Residency 2.2: Cardiology Clinic

"Are you a hard-hearted person?"
"I'm hard-headed."
"Are you a cold-hearted person?"
"Cold hands, warm heart!"

This was the conversation between one of my attendings and one of my very astute patients during Cardiology Clinic yesterday. I have to say one of my more enjoyable experiences this month was listening to this doctor go through all of the corny "heart" idioms and make the patients and parents laugh. "What's that I hear? Is your heart carrying a tune for someone?"

This month was a blissful call-free, vacation month, so I feel like I hardly worked at all. I got to enjoy my weekends, work out, and even go home for a week. But I also feel like I learned a lot. I got pretty good at listening to heart murmurs, talking to parents about abnormal heart rhythms and passing out, and even started to be able to identify structures on echo. The trick will be if I remember any of this when I do Blue Team in June.

This month I'm on Heme/Onc (blood and cancer disorders) so it will be a lot more taxing, mentally and physically. But I have Day 1 under my belt with no issues (that I know of). Also, I have to say that it's kind of fun to be back inpatient and see everyone again (I missed my Owl Team!). Until next time...

Monkey off the back

A little belated vacation blogging. While there were many notables from the trip back to CO, I'd say the one I was most glad to check off was finally checking Mt. Evans off of our 14er list (cue "Hail the Conquering Hero"). It was back in the summer of 2005 when Michelle, Dad, and I attempted Evans for the first time. Dad being the only one who had ever done a 14er, we left him in charge of directions, planning, packing lists, etc. After (very little?) researching, he deemed the Bierstadt trail head as the place to start. It was early on in the trip when I, having read the directions, said, "It says we're supposed to cut across this field." Dad: "This trail keeps going." Me: "I know, it says to leave the trail." Dad: "No, I think we keep going." Fast forward 45 minutes, long past any hope of cutting across fields of any kind...Dad: "This is the trail up Evans, right?" Random hiker with a clue: "No, this goes up Bierstadt." Whoops! At least we bagged our first 14er.

The next summer, Dad somehow convinced not only the rest of the family, but our next door neighbors as well, to attempt Evans from the same trail head. I won't go into all the gory details. Needless to say, we hacked through tons of soaking wet scrub oak and swamp land, scrambled up a huge scree field, and then once again, failed to read the directions and tried to go OVER West Evans instead of around it, and had to turn around because of lightening--8 hours later=no summit and very cranky hikers.

Well, so you can see why we have avoided Evans or any mention of it for 5 years. But being that Michelle and I were on our own for this one (another long story) and didn't want to drive 4 hours to try Massive, we opted for the very close Mt. Evans. This time, we would go from the OTHER side, the NORMAL side. We decided to pass Echo Lake and start from Summit Lake for the sake of timing and sanity (15.5 miles vs. 5.5).

Starting out from Summit Lake

I did have a few flashes of "only crazy people climb mountains" when we looked ahead at what was to come, but we kept trucking on, Michelle being a very good hiking partner (I mean, it's practically like hiking with myself!). We successfully found the trail at West Evans (a much easier way to go) and picked our way around the back side until we could see people raising their arms above their heads on the summit. I had a hard time controlling my joy when I knew that we had made it--FINALLY beat Mt. Evans, after 6 years of having it nag at the back of my mind.

Summit Bears at the top!

Next, we'll have to re-try Colombia and Harvard so we can get those off the list too.

Looking back on the hike. The summit is on the left. West Evans on the right.

Unsophisticated

The month of May in "The Happiness Project" is devoted to getting serious about play--making the most of leisure time. One of the author's discoveries resonated with me.

"I love the idea of playing chess, going to a lecture on international markets, doing crossword puzzles, getting a pedicure, eating a dinner at a hot new restaurant, or having a subscription to the opera...I wish I enjoyed them. But I don't."

I happen to love crossword puzzles, but I get the sentiment. She felt guilty for not having more cultured interests and hid her love of children's books because she thought she should be reading more mature themes.

I think to a certain extent, we all hide behind our more "legitimate" hobbies. My sister recently told me that at first she was embarrassed to tell everyone that our family vacation last year was to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (she got over it). And I admit, I'm much more likely to tell someone that I saw "Mamma Mia", went to the Monet exhibit, and listened to Learn Italian CDs this weekend (which I did--wow, cultured weekend!) than I am to say that I had just as much fun playing Girl Talk Jenga and watching The Lightning Thief last month at work.

But if there is one thing being hammered into my head as I read "The Happiness Project", it's that, in order to be happy, I have to first "Be Laura" (well, the author says, "be Gretchen", but you get the point). I must stretch myself, yes, and go outside my comfort zone, but I must also admit that I will NEVER enjoy dancing in public, shopping for clothes, or oysters. And that I happen to like adolescent fiction, SpongeBob easy mac, Disney movies, and Dolly Parton songs.

