4th Year: July August September
3rd year: Family Pediatrics Medicine( 1) Med(2)
Med(3)
Surgery(1)
Surg(2) Surg(3) Psychiatry Ob/Gyn
Index
FAQs
Other Interesting People: GabeL
Jenny
Kissaknee Lucas Yolanda
September
26, 2004
“Hit’s away!”:
Anyone get the movie
reference? Sent away my first bolus of
residency applications last night… man, it took hours and hours online
getting all that stuff organized…
CA –
OR –
IL – Uchicago,
MI – Henry Ford,
Sinai-Grace/Wayne State,
OH – St.
Vincent’s,
PA –
MD – UMBaltimore, Johns
DC – George Washington
MA – BostonU, Harvard
CT – Yale
NY – Jacobi,
My other CA app’s are a bit delayed – waiting on our
residency app-lady to reply to my question if I should send a CA-specific
personal statement or not. Also, got
another handful that I’m not entirely sure of… like
My resident
interviewer at USC told me to not apply to/rank any programs that on Match Day,
I’ll be dreading opening the envelope and thinking, “I
wish I didn’t apply there.” That kind of stuck with me. Along with Cincy
and some other potential back-up MI/OH programs, I’m debating applying to
Stanford and Loma Linda… I haven’t been impressed with Stanford
from what I’ve seen and after interviewing at Loma Linda for med school,
not so high on the
September 22, 2004
Things I’ve Learned at the
ER:
1)
Good Idea =
Bringing your pill bottle(s) to the ER so that your docs know what medications
you’re taking.
Bad
Idea = Bringing the pill bottle to the ER that you use to stash your
medications,… weed,… and crack rock.
2)
Good Idea =
Minding your own business.
Bad
Idea = “Minding your own business” out on your porch or at a bar at
300am in the morning when “some dude” just punches you for
“no reason.”
3)
Good Idea =
Being comfortable with your sexuality.
Bad
Idea = Being so comfortable with your
sexuality that while taking Ecstasy and pleasuring your more rearward orifice
with a vibrator you lose control and it gets stuck inside and runs until the
batteries die because you’re at a county ER where you have to wait 18
hours in the lobby because as uncomfortable as it is, it isn’t an
emergency.
September 20, 2004
Interview #2:
Interviewed at
USC/LAC today. I was underdressed – only one out of
five guys who didn’t have a suit.
Ah, I don’t think they cared.
If anyone wouldn’t, it would be ER docs. At
I think, overall, I
did better… I said what I aimed to say, asked some decent questions, and
don’t think I said anything embarrassing. (“I meant what I said. I said what I meant. An elephant’s word is 100
percent.”)
These residency
interviews have been very different from med school interviewing. Still nerve-raking, but
significantly more comfortable.
Not sure what it is… I think it’s in part having some real
goals and specific questions for these programs vs. talking nebulously about
medicine at random medical schools I have little or no information about…
maybe I’m getting more mature?... maybe it’s the knowledge that I will match somewhere, and I am a decent candidate vs. instead of
absolute desperation (sorry GL, I know how it is)… maybe it’s a
sense of fatalism about the whole thing – resignation to the all-powerful
Match and some weird destiny in the Midwest.
But, uptight premeds
still make uptight med students… geez, how
annoying.
Anyways, so, at least
my rank list is now 2 programs. =)
September 17, 2004
Show and Tell:
I was the show and
tell object at my friend’s 5th grade class in
Interview #1:
Good to get one under
the belt. I don’t think it
mattered too much anyways – my impression is that after seeing me for the
whole month, they have a general idea of how they’d rank me, with or
without the interview. And, I
don’t think I have much of a shot here… I wasn’t the weakest
student, but definitely not one of the top ones either. Too hard to read my two interviewers –
both are really nice people. They made
it really easy to talk a lot – not sure if I said anything worthwhile,
though… think I had a nightmare about it last night… anyways. My biggest problem is that I still have that
Asian self-deprecating thing going… way too much self-qualification and
talking about my weaknesses… I think I explained things well enough, but
very dangerous to be balancing modesty with appearing unsure of myself.
