Last Thursday, a good classmate and I had the privilege of visiting a patient with metastatic cancer for our mandatory “palliative care experience.” Under the guidance of an attending physician, we explored how the patient coped with her diagnosis and subsequent therapies and probed her plans for the future.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my first week of pediatric surgery, it’s my inability to deal with the fact that young children are capable of such horrible illnesses. It disgusts me to think that there are “healthy” individuals out there who practice high risk behaviors on a daily basis…
Pediatric surgery is shaping up to be an excellent two weeks of variety and choice. Sure, we have to get in around 5:30 each morning to collect vitals on our 35+ patients, but after that, we’re free to see whatever procedures we want. The lounges are chock full of coffee,…
Unilateral facial pain with some subjective fevers, diaphoresis, and numbness/tingling in the same region. “So what medications are you taking?” I noticed the disproportionate opening of his mouth as he answered.” While we joked about random current events, I thought I saw a discrepancy in his eyelid elevation. And then…
T-minus two hours till the E.R. portion of this surgery rotation is over. I worked yesterday 7a-7p and had the morning/afternoon to finish reading the NMS Surgery Casebook today, but being ever-so-absent-minded, I left the book at Ben Taub. Instead, I spent the day playing computer games. After all, there…
Yesterday was Baylor Med’s first round of interviews for incoming medical students, so I naturally jumped on board to give basic science and clinical tours. Interviewing and giving said tours when I was an MS1/MS2 helped me “step away” from the classroom and remember what it felt like to be…
Today was my first shift in the Ben Taub emergency center (EC), and first real workday as part of the surgery rotation. From 9am to 5pm, a classmate and I helped man the shock rooms. :-)
Around 3:45pm yesterday afternoon, I officially finished my OB/Gyn rotation. I felt very prepared after having read Case Files, uWise, Boards & Wards, and supplementing BluePrints for additional clarification, but like all shelf exams, I narrowed down a bunch of questions to two choices. Bleh, hopefully I managed to do…
As part of every core rotation, students are required to write a brief reflection paper about their experiences. I wanted to write about a sentiment I revisited during my OB/Gyn rotation – my need to be needed.
Saturday morning marked the end of my week on gynecological oncology (“gyn-onc”). A colleague and I came in for morning rounds, got to leave by 10:30am, and I spent the rest of the day pseudo-studying. For the last two weeks of this rotation, I’ll be on benign gynecology alternating between…