Waiting Game

I have finally submitted my ophthalmology application. I have applied to everywhere from Connecticut to Florida to California to Washington. Hopefully in the next few weeks I will hear about some interviews. Last night I finalized my application for my intern year, which may actually be in a different city than my ophthalmology residency.

The past week and a half has been spent on the Otorhinolaryngology service. There has been no shortage of interesting stuff to see. The residents and faculty have been great.

Well, this Friday I will take the Clinical Skills portion of my USMLE Step 2 Exam. I am not really looking forward to it, but as I read somewhere "this too shall pass as a kidney stone."

Trip to Canada

I actually forgot about my quick trip to Canada at the end of July and start of August. I ran up there during my month of radiology. It was good to visit old friends and see relatives. I water skied just enough to make myself incredibly sore. A round or two of golf proved that I didn't play enough. You know it is a bad game when you are counting strikes. It was also the first time in almost 13 years that I saw uncle Stan and aunt Barbara and certainly the first time to see one of my cousins. After another year of school in Dallas, it was nice to get up to the lake.

Back to Busy, Plastic Surgery

I can't even remember the last time I posted anything. There really is no excuse for the long delay. The past month was spent on a radiology rotation that was certainly the easiest month of my time here at school. Believe it or not, it was actually pretty interesting stuff. The kinds of things that can be picked up using the various imaging techniques with a trained eye is pretty amazing.

This past week has been spent on plastic surgery. I decided to split this month up and do two weeks of plastics and two weeks of ENT (ear, nose, and throat). The hours have been long. Usually I get there before 6am and stay until 8pm or so. There have certainly been some interesting cases. I have been very impressed with some of the facial reconstruction that the surgeons are capable of. This hospital sees a lot of trauma and they can take a banged up head, put 6-7 plates in it and things come together ok. And on top of that, they are usually able to hide most of the incisions Once again, I remind all readers to avoid motorcycles. I have seen several skin grafts too.

My ophthalmology application has come together. My personal statement is pretty much completed. I am just waiting for a letter of recommendation. I also need to finalize a list of programs and the application will be sent off.

Hard to Beat

It's hard to believe that a month of fourth year has already passed. I just finished my rotation in ophthalmology and it was great to finally have my weekends and evenings off. Coming off the Trauma and Emergency Surgery rotation, it was a welcome relief. There was finally some time to catch up with old friends and enjoy the outdoors. After third year, I had almost forgot what daylight looked like.

This weekend, I took the chance to drive out to West Texas. I guess it has been over three months since I have been out here. Anna, my youngest neice in Snyder didn't even recognize me. Weather permitting, there might be a chance to get up flying this weekend. It has been a while since I have been up. I guess it was one of those hobbies that has been neglected during medical school.

Last Friday, one of the ladies in my assembly gave me a DVD that had a 45 minute ABC (Australian) film peice about the "Exclusive Brethren" in New Zealand and Australia. From what I could tell it was about the group known as the "Taylorites." Interesting stuff. Over the past 10-15 years, I have met a good amount of various shades "open" and "closed" brethren. I don't know that I have ever run across any "exclusives" though. It is such a shame that there are so many small pockets of "brethren" across the continent that really don't have much to do with each other.

Well, the weather in Dallas has been unreasonably hot for the past few weeks so I thought I would throw in a picture of the snow.

Finally, a MS4

Well as you might have already been able to tell based on the frequency of my posting, surgery was a pretty busy rotation. I think that we were supposed to be on a 80hour workweek, but in reality it seemed like it was much closer to 90hours/week. That 90hours/week does not included studying either. Anyway, it is over with. Trauma was a very interesting two weeks. There was a huge range of stuff from gunshot wounds, stab wounds, motor vehicle collisions, motorcycle collisions, motor-pedestrian collisions, jet-ski swimmer collisions, to falling from several stories. Emergency general surgery was not that intesesting. We spent most of our time taking out gallbladders, appendix, and draining abscesses.

This past Saturday was truely the first day in about two months that I have been able to wake up after the sun was up, enjoy a regular breakfast and then decide what I wanted to do with a free day. In the end, a group of us college, post-college guys from the area assemblies met up for some ultimate frisbee and tennis. There were nine terribly out of shape people trying to move around the field. It didn't help that the temperature and humidity were both in the 90's.

Always Wear Your Seatbelt!

I had to chuckle when I looked at my blog today. It seems like it has been about a month since I have last given an update; not totally unexpected since I am on surgery. In fact, this afternoon I finished up my first 30 hour shift in one of the local level one trauma centers. The first eight hours was spent in lectures and studying, but a good portion of yesterday afternoon, evening, and early this morning were spent dealing with traumas. I am probably a little delusional at this point as I haven't slept in about 33 hours, but I wanted to write about my experience while it was still fresh on my mind. Only four days have past since I have been on one of the trauma services, but even in that short amount of time I have realized three very important things which I feel obligated to convey to you.

1) Always, and I mean always wear your seatbelt! I just grimace when I hear of an "unrestrained" driver or passenger. It seems that often times, it is connected with "ejected" driver or passenger. I don't understand why people don't buckle up. And, if you are the driver, don't start that car until people are belted in.

2) Never ever drive a motorcyle. Have you ever heard of a "fender-bender" on motorcycle? I didn't think so. I used to drive them when I was a kid, but it was always off road and at low speeds. I think 25-35% of our patients are the results of MCC or motorcycle collisions. Your bodies are not like Lego. You are more like Humpty Dumpty and the nursery rhyme should read something along these lines:

Humpty Dumpty rode on a motorcyle.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the trauma surgeons and all the medical students
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.

3) Watch out for the other crazy drivers. You can't overstate the importance of defensive driving. Remember, there are just too many bad drivers out there.

Anyway, last night as I was moving between patients, I concluded that I wanted to have a big helmet for my ride home which would be made at 10mph under the speed limit. In fact, it seems reasonable for humans to have to wear helmets every time they leave the house and that clothing should come with built in airbags.

Well, on a little more positive note, I had a chance to get out the the Texas Scottish Festival and Highland Games in Arlington this past weekend. It was fun to seem some top notch bagpipers in action. I certainly have a long ways to go. I also attended Kevin and Cristy's graduation. Assuming all goes well, in about 360 days I will be walking across that stage to get my degree. By then, I will have need to have picked a specialty too. Any suggestions?

Much Needed Weekend

Pediatrics is over. I doubt I will end up doing pediatrics but it was an interesting rotation nonetheless. The childrens hospital was a fun place to work and the vast majority of the staff were great. For the brief switch weekend, I decided to head back out to West Texas. I figured that I better make it out there before surgery begins. A friend from the Lewisville assembly and one of their friends who comes to the Bible study also came out to West Texas. Both of them are from India and neither of them had really visited out west, so I think it was sort of an eye opener for them. I think they might have enjoyed the lake a bit more if they both knew how to swim. Visiting Lake Alan Henry on Saturday made me think more seriously about trying to get a residency in Lubbock. I will have to see how things pan out. It was fun to get a chance to see my nephews and neices too. They are fearless when it comes to the water. The pictures are of them hanging on to a trolly that zips out over a pond. It has about a 15-20 foot drop to the water.





Well surgery has finally arrived. The first two days haven't been too bad. It looks like most days I should get to the hospital by 4:15am and go home by 6-7pm. If I study for three hours a night, I should be able to get five hours of sleep. I think we get one day off a week. Next month, the schedule is a little tougher as we go on-call every third night. I have been told we get 24 hours in row off once a week.