Pretty close to
sending out my residency app’s… definitely within a week…
just will give me essay one more look + write up some CA and program-specific
ones…
Two more swing
shifts, and I’m done.
September 15, 2004
Update:
The kid died. All three of us med students that were on
during that shift have had dreams about it since… Kind of a trial by fire thing, I
suppose. Kind of
crazy. Something
totally out of ‘ER’. Took me about a day or so to really calm down from seeing all that. Now I have a really interesting topic for our
student ‘grand rounds’ tomorrow.
September 14, 2004
Rough
Day (Why I’m glad that I drink now):
Watch for
this making national news. Yesterday
the assault gun ban lifted. Although
it’s likely a coincidence, it’s a good news story. The second link is SF Chronicle which is a
bit more descriptive than the
Around 500pm, a trauma
was wheeled in through the ER doors… some random deaf guy who crashed his
motorcycle… nothing too severe, but me + a couple nurses were the only
ones there for a good half-minute+… so, I went ahead and started a
large-bore IV… pretty satisfying actually, since I’d been screwing
up IVs endlessly since I’ve been at Highland… an ER doc came in to
run the trauma and the trauma team dropped in shortly after…
Feeling pretty
self-satisfied, I was going to continue working on a guy who had a deep cut on
his leg from a circ saw, when the ER doors burst open, I hear shouts of
“Shooting in the hallway! Shooting
in the hallway!,” and some dude is running in with a kid in his arms with
a mangled arm… someone yells, “Four more coming!”… Doc
JG (of whom I respect infinitely more now) yells, “Secure the doors! We need officers at the entry!” and
starts directing people to set up 5 trauma rooms (there’s actually only two)… With the kid being swamped
by the trauma team, and the second trauma room filling quickly, I throw on some
gloves and head to the fifth trauma room… I remember seeing JN (med
student) just arriving looking at me, and I just said “Glove up”
while heading to my trauma room.
We didn’t know
what was coming in. There was only the
resident, 1-2 nurses, and me at first.
Fresh off my successful IV stick, I figured I could start a line…
A bloody gurney burst through the doors of the room with I
can’t remember how many people on it… doing chest
compressions… bagging the woman… I took one look at the arm, totally
pulseless and pale, and in despair didn’t even
get past opening the IV needle… figured I’d only get in the way if
I were mucking up the IV when a much more experienced RN could do the job. So, I ran to the other side of the gurney and
took over chest compressions for the triage nurse who was breathing pretty
heavily at this point… I don’t have any idea how much time
passed… the resident intubated her… some
surgery residents finally arrived (I heard later that they called for ALL house
officers to the ER. Even our ED chair on
the 7th floor came down to run one of the traumas)… these guys
and one of the ER attendings had a real hard time
getting any IV lines on her… one was getting ready to crack open the
chest when one of the trauma attendings called
it. She was just totally pulseless and down for who knows how long before getting to
the ER.
We covered her and
wheeled the gurney to a secluded hallway in the ER (we needed the space for any
more that were coming in). I went back
into the 3rd and 4th trauma rooms to see if they needed
any more hands… by this time, there were plenty of people around, and I
wasn’t going to be of any use, so spent the next 10 minutes catching my
breath, and changing out of my bloody scrubs…
What I found out
later was that it was a gang shooting. A
target was driving in a car with a bunch of relatives (five total) when there
was a drive-by with semi-automatic weapons.
Apparently, one of the medicine interns took a look and said the car was
totally riddled with bullets… like out of a movie… The driver was
unscathed enough to book it to where he knew to go – the Highland
ER. Unfortunately for them (fortunately
for us, it would have been a total disaster if he crashed through the hospital
lobby), it was the old ER. He crashed through the barrier and made this
frantic rush of triage nurses running to get the shooting victims and running
them back to the new ER. There was
another shooting only 1-2 hours later… but fortunately for us, they
diverted most of the victims to other hospitals… The kid was still alive last I heard, but
lost his arm and leg. The woman I worked
on was the only death of the five that came.
