October Newsletter

I'm done with Family Medicine forever! Whooo! Assuming I passed the test, that is. Thing is, the test comprises* retired questions from exams testing knowledge that is, in the case of Family Medicine, five years ahead of my current level of training. I'm just going to keep plugging away and not worry about my score until it's posted. 

My rotation shaped up to be what I was expecting based on my first day: brief patient encounters and too fast-paced for me to think of questions to ask. Recapping from the last newsletter, the doctor only works two days a week, so I spent most of my time with his two PAs. I got along well with them and actually enjoyed my time with them more than with the doctor. He was lenient with me, but usually sounded irritated talking with his staff. I kept thinking, this is not how I would treat the people on whom my livelihood depends. One PA took more time with patients, but in general, all three providers were very fast and were practically looking for an excuse to give patients antibiotics. Thankfully, I was able to induce Stockholm Syndrome and get through it all right.

One highlight of the month is that a little girl hugged me. It made my day. Regarding other memorable patient interactions, I try to keep specifics out of my newsletters since I'm quite verbose when describing them, so I'm hoping to be more detailed about that in the middle of the month, as I was here.

For November, I'm doing Psychiatry, which should be interesting enough, but it's a nuisance being re-fingerprinted, re-background checked, and re-drug tested, which are required steps to be at the facility. Plus, the mandatory reading I've spent hours on this weekend regards the state of Colorado's regulations, and is not specific to the place I'll be working (Cedar Springs Hospital, if you're curious). It's boring, redundant, and half legalese. Oh, well. This should be a good month as long as I see more -iatry than -ology; I don't want to sit around listening to counseling sessions.

Repeating the above, I'm going to try making a habit of writing more detailed posts during the month while keeping the end-of-month newsletters short. To my mailing list folks, I'll continue only announcing the newsletters, but feel free to check http://medstudentscott.blogspot.com/ for the latest. Now it's back to reading "Rules Regulating Residential Child Care Facilities."

Scott

*Comprise: "to be made up of." This is the traditional definition and the one I prefer, but the alternative definition, "to make up," is the way I mostly see this word used. This is a shame, since the original def is basically passive, and therefore sets up such double-passive awesomeness as: "Five hundred members are comprised of our organization." My guess is the original definition requires too much mental dexterity for the common person to understand (said with nose in air).