Top Ten

Things I loved about Intern Year...in no particular order...

10. Celebrations. It's Valentine's Day; it's our last day of the month; it's somebody's birthday; it's a Tuesday in June--let's party! In residency, we will use any excuse to bring in some cake/donuts/pinata and have ourselves a little shin-dig. Often, it's a bright spot in a long day, because suddenly that 30 hours doesn't seem so bad when there's a chocolate chip cheese ball with Scooby Snack graham crackers.

9. Wearing scrubs to work. This will be even better next year, when short call is done away with and we get to wear scrubs whenever we're not in clinic. Even better are the Pediatrics track jackets that we ordered, that have sort of become our call uniform. Paired with black scrub pants, I get told I look like a Bond girl and a ninja (true story). Paired with red scrub pants (or "clown pants" as Dr. Cedillos likes to call them), I get to match Christina, who is really embarrassed when we match and will now only wear her red pants AFTER I've already worn mine that week. The only problem is they don't come with a belt, and when you have 3 phones and 4 pagers to carry, it's a little hard to keep them up...still working on that one.

8. Owl Team Breakfast. This is by far one of the best traditions of the program so far. Although it's hard to pick just ONE Owl Team tradition to out shine the rest,you can't beat mimosas, sweet potato pancakes, and the lack of Friday morning clinic that accompanies the last weekend of the month. Circle up and re-live all the inside jokes from the month, stuff your face full of non-cafeteria breakfast food, and then go home and sleep in your own bed. Awesome!

7. Kudos. This really is probably my favorite part of the month--Kudos time at our Housestaff meetings. People send in Kudos for all sorts of things, from random inside jokes to thank-yous for helping out to a job well done. I've laughed myself to tears on multiple occasions. I won't bore you here with a bunch of inside jokes that you won't get, but if you're curious, I have a lot of good ones. Also, it's nice to occasionally get a real Kudos--like for doing a nice job in the ER, or to get a shout out for being awesome with a particular patient.

6. Rocking a procedure. Doesn't matter whether it's threading that UVC away from the liver, tying a stitch and seeing the skin come together perfectly, or popping through an LP needle and getting clear, beautiful fluid back--doing a procedure correctly is a pretty good high. Medicine in general is a lot about knowledge and not a lot about skills (unless you're a surgeon), and so when you get to use your hands to do something, it's pretty fun.

5. The kids! Obviously, this is why we do what we do. In the middle of rounds the other day, one 8 year old boy interrupted the presentation, pointed at our senior resident and said, "You're beautiful." I mean, it just doesn't get any better than that.

4. Being well-supported. This is huge for me. There were many times I wandered into the Chiefs office just to have a place to sit and hide while I ate a mini Twix. Times when I was getting slammed with admissions and someone else stepped up to take over even though it wasn't their team. Times when the cross-covering senior resident had to brave angry charge nurses or Gold Team crazies so that I wouldn't have to do it alone. I would hope that it's like this everywhere, but I know it's not, and I'm so grateful I'm here.

3. Outpatient months. Oh, those glorious days of rolling into clinic about 8:30 and rolling on out around 5. Getting a nice lunch break and not having to round. Oh, and vacation eligible, you say? Yes please!

2. My fellow 'terns. Holy cow, I can't even put into words how blessed I feel to be able to work alongside the rest of my class. They are smart, funny, hard-working, caring, and some of them are really good cooks! We have made it through a crazy year, and have 2 more crazy years left, and I couldn't ask for a better group.

And the number ONE best things about Intern Year--IT'S OVER! That's right kids, I made it! I am no longer the bottom of the totem pole. As of today, there is someone else going to be holding the pager and writing the notes. Of course, that also means that there's no one else telling me what to do when that pager does go off...cause that's now my job. Here's to being a senior resident!

Residency 1.12: The Purps

I'm 2 days away from finishing my month on Purple Team. More importantly, I'm 2 days away from finishing my Intern Year. This was a month of a lot of learning (thanks, Molly, for the board questions--I got all 4 right today, I can feel myself getting smarter!). It's interesting because I've pretty much been dreading the end of this month ever since March, when I found out I'd be starting second year on Owl Team. Dreading the day when I no longer had a senior over me to tell me what the right answer was. I thought I would never be ready to be the one making the final decisions. And as I near the end, surprisingly I'm pretty ready to move forward. Granted, I'm sure come July 1st, I'll probably still be like, "Um, I don't know, yesterday I was an Intern." But boy howdy, compared to the new interns, I'll have my stuff down! I think I'm finally ready to move on, to have more responsibility, more say in how things go, and less note-writing (!).

This was a really good month, full of basic pathology and really complex kids. In addition to the gen peds kids, we also were covering the renal service, and I got to see 2 kids get kidney transplants and a chance at a much more normal life--very cool! Of course, we also have the flip side--the kid who, because of a bad infection, basically has no kidney function left, and will require dialysis and likely transplant in the long term. But even that cloud has a silver lining, as we've been able to watch him slowly recover, celebrate his 8th birthday, and get back to eating tacos, which he loves. He popped in the workroom yesterday just to say "Hi!" and it totally made my day. I think he'll get to go home this week, which I don't think any of us would have even hoped for a week ago.

