and the staff, and could see myself working in a similar environment.  Maybe the best part of my rotation in CR was that I was close enough to DSM to make the drive back to see Aaron pretty frequently, and somewhere in there we squeezed in time to go to Saint Louis to our friend Kendra's wedding.  It was a luxury that I painfully miss right now, as I type from a minimally furnished and too-quiet house in Las Vegas.  I'm sure Vegas is awesome, but it's not where I want to be right now and I'm having a hard time taking advantage of all there is to do here.  Plus I'm poor, but that's another story.  Anyway, St. Luke's of CR was pretty good times, I think I performed well, and I definitely wouldn't mind being a part of the program at Iowa. 

I finished up at St. Luke's on a Friday, and drove to my parents' house on Saturday.  I left from there on Sunday and ended up in San Antonio somewhere around 9 or 10pm.  At this point I have to stop and take a moment to thank the Hart family for being willing to put me up for an entire month after the whole Air Force thing fell apart.  They were incredibly generous and hospitable, and even helped to fly Aaron down for a weekend--so incredibly kind, and so very needed on my part.   The rotation itself was a little chaotic and disorganized at first, made even worse by the need to figure out the military system on top of learning a new hospital.  To be honest, I hated it at first because of the chaos, but by the end I really enjoyed the structure, the didactics, and the people.  If my appeal to the military is denied, missing out on this program is what I will be disappointed about. 

The one memory that sticks out from my time at SAMMC has nothing to do with the ER at all; in fact, it occurred while entering an elevator.  I was looking for an office in the basement, and was totally lost in the dungeon of the hospital.  I came back up to the 1st floor to re-orient myself, and walked to an elevator in another area of the building to try to jog my memory of the super-sonic tour we had gotten on day 1.  I was super frustrated and tired and crabby and felt like nothing was going right.  I waited for the elevator to come down from upstairs, and when the doors opened, out walked a double-amputee, clad in his PT uniform, walking without assistance.  He was a young guy, definitely not any older than me.  He stumbled just a bit as he exited the elevator, but collected himself and continued walking.  Suddenly my frustrations seemed terribly shallow.  I wondered if I was ready for this.  This wasn't just playing soldier, like COT felt to be.  This was real, the battles are real, the wounds are real, and here I was potentially taking care of people whose pain I couldn't possibly begin to relate to.  It was a major wake-up call, and I think a turning point in how I looked at military emergency medicine.  Even in the setting of stabbings, gang-banger shootings, MVCs, and super sick patients, this was my most memorable encounter at SAMMC. 

Enough memory chronicling for one night.  More later!

A Few Years Later

Clearly I'm not so great at the blogging thing.  It's been years since my last post.  But it's been on my mind again recently, as I've had more than a few experiences worth recording.  I'm going to give it another try, and we'll see where it goes.  I suppose I need to give another recap of what is going on in our lives to give some context.

1. Des Moines.  We're not officially Iowans (never!), but we've been in corn country for the past 3 years.  We like DSM fairly well, it has plenty to keep us busy, but Iowans are weird and it would be nice to be less than a 6 hour drive to family.
2. Med School.  I got in, I suffered through, and I am about 8 months from being finished.  It has gone by crazy fast.  I'm approaching residency interview season, and have spent the last few months in audition rotations.  More on that later.
3. Waukee.  Aaron has taken this whole Iowa thing like a champ, willing to go wherever my education might take me.  He struggled for a while to find a teaching position, and has worked doing whatever God wanted him to be doing without ever a complaint.  I'm so glad that the Waukee school district finally noticed how much of a rock star he really is, and hired him on to teach their munchkins.
4. Air Force.  I joined the military since last I posted.  The deal was that they'd pay for school, and I'd be an AF doc for a while.  It's become a little messier since I signed on; they seem to have a problem with me having migraines--regardless of how well they are controlled.  It's terribly frustrating, especially when I've taken care of active duty peeps that frequent the ER for headaches, and no one turns a  head.  I've done all I can for my cause, and currently I await a decision from an evaluation board about whether I will continue in the program or be honorably discharged and owe the military a ton of money (how nice).

That covers the big stuff, more on the details later...I hope anyway!

Update

Its been a while. So, an update. Where I've been since my last post:

• ACAD. I got hired with the ambulance service in Kirksville. I really like it here. I like the people here, and I like that people actually care about providing good patient care. I like that people are willing to put effort in to their jobs and take on extra responsibilities to make this place better. Not perfect, but always better. I also like that I can be myself here, say what I think, listen to SpiritFM without getting jeered, and also talk to other believers. I like that there are more church-goers than not, and I like that there are some that are outspoken about their faith. I think I've really needed to be in company like this, and I'm thankful to have such a blessing.
  
