Disoriented

The one thing that kept me from starting a blog for a long time was the fear that I'd create one entry and then never blog again ... ever. Well, I am happy that hasn't happened, but as the beginning of my internship is fast approaching I worry that my blogging pace may slow down significantly. I feel that I'd better do as much storytelling as I can now before I am soon thrown into the lion's den.

I am now finished with my Scripps Mercy Hospital internship orientation. After the first day and then the ACLS training (see previous post), the pace slowed down significantly. We went from injections of amiodarone and electrical cardioversion to sitting all day long in a squished auditorium listening to people talk to us about everything that we'll ever want to know during the next year of work. They talked to us about the Scripps Mercy mission, employee benefits, information systems, what to do in case of a fire, discharge summaries, infection control, call schedules, and probably a dozen other things that I've already forgotten. Finally on the last day, they gave us our schedules and ran us through the nuts and bolts of working in the hospital. Many of us were very anxious to know our schedules - we had all waited a long time (some of my friends from med school had already been told their internship schedules before we graduated in early June even though they weren't starting until after me).

Because I am doing a so called "Transitional Year" for my internship instead of a regular internship just in, say Internal Medicine or General Surgery, I will be doing a variety of different rotations throughout the year which is composed of 13 blocks that are each 4 weeks long (though it will be mostly weighted towards Internal Medicine). So, drum roll please .... my schedule (block by block):

1- Internal Medicine (Hospital)
2- Internal Medicine (Hospital)
3- Internal Medicine (Clinic)
4- Ear, Nose, and Throat Surgery
5- General Surgery
6- Internal Medicine (Hospital)
7- Cardiothoracic Surgery
8- Internal Medicine (Hospital)
9- Internal Medicine (Hospital)
10- Radiology
11- Internal Medicine (Hospital)
12- Pediatrics: Special Care Nursery
13- ER

That's it. I start my first official day on Wednesday. I have my first night of "call" on Friday night where I'll be working a 30 hour shift and will be responsible for taking care of possibly as many as 100 patients overnight (my own patients as well as the patients that all the other interns would be taking care of if they weren't at home in their beds sleeping). One of the (many) nice things about working at Scripps, though, is that I'll only have to do those 30 hour overnight shifts once every 10 days instead of once every 4 or 5 days like at some other hospitals. I'm not going to lie to you, it is a little anxiety-provoking to think of the responsibility that is being placed into my hands. I am sure I will be able to handle it, but it is just a little mind-boggling sometimes that I've already come this far. Anyway, wish me luck (or better yet, maybe wish my patients luck)! I'm sure that I will have some interesting experiences to blog about.

Doctor: Day 1

Last Friday was my first day of orientation for my internship at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego. As this marks the beginning of my "official" duties as a doctor, I figured that I should probably summarize the happenings for posterity's sake.

Friday morning I woke up and did my usual routine to get ready for the day. I had been fighting off a minor cold ever since we had got down to San Diego on Tuesday, which I felt like I had pretty much beat. Since I still had a few sniffles, though, I decided to pop a 12-hour Sudafed to clear up the sinuses so that I wouldn't have to be blowing my nose all day long as I met all of my new colleagues for the first time. It kicked in pretty quickly and I was already feeling somewhat better. I finished breakfast, hugged Ashley, then Mom, then Dad and walked out the door as everyone wished me good luck. It was more than a little reminiscent of every first day of school that I had experienced growing up from elementary through high school (with the exception of me being married this time). The only thing missing was the first day of school photo.

The orientation day itself involved meeting a lot of new people, all of us dressed up and smiling and cheery. Everyone was very nice and I met a lot of people that I could tell right off the bat that I will probably get along very well with. The first day wasn't too exciting - mostly just filling out paperwork, getting on the payroll, obtaining ID badges, getting immunizations and a TB test, a preemployment physical, and a definite "first" experience in my life: a urine drug test. In case you haven't ever had the pleasure of experiencing a urine drug test first-hand, allow me to try to capture in some small way what that experience is like. After filling out a short form so they can identify your ... ummm ... sample, you are handed a plastic cup and enter a bathroom. However, since they have to make sure that you're not "cheating" on your test, you are accompanied by a supervising staff member. This must be the least sought-after job on the planet: "Ok, Jennifer, today you will be assigned to the task of making a bunch of new doctors feel completely uncomfortable ... all day." At least they don't enter the stall with you.

