So they say that pediatrics is more about the parents than the kids. I guess I chalked that up to hyperbole.

Good lord was I wrong.

The very first couple that I saw were bringing in their first baby (5 weeks old). The kid was absolutely adorable. Mom and Dad pounced on Dr. B like a hawk the second he walked in. Now, I’d like to point out a couple of things before I continue this story.

1) The dad is a doctor.
2) The mom is a (high powered) lawyer.
3) This is the kind of couple that can handle the running of a small country, survive shipwrecked on a deserted island, or find the cure for cancer. They were that smart.

They brought their baby in because of a rash. The conversation transpired as follows.

Dr. B: So this rash came on about a week ago?
Mom: Yes, probably 8 days or so.
Dad: She also has colic. I perform these maneuvers (he proceeds to show us a series of extremely painful-looking movements on the baby. She looks extremely unhappy) to help expel the flatulence from her rectum.
Dr. B: And where did you pick those up?
Dad: Oh, we use them in my practice. They’re pretty standard (the baby begins to cry). Honey, do you want to tell him about the hair?
Mom: Oh… I freaked out because she had little soft downy hairs all over her shoulder, back, and forehead. I don’t want her to look like a caveman.
Dad interjects: Y’see, doc, the women on my side of the family… I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m Indian (he’s very obviously Indian) and they all have really awful facial hair. It’s pretty gross.
Mom: Yeah, I figured I’d nip it in the bud… and so I used Nair all over her.
Dad: But that’s not why we’re here. We’re wondering what’s causing her rash.

Uncomfortably long pause.

Dr. B: It’s probably the Nair.

Somehow I managed to stop from giggling. I love medicine.

Hey there Grand Rounds readers… check out my Best Of for more (or if you’re a med student, I’m doing daily USMLE facts to force myself to keep posting while studying for Boards)

So I start preceptoring tomorrow. This means I get to go into a pediatrician’s office (coincidentally, my pediatrician from when I was a wee babe) and pretend that I know stuff. I’ll be following him around, watching what he does- until he starts throwing me into the patient’s rooms first. Scary… by the end of this year they expect me to do an entire history and physical, followed by a full presentation on findings. I’m so excited! That I just can’t hide it! I’m about to lose control but I think I like it! Wooo!

In other news, I continue to love Google in more than a platonic way. A few months ago they added Google Calendar which takes .csv schedules and puts them into a totally sweet online interface.

…and the specter of “State Medical School” rears its ugly head.

Pathology labs are going to be, for lack of a better word, a clusterfuck. Normally there are 6 rooms for the lab to take place in. Unfortunately, due to the curriculum change, construction is occuring. Next year’s class gets plasma screen TVs, entirely renovated MDLs, gold-plated laptops, and time-traveling DeLoreans. I may be lying about the latter two.

This means that they have squashed the second year medical students into two rooms for path lab. Roughly 50 people per room, desperately vying for a glimpse of lung cancer. Today was a madhouse… people screaming back and forth, the teacher trying to make sure that everyone saw each specimen (which, of course, they didn’t). Furthermore, previously there was one teacher per room (6). Now there are 2 rooms… and 2 teachers. Somehow 4 pathologists aren’t teaching us any more.

Dear first year class: I hate you.

Those two suffixes are going to comprise roughly 50% of everything we’re going to learn in pathology this year.

-itis? Appendicitis. Laryngitis. Endocarditis.

-oma? Hepatoma. Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Neuroma.

Bring it on, excessively clear nomenclature.

At one point during my summer I had to pick up a list of names from a woman in medical records. All was fine and dandy until she called me Doctor.

I was almost out the door as she did but I about-faced and told her that I was just a medical student. There was no way I am taking on that responsibility yet. I’ve seen what those guys with the fancy “M.D.” after their name have to do and they are WAY out of my league right now. I’m perfectly happy being a medical student right now, thank you very much.

In other news, Court and I were talking about dentists today. One of the dentists I know in town used to joke before I went to medical school that I was making a huge mistake.