• Mercy. I liken working here to being aboard a capsizing ship. Everything, and I do mean everything, here is negative. I didn't like myself when I was here. Bickering, gossiping, backstabbing, complaining, arguing, whining, and on and on and on. And I was in the middle of all of it, I admit. I had to get out, and I was hoping to take a great friend with me. It didn't work out that way, so for her sake I've stayed PRN on the roster. I think I'm a different person after leaving Mercy, and I know I am much happier. I learned a lot, and I'm thankful for the opportunity, but I will not miss much about this place.
• Physics. I came, I saw, I conquered. It wasn't an A+ performance, but it was acceptable. One more hurdle behind me on my obstacle course toward medical school.
  
• Chrismukkah. Isn't that just a fun word? We didn't do the traditional Charlie Brown miserable-looking-Chrismukkah-tree this year, it was just too yucky if I remember right. But we had a good time anyway, and I propose we make up for it next year with by playing dreidel with Christmas candy while wearing our yarmulclaus.
  
• Paramedic. Or, as I like to refer to it, paramagic, it is my crowning achievement of the year. I somehow convinced ten proctors in 12 stations that I was not a moron, and was also able to persuade a computer to give me a P for pass as well. I've been turned loose to jab people with sharp objects, so be advised that if you should become ill while in the area you might consider driving until you reach the next county.
  
• Wedding. Ashley, my 20 year old sister, got married in June. I'm still adjusting to this, but I'm happy if she's happy and wish her all the best. Besides this one, Aaron and I attended approximately 137 other weddings this summer. We apologize in advance that we have no money for your Christmas gift, we spent it all on registry items at Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

The King Fam

Aaron and I at his former roommate's wedding in Kansas City.

• Crash. Someone decided, rather inconveniently, to merge in to Aaron's Pontiac Torrent on Ashley's wedding day. Fortunately no one was injured, including the carload of flowers that Aaron had safely buckled in to the front seat. The car was crunched but driveable, and as of yesterday it is repaired and looking good thanks to Uncle Brad.
  
• Dave Ramsey. A coworker at ACAD had been talking all the time about this great financial plan this guy has, so Aaron and I decided to check it out. Whatever system we were using wasn't working so well; I knew we were making enough money, but I never could figure out where it was going. I hate paying today's bills with tomorrow's paycheck. We've been pretty dedicated to Dave's Total Money Makeover and its going wonderfully. We are free of credit cards, and have closed in on our final two debts: Aaron's car and student loans. The car, which we bought in August 2008, will be paid off by December 2009. The loans are our biggest challenge, but doesn't seem all that impossible with all we've accomplished since starting the program in April. We've both been working our tail-ends off to get to where we are, but it has definitely been worth it. We don't overspend on food, we know exactly how much we can spend on clothes, and every six months there is exactly enough for the car insurance without wondering how we're going to come up with it. If you can't figure out where your money is going, I would definitely recommend picking up this book and giving the program a try.
  
• Des Moines University. Last fall I was accepted into the Masters in Healthcare Administration program at DMU. I was really frustrated with the way things were done at Mercy and thought that if I knew more about it...something would be different. I don't really know what I thought. I'm finding that I don't find any of it interesting unless it has to do with finances. I just finished a class called Health Information Systems and Decision Analysis. The last half of the class dealt with quantifying big decisions in order to choose the right option based on an arbitrary number. What? How is that useful? I'm far enough into the program that I don't want to quit; if I give up now then I've wasted a huge amount of money. Not that I plan to use the degree, but you never know. This semester I'm taking the second of two classes on Healthcare Financial Management, and I'm actually looking forward to this one. There are also two more courses this semester that are just hurdles. I anticipate finishing next August, fingers crossed, just before entering medical school.
• Biochemistry. I just started this class today (well, yesterday technically) and I am both excited and apprehensive. I'm told this is the most difficult class on campus, and I am quite rusty on my biology and my chemistry. However, the professor seems like a ROCKSTAR, she is a tiny Asian lady that is bursting with energy, and I think that with her help I will survive. She can't be any older than 30, if she is she has me fooled, and her enthusiasm had me smiling all through the hour today, even when I had no idea what she was talking about. By the way, not a good sign when you are lost on the first day.
• Miscellaneous. Aaron and I did manage to carve out a little bit of time to have some fun and enjoy the married life this summer. Aaron's boss and good friend Patty kindly abused us on the lake at Thousand Hills State Park a few times. Aaron's tubing skills are much improved and I think his arms have bulked up a little in the process.

Daredevil Aaron--Don't make me come drag you out of the water when you break your neck. I'm off duty.

Aaron would pop up over the wake and tap my tube, and I would fly. How rude.

This has turned into a much longer post than I intended, so I will end it here and save anything I might have left for next time. You know, a year from now.