After finishing that test, I sat in the waiting room and waited for the physical examination from one of the Scripps clinic physicians. As I sat there I thought to myself, "Hmmmm... I just took a Sudafed this morning about 2 hours before I took that urine drug test. Uh oh." FYI, Sudafed contains a drug that is of the same nature as the class of illicit drugs known as amphetamines. In fact, the company has somewhat recently switched the main ingredient in the unregulated over-the-counter form of Sudafed from pseudoephedrine to phenylephrine because pseudoephedrine can be used to manufacture methamphetamine. Fantastic.

I sat there contemplating the various possibilities of what might happen when they found out my test results. I figured they probably wouldn't be very happy if one of their brand-new interns tested positive for amphetamines on the first day of the job - especially when they had previously warned us that we'd be getting drug tested. Good thinking, Sean.

Well, fortunately for me when I explained what I had done to the physician doing my physical exam, he said, "Oh don't worry. I'll just make a note that you took some Sudafed so if it comes back positive it won't be a problem." PHEW. I was really worried for a second, though.

The rest of the day went much more smoothly. By the end of the day I was worn out. Even though we didn't have to necessarily DO a whole lot, meeting lots of new people and putting my best foot forward is really tiring for me (I promise I'm not anti-social, I'm just an introvert).

We had the weekend off which was nice because Saturday was Ashley's birthday. We had a fun time going out to dinner at PF Chang's (one of Ashley's favorites) with Mom and Dad, and Brian and Tira. Then we had Baskin Robbins ice cream cake back at home with that crew and a couple more of Ashley's friends that live down here.

Monday and Tuesday I headed back to orientation. These days were pretty exciting for the most part. Both Monday and Tuesday were spent doing ACLS training (Advanced Cardiac Life Support training) and testing to become certified. The training prepares you to know how to respond to any situation where someone collapses and needs emergency medical attention. It goes beyond the basics of CPR to also teach you what drugs to give people in certain situations and how to appropriately use a defribillator if a person develops a dangerous heart rhythm. We spent a lot of our time huddled in groups around a dummy while our instructors ran us through various scenarios and we shouted things like "Give him 1 milligram of epinephrine, STAT!" and "She's in unstable monomorphic V-Tach - prepare to shock her. CLEAR!" Ok, well I may be making it sound a little more exciting than it actually was (they were just manequins after all), but still it was more fun than filling out paperwork. And I also believe that I would definitely feel a little more confident if I were faced with such a situation now in the future. Hopefully not anytime soon, though.

On the Origin of Blogging

Have you ever really wanted to do something big and then thought to yourself, "But where do I even begin? This is such a big project and I'm not even sure where to start." Then you think, "Well if I just keep thinking about it, it will never happen." And then, "Ok, I'm just going to do it." Then it's, "Man, why did I ever start blogging in the first place - this is tough. I can't even find a URL that hasn't been taken." Well, I guess the moral is that sometimes you should start your blog before everyone else has taken the URLs you want. I think there may be a moral about sticking through things that are tough too.

Whew. Ok, we've started. I'm not sure where we've started, but we've started. You see, there has been so much that has happened in our lives recently that it is a little daunting to even consider summarizing it all to bring anyone who actually might read this thing up to date. Here's the short version: finished college, moved to northern california, 4 years of medical school (lots of stories there), got married, got a cat, graduated medical school, moved back to San Diego, and start my first day of orientation for my internship tomorrow. I guess that's it.

Well as you might guess, there are a few interesting stories that we've missed already. We may still enter the Delorean and go back in time to tell some of the ones we'd like to remember. Part of the reason we've started this blog is to document our lives in a fun and (hopefully) interesting way (there was a small amount of coercion from some of our dear friends as well). Retrospectively, we kind of regret not having documented more of our lives up to this point - but hey, better late than never, right?

Will we have any interesting stories to tell? Hmmm ... consider this: young married couple with no kids (yet - right now just a cat), husband just graduated medical school and so qualifies as being one of the least experienced doctors on the planet about to start his first year of residency training (the year-long internship) where the learning curve is steeheeheeep, both husband and wife have just moved back to his hometown for said internship and into his parents' home for an as yet indeterminate amount of time where they'll be sharing the house with the parents and a cousin (and the cat). I feel like our lives have just entered the setup for the newest sitcom on NBC.

Don't get me wrong, we are waaaaay excited to be back in San Diego and love the parents and the cousin (and the cat), but I promise there will be some funny stories along the way. We'll do our best to document them as they happen - Ashley is committed to keeping this blog going too - so stay in touch and let us know what you think.