Alright, I’m going absolutely batshit stir-crazy† on radiology. Yeah, it’s interesting. Yeah, it’s fascinating. But seriously, they just sit down in that dark room, isolated from mostly all human contact, and read films all day. Good lord, I’m about to lose it. Also, sciatic pain is resurfacing from sitting all day.

ED starts in 2 weeks. Woo!

†Welcome to the roller-coaster ride that is Zac’s emotional state. Some of you are more familiar with it than others :)

A 40-something female presented to the ED a few days after having her gallbladder taken out for infected stones. Keep in mind, this is a teaching hospital in July, so the surgeons are pretty new at this. Hopefully there’s an attending helping them out, but you never can be too sure.

Of course this woman gets admitted to the hospital, because now she’s got a post-operative fever, high white blood cell count, tender abdomen, etc. etc. etc. Naturally they get a CT to see what’s going on…

The surgeons had accidentally cut through the gallbladder, releasing all of her infected stones into her abdomen†. And then for some reason, they just left them in there. Maybe it added to the feng shui of the abdominal walls, I don’t know††. I imagine it went a little something like this:

Intern: Making the first incision now… I’m grabbing the gallbladder.. annndd…. oops.
Attending (turning around): Was that an oops I just heard?
Intern: Uhh, it was nothing, sir. I just jiggled the camera a bit.
Attending: Very well, carry on.

†BTW, when I’m a resident I’ll start carrying a USB drive with me so I can start posting images to go along with the stories… I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep this blog going if I end up doing rads.

††Zing! Puns just never get old.

Well, folks, I’ve made up my mind (mostly). It’s either Radiology or ER at this point; I’ve found Rads so interesting that I’m actually *gasp* inspired to write a personal statement about it. Shocking, I know!

We’ll still have to see if the aforementioned pandemonium of the ER gets me going… but honestly I find the visual aspect and the breadth of Radiology really works for me. Our program is a bit… quiet for me (I’m a fairly loud person, as most of you know) but the residents are really chill and it’s undeniably cool stuff.

More to come!

Edit (9:45PM): Well, that was fast… done already! I gotta be honest, personal statements for residency are a whole lot easier to write than medical school… you’ve actually DONE the thing you’re applying for :-)

Well, I gotta be honest, I’m really enjoying Rads at this point. Maybe not enough to actually do Radiology, but it’s certainly one of the more interesting fields I’ve seen so far. There are a couple things so far that have made me reconsider my last post.

I thought radiologists never saw patients. While this is mostly true, there are a lot of procedures you can do, especially in the field of interventional radiology. On top of that, on chest Xray (which I’m on this week), the radiologists review all the ICU radiographs from the previous day, so they are very familiar with every patient in the ICU. There is also a lot of cross-talk between the radiologists and the other docs (pull this tube out, decrease the fluids because he’s getting edematous, we suggest getting a CT scan, you gave him a pnemothorax, etc).

The field is also INCREDIBLY broad. Even a simple chest x-ray holds a massive amount of information, so you never see the same thing twice. You go at your own pace†, and they get really, really good at this stuff. The difference between a radiologist looking at a film and an internist is crazy.

So here’s the other thing: the geek factor. Listen, I grew up playing video games, tweaking computers, and spending inordinate amounts of time on the internet. Oh, wait, I still do that. Radiology is one of those fields where technology is growing at an exponential rate, and that suits me just fine.

Obviously there’s a few problems, like the fact that it’s a fairly solitary field and you become a vampire. We’ll see once I get on Emergency if the bright lights and the pandemonium are what do it for me… I have an overdeveloped sense of schadenfreude which fits in just delightfully with the ER. So, we’ll see. I’m keeping my options open.

†bonus for me, who hates the structured 8-5 workday of clinic.

Well, I started my radiology rotation today, and much like my immediate, vehement feelings about ophthalmology, I can quite honestly say that I’ll never, ever be a radiologist†.

It’s really interesting, and really, really cool, and I know I’m going to learn a lot… but I swear to god, if I sit in a dark room for one more day staring at a black and white screen (with infinite shades of gray, of course) I might just go postal. Oh, wait. It’s only my first day of the rotation.

By the end of the month I swear I’ll be feeding off unsuspecting humans, cackling with my paper-white skin, slicked back hair, and long, well-groomed fingernails. Bonus: if Interview With The Vampire has anything to say about it, maybe I’ll end up looking badass like Brad Pitt.

Aside from sitting in a dark room the other thing that gets to me is that all these guys are really low-key. And not in a “laid-back” sort of way. More a “I talk very quietly into my dictaphone for 8 hours every day” sort of way.

I’m going to lose it.

†Sorry Uncle John, it’s just not in the cards.