When I see these sick kids--the truly sick ones--get better, it is a humbling and awesome experience. For all the complaining we tend to do about ridiculous pages and long hours and the dreaded 5:55 admit, I wouldn't trade places with anyone for the world. I'm glad that at the end of the first year, I still see it that way.

Stay tuned for version 2.0...

God's work

I just finished reading this book, "Same Kind of Different As Me." I didn't know much about it when I first started reading, except that it was recommended by a friend. And I wasn't warned that I would cry through the last quarter of it, so consider yourself duly warned now. It's a wonderful story about a homeless man who has a lot to teach despite never having set foot in a school, and a wealthy art dealer that lives in his own kind of poverty, and how their lives were changed by one woman's boldness and love. At one point, one of the characters talks about that woman staying on the earth until God had finished His work with her. It made me stop and think about what that work is in my life. It's empty lip service to say that God has a plan for each of us if we never try to figure out what that plan is.

The easy answer is that I'm His hands and His words to the patients that I see, but I have to admit that I don't always have that at the forefront of my mind when I walk into a room. There are many days when I'm distracted and impatient, anything but merciful and loving. I can only pray that He will work through me despite myself, and that over time, I may grow more docile and pliable. It's baby steps though, and a lot of steps backwards, it seems. But God is bigger than my failures, and so I do believe that He is doing His work, and He's not finished with me yet.

Check

You know that feeling of checking something off your list? That something that has been nagging you for a week and every time you see that little sticky note, you're like, "Gah! Forgot again!" and then it stays on there for another day because you can't really pick up a library book or go to the bank at 9:30 pm, and once dinner is over, that "Work Out" line ain't never gonna happen. The satisfaction of checking things off makes me create lists just so I can cross 'em out. It's sick, really. Well, you can congratulate me however you choose. I just finished my entire to-do list for today! AND I had time to go to the pool (which was not on my list, but shoulda been)! SUCCESS!!!!!

Don't worry, I've already started my to-do list for my next day off.

AMDG

I have been reading more of 1000awesomethings.com and "The Book of Awesome", and I also just bought "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything." They have reminded me that many things in life are, in fact, awesome, and that God can be found in all things. And so the last few weeks, despite being so incredibly busy that I could easily be excused for using all my spare energy for sleeping, have been full of delightful reminders of God's presence. It's actually wonderfully freeing and uplifting to enjoy these moments. They tend to cancel out the moments when you feel like the world is crashing down around you. Toddlers yelling "HI" as they pass by you in the hallway, fajitas with homemade tortillas and fresh guacamole, a fist bump in the ER, recognition for hard work, the right song on the radio at the right time, apple crisp day in the cafeteria (AND peach cobbler day in the same week!), Shirley Temples and cheesy bread with the chiefs, touching cards, free Tequila and Taboo, seeing a sick kid get better, declining gas prices, scoring touchdowns, a glass of wine with a friend at the end of a great day. You may read some of those and think, "What does God have to do with Tequila and gas prices?" If you're really asking that question, the Jesuit spirituality is probably not your bag (I hope that didn't sound like I think that Jesuits are materialistic or alcoholics, that is not what I meant). But if you're like me, you see all these little windows of grace that make your heart smile and you can't help but lift your eyes up and say, Thanks!

Going down with one

My dad told me today that my grandpa forgot how to play gin rummy. Sounds silly, I suppose, but you have to understand. This is a man who lived with a deck of cards within arms reach at all times; who knew more variants on that one game than I know card games period; who sorted his cards with an ingrained muscle memory that I thought he'd never lose. When about five years ago, while sitting at the card table in Florida, he smiled and said, "Now let's see if I can remember how to play this game," we all smiled and thought, "Yeah right, the day Grandad forgets how to play gin, that'll be the day." Well, the day has come. A day when the hand-written note by a proud grandchild stating, "This is to certify that on this date, I beat Grandad in 3 hands of gin" and then signed by both parties doesn't really mean much anymore. A day when he loses something that defined him, however silly that may have seemed to outsiders. Even though he doesn't know what it means, to me he will always be the gin master.

Residency 1.11: ED Round 2

2nd month in the Emergency Department this year. I have to say I rather enjoyed myself. Perhaps it had something to do with the 10 days of vacation and only 10-hour shifts, but still. Summer is definitely "ortho season" as most nights we keep the resident on call busy running from room to room putting casts on kids who came up against a trampoline or a soccer ball and ended up on the losing end. A fair amount of stitches too. My favorite was the kid who flipped off the A/C unit and split his forehead open (Mom's defense: "He's really good at it!"), although there was also the boy who got bit by a horse in the armpit (how does that even happen???). As long as kids are kids, we've got job security, that's for sure. I do like the variety of the ED, just not necessarily the acuity. I may keep urgent care as an option for my future, but don't hold me to it. Until next time...