“Go to dentistry school” he would say. “You’ll make a killing, never have to deal with insurance, work 9-4, and love what you do even more for it”. Who knows, maybe he’s right. M.D.’s sure seem to go through a lot of shit nowadays.

He mentioned that my second option should be plastic surgeon. Same perks as the dentists, pull in a cool mil a year. That argument’s starting to sound pretty good, unlike when I first came in to medical school. It’ll be interesting to do my preceptorship with a Pediatrician… I love TotShots so much, and yet I know that being a Peds doc is consigning yourself to an endless hell of worried moms, 8-6 hours just to meet the bills, and chronic runny noses.

Man, you never think you’ll get swayed by money but when you’re looking at all those sweet flat-screen TV’s at Costco money starts looking damn good.

It’s 3 AM, and I have a presentation due tomorrow. I’ll be wasting 10 minutes of my classmates’ time with BS about my work. I suppose that’s unfair of me. I’m giving a solid 8 minutes of background information, followed by 30 seconds of “and-I-have-no-data-whatsoever”. Still, this presentation will be a masterpiece in the art of bullshitting.

Anyhow, this blog Waiterrant has been keeping me entertained all night. Wish I could write like that.

EDIT: Agraphia.net is back up! Hopefully this time for good.

Apparently I spoke too soon. Frank had a liver transplant… he wasn’t cured by the chemoembolization. Bleh.

So I’ve been going through CT and MRI images, figuring out the tumor sizes for my patients. Tumors keep getting bigger, they keep dying. It sucks, and it’s sad, and I hate it. Then I get to Frank. Frank has a 2 cm tumor in the top of his liver before he sees my doc. Then he gets the chemoembolization treatment I’ve been working on this summer. 6 months later, the tumor is GONE! This never happens- he’s one in a million.

Frank’s been alive for a year and a half since his initial diagnosis, and he’s living cancer-free. He was one of the lucky 6 from my SSDI post. I’m so happy for him.

Wow. I just spent the morning going through the social security death index (casually referred to as the SSDI on their website) trying to find out whether or not my patients were alive.

I mentioned earlier that this was a palliative treatment only. Palliative means that these people are going to die, because we aren’t treating their cancers, just the symptoms.

So, I just found out that only 6 of my 15 patients are still alive. And the really sad thing is, I’ve spent a lot of time with these people. I’ve read up on all of the procedures that they’ve had. I know who had a bum kidney and who didn’t. For that matter, I’ve been rooting for my favorite patient, Ray-ray (affectionately named by the department because he repeats his name over and over on the operating table). He’s one of the lucky ones.

I’m a little surprised that I’m saddened. Well… maybe not surprised, because I spent 2 months of my life with those people, even though they were just words on a screen. I guess I feel like I know them.

I’m not a fan of the SSDI.

OK, I was verbally berated by the Peasinator about how I haven’t kept up on the blog. I haven’t, in fact, kept up on the blog, as is evidenced by the fact that there have been no posts.

Ready for the summar summary?

1) I didn’t have any data. The sum* total of patients that I had was (drumroll please) 15. Of those 15 patients, none had any data that could be standardized.

2) Its funny… I could have done a lot more. I could have been scrubbing in on surgery by the end of this whole thing, probably for every procedure. I’ve been around the department longer than most rotations even last. Amazingly, I felt ZERO motivation to do so. Surprised? I’m not either. Its my last summer, ever, and I could either have busted my ass for absolutely nothing, or worked 10 hours a week, like I did. Both ways, I come out at the end of my summer with the same thing, except that one involves me being exhausted and one involves me being relaxed, sunburnt (San Diego beaches woohoo!), and ready to do something again.

3) By far and away the best part about this summer has been TotShots. We give vaccinations to screaming kids. They hate us. I love them. It works.

So, I apologize for not posting. I also miss my old blog (back up when colleges start again!) so part of this is me pouting.

*how many times in this entry can I say sum, summer, summar, summery, or summary? YOU be the judge!**

**little starry postscripts stolen SHAMELESSLY from Montgomery.