I think C.S. Lewis hit the nail on the head: "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

So if in the near future, you find yourself wanting to fingerpaint, play on a swingset, watch cartoons, or order a Shirley Temple, I say go for it! We can always go to the opera next weekend.

A little happier

I checked out "The Happiness Project" from the library this week. Not that I'm a huge fan of the self-help section in general--I think too many people are looking for someone else to tell them how to live their lives (newsflash--it's already been done, and it's called the Bible)--however, I do occasionally enjoy what's been called "stunt non-fiction"--someone's journey of self-discovery (see also: Eat, Pray, Love), and I like the way this one is written. Much more realistic than trekking across the globe for a year.

Anyways, the author split her year into month-long blocks working on specific areas of her life, just small changes right where she was at. January=Boosting Energy. Some of the things in this chapter I already do well--going to sleep earlier, (occasionally) exercising. Some things I do NOT do well--among them the "toss, restore, organize" item, and "tackle a nagging task." I get SUPER lazy and leave things where they fall, and then I can't ever get motivated to check simple things off the list. I use the excuse of working 80 hours a week, but still, even without reading this chapter, I knew that this tendency makes me less happy than I could be. So now I became motivated to do those things that I have been meaning to do FOR. EVER. Today I fixed my consecration bracelet, bought a new electric toothbrush, and threw out a bunch of crap that had to go--my old palm pilot (which was actually Michelle's old palm pilot that I borrowed cause mine broke, but never figured out how to use...3 years ago!), two old retreat candles, a quarter of a bottle of wine that was opened last year, several toys with the tags still on, and most importantly, I emptied my Honeydukes candy jar of the hard candy I don't like so I can fill it with stuff I do like (WHY has this taken me 10 months to do???).

I know it doesn't sound like much, but it was totally satisfying, if not directly happiness-inducing.

***Side note: if you want the fast road to happiness, I highly recommend Lidia's pasta trio and the nutella dessert with coffee--YUM!

Residency 2.1: Owl Team--The Final Battle

Yup, you read that right--we're now in version 2.0 of residency--watch out world! Now that I'm a PL2 (Pediatric Level 2 for those of you uninitiated), I get the esteemed privilege of no longer writing notes (not counting the PICU, Heme-Onc, ER, clinic, Green Team...wait, how is this a change?) Just kidding, not having to write H&Ps makes admissions SO much faster on my end! "Oh, you need me to sup that admission? No big deal, I'll just go listen to their heart and then click through a pre-typed order set and let the intern do all the work." Awesome! (Don't worry, I try to do a LITTLE more work than that)

I also get to carry... The Phones! So, each team has a phone and a pager. The intern carries the pager, which is how all the nurses bug you about those tylenol orders and minor things like a GCS of 4 (look it up, non-responsiveness can be fun!). The phones are for getting checkout on new admissions and for secret communication between seniors (wait, that was a secret). As an intern, I was a little jealous of the phones. It meant that when you paged someone (especially the attendings at home), you didn't have to sit glued to a phone until they called back--cause you have one on your belt! It meant that you're (theoretocally) knowledgeable enough to take checkout on new patients, even from outside hospitals (umm, let's just say that if you have the chance, I highly HIGHLY recommend taking your kids to pediatric hospitals--we've all seen WAY too many scary things done to kids at regular hospitals before they get transferred to us). It meant that you could say, "Call me if you need me" and send the intern off to check on that Gold Team kid whose mom was asking for benadryl when their kid is asleep.

However, now that I actually get to have the phones, I know it's not all fun and games (although I still feel sort of important when I get to tell docs at the other hospitals what to do). But alas, having the phones also means that you can never get too comfortable sitting down with a family, eating dinner, or going to the bathroom, because you are ALWAYS reachable. It means that you are the one who has to wake up the attending in the middle of the night to ask them a question (which is SUPER awkward when you call the WRONG attending...oops!) And good luck keeping your pants up when you have to carry FOUR of them at the same time.

My special belt now that I have The Phones

So besides those things, being a senior isn't so different. And it wasn't so scary. I have been well-prepared over the last year to do a better job assessing the patients, interpreting information, weighing options, troubleshooting, doing some very fast reading on the fly, and then calling for help when I need it (see "GCS of 4" above).

And we had a ton of fun this month. I know you guys think we don't ever work at night just because we have time to play Kinect and Girl Talk Jenga and Bananagrams, and make homemade ice cream and butterbeer and watch movies and 4 straight hours of Lingo. We do work, I promise. We just get really good at squeezing in all the fun and good food we can. It's okay, you can be jealous.

Nate and me playing SingStar on our last night

You can also be jealous that I am DONE with Owl Team forever! And of the fact that I'm on Cardiology Clinic this month--Call Free! Weekends off, no overnights, or even late nights. Woohoo! See you next time!