I don’t know the other three… all the information gets kind
of mixed up…
I went with the
residents out for a drink after our shift.
We actually didn’t talk about it for too long, but it was really
nice to get a drink, commiserate a bit, and then laugh about other stuff…
I have a really hard
time with kids… kids that are really f***ed
up… I ended up weeping one night
in
I also have the day
off… I slept in (I think I deserve it)… and just have to do some
work and then heading to the city to meet up with LH who I haven’t talked
to in like 4 years…
September 13, 2004
Busy:
Distracted by work
and my residency applications… it’s kind of irritating when every
couple weeks another literate friend tells me that my personal statement blows
(in a friendlier tone, usually)… anyways, I’m sending it out by the
end of this week, regardless, + one letter of recommendation… then, just
have to work on gathering the four other letters of rec,
and take my Step II exam in late November… wait for interviews to
accumulate and arrange my interview trips in dec/jan…
I’m having
semi-informal residency interviews at
Say No to Pediatricians:
Went to a shin-dig
that one of the 2nd year residents had at her place this past
weekend… there were a bunch of Children’s pediatric residents
there… it quickly segregated into Highland ER and Children’s
groups… it was awkward enough for me to barely know the handful of
residents (and being the only student there for a couple hours), but trying
sustain conversation with these pediatricians was torture… I’ve
decided that if I am, in any possible way (age, level of education, etc) below
a female pediatrician, I automatically become “kid brother”…
pretty annoying… oh well, had some good conversation with the Highland
folks and random person from South Pas… and practice trying to meet
random people…
Want to Play:
Getting kind
of tired from the rotation. Not that it’s been particularly
difficult… the 8-hour shifts are much much
easier than those 12-hour ones at LAC.
Just losing the enthusiasm… seems like the other students I’ve
talked to feel the same way… I just want to… plllaaaaaaaaaayyy!!!! Get my half-week off next week… only
counts as half a week because I have that interview, gotta
fly back to Toledo and run tons of errands to get my apt functioning
again… but, get to bother my SoCal buddies one
last time before Jan. ah,
so sad. These two months have passed so
quickly…
September 6, 2004
Catching up… not on sleep:
Last week has thrown
me off a bit… I got 10 hours Saturday night… took a 2-hour nap
Sunday afternoon. Now I’m up at
430am in the morning after only sleeping 4 hours… weird.
I hope I can get at least two more hours of sleep this morning before I
head back to
Anyways, been able to
hang out with more people I haven’t seen in a long time. Some of my friends have had ridiculously
difficult years this past year... really
unbelievable stuff… I try to thank God every time I hear about those
things that I’ve been able to have a pretty “uneventful” last
couple years…
New Job:
My friend KW just
asked me to be his best man in Feb. Lord
have mercy.
Kind of dreading the work ahead, but I’m glad to do it (I
think)… Actually, this works out
perfectly. I’m planning to be in San
Diego Jan-Feb doing chill rotations and staying warm somewhere
not-Midwest. And, actually, if I had
forgone my MPH/year off (or going even further back, not gone to MCO), and been
an intern right now, I wouldn’t have been able to help him out (and they’ll
need help with a short engagement) nearly to the extent that I will be now as a
4th year med student killing time until Match Day. Honestly, I still don’t totally, truly buy into the idea that God has
been in control of the events of my life over the past 5 years, but the
evidence is accumulating…
Cars:
Looked online with a
buddy trying to figure out what kind of car I want when I get out of med
school. He really sold me on the Volvo
S40 – it’s a great looking car… and the turbo is really really fast. Being a
Volvo also gives it a bit of name-recognition subtlety that I appreciate, as
opposed to like BMW (although I wouldn’t mind a 3-series, but the M3 is
kind of out of my price range). I really
like the Audi A4, but it’s really underpowered compared to other similar
cars. The Turbo Mini is actually a
definite possibility if I move to NYC or
I decided a long time
ago, that to be totally happy with my cars, I think I need about 7…
1) Commuter Car – a hybrid… gotta be eco-friendly.
