Internal Medicine

02-27-07 --> 03-09-07

Hello to all,

This entry will cover the past two weeks. All is well here, but I am extremely tired as I was on call last night and didn’t get to leave today until about 3pm. Oh well! I took a short nap and should be okay for the next few hours. Tomorrow night I am on call with my friend Tracy—this one is in a hospital that is about 5 minutes from me, and I wouldn’t have to work the day after, so it should be a bit easier than today was.

The last week of pediatrics was decent. I did learn how to perform new born examination, which is so important. I didn’t like that hospital too much, for it is like a very grim and gray looking castle. I really would like to do another out patient pediatrics rotation though—I’ll try and get it in

03-10-07
Sorry—I fell asleep pretty much within 5 minutes after the last unfinished sentence! I’ll continue this now :o)
…I’ll try and get it in this summer during my 3rd year elective. This will be difficult to manage, but I’ll see what I can do.

So after my pediatric exam I had two free days during the weekend. I worked hard on the quilt—I finished the giraffe, and it looks very adorable. I also went to the public library and took out Denise Austin’s ‘Indoor walk’ DVD. It just that my hours in internal medicine are very long and do not allow me to have free time during day light, so I figured I’ll exercise during the evenings indoors until this rotation is over.

And then… Monday came along and we had an internal medicine orientation and drove to the different hospitals to start our rotation.

So, internal medicine will probably not be my chosen field. However, it is really important to learn as much as I can from the next 8 (7 now!) weeks. What really surprised me is how emotionally difficult this experience is for me. There are a lot of really sick people, and I just get so sad being in the hospital. This has not happened until now. I never got sad working with patients before internal medicine, because up to this point I worked with populations that were relatively healthy.

Suffering sucks. It really does. Being in the hospital as a patient is no picnic—I don’t envy anyone who is in the hospital. For most patients, the hospital is the place they can usually get most help, but… being sick, really sick, is not easy.

So… my plan is to learn as much as I can, read a whole lot and… get my 4th year all set up in the next 7 weeks. The next rotation after internal medicine is surgery.

As I said earlier, I was on call Thursday night. It was a good learning experience. We went to the ER and admitted patients. In between patients we went to the call room where the interns and residents have little beds that they can sleep in. They had beds, we had chairs (students are on the bottom of the totem pole). To be honest, it was quite uncomfortable. My next rotation is tonight 7pm-7am, and then next week I have one on Wednesday and one on Friday. It really isn’t all that bad, but working the next day on very little sleep is tiring.

What else? Cats are doing well. Weather has been nasty. I’m going to see dad today if he feels better!!! That’s about it…

Loads of kisses,

Reut