2) Fun Car – My big toy. Something fun enough, but I don’t need
a monster (eg Porsche or NSX, although those would be fun). Something I can take to the track and beat
up… could be anything like a Turbo Mini or Lancer or WRX or M3…
3) Going-Out Car – for fancy nights out
with my wifey.
Some sort of nice sedan, like a Mercedes.
4) Roadster – for those week-long jaunts
down PCH or in the fall in
5) Trip Car – for trips to Tahoe or
camping or whatever. 4wd
Volvo or Audi turbo wagon. I
don’t like SUVs or minivans. And
those turbo wagons are super fast. I can
take on Asian punks in their rice rockets with any of those wagons, fully
loaded with skis AND the entire family.
Ha ha
6) Dumpy Car – Kind of a back-up commuter
car. Definitely for my kid(s) when
he/she’s in high school. Probably
whatever my first car ends up being or a civic.
7) Wifey Car –
My wife gets ONE. =) Considering the disproportionate amount of
driving I’ll be doing, I think that’s appropriate. =)
September 4, 2004
Feeling a Bit Better:
My shift last night
went rather smoothly compared to the rest of the week… in fact, after
asking the attending physician for any comments or suggestions, she didn’t
have anything in particular to offer… =)
Got to hang
out with my coz from Cal and watch the England-Austria match. Typical
I’m pretty
pooped, but don’t dare take a nap until after dinner… I’m
coming up on 24-hours of wakefulness right now… oy…
September 3, 2004
Taste of ER Burnout:
Having a rough
week. I like the night shifts in general –
nice feeling of independence, but… Feeling generally incompetent and
useless… just missing really no-brainer things on my patient
work-ups… feeling really careless… too many stupid mistakes…
plus, I’m getting stuck with these complicated lacerations that eat away
at least half of my shift… frustrating when I feel like I really need to
work on my patient management more than suturing!...
found myself hating my patients last night – I was in a pissy mood, and my two patients were these losers…
one idiot who got cut by a machete, who knows how because he was totally plowed
the entire night… and then some washed-out drug abuser who came in
complaining of back pain, but of course the back pain wasn’t bad enough
that he wasn’t falling asleep every 5 seconds – a big f***in waste
of time…
I need a mental
break… really need to get on my knees and pray before my shift
tonight…
At least I get the
weekend off… can get into a regular sleeping pattern again. Actually taking my cousin from Cal to watch
the England-Austria World Cup prelim match at Britannia Arms in Cupertino, meet
up with my bro and sis-in-law for dinner, and then my once-a-year meeting up
with AC on Sunday.
September 1, 2004
Dirtbags:
Was threatened by
a patient for the first time last night. What a dirtbag. Dude had a
Boxer’s fracture (ie broken bone in your hand
because you punch like a pussy)… was pissed because the ortho clinic he went to in the morning couldn’t see
him today, so he takes off his splint (bad move) and ends up in our ED
basically demanding immediate treatment and pain meds. I was trying to examine his hand when he
flinched and said something to the effect of “I might strike you if you
try to hurt me.” Right. Nice. So, my resident actually gets to the point
where he’s offering to set him up with an appointment at our ortho clinic and vicodin. And he decides to take off. He also decides to take with him the
nurse’s charting and when the nurse asks for them back he rips them
up. Nice. I think that deserves a time-out in the
corner. Oh yeah, and he had his
5-year-old son with him the whole time.
I had been at LA County for 4 weeks
and never had a single belligerent patient… about a week in
Otherwise:
Still not totally
on the ball with my complicated patients… ugg.
I feel like I’m really lagging…