Dinner and Emergencies

I went out to dinner tonight with several friends from school.  It was nice to get away for a while and talk about things not related to biochemistry or the makeup of cerebrospinal fluid, to joke about the quirks of our professors from last semester and ponder the relative merits of not having lab vs. marathon lecture sessions.  It was nice to meet and get to know some of my friends' spouses, who kept the conversation from getting too medical.  It was nice to realize that I have finally found a bit of a niche at school where once I wasn't sure if I really would.  It was nice to leave the restaurant already setting up times to meet over the weekend and study, but also times to get all the girls together for wine night.  It was nice to have a night of balance, even if it means doing some double-time this weekend to catch up on material I missed tonight. 

Yesterday, I had an orientation for a research project I'm joining, which I'm really excited about.  From what I gather, the gist of things is that we are "employed" to sit in a conference room and study while keeping an eye on the check-ins in the pediatric emergency room.  When someone new checks in, we see if their chief complaint falls in line with one of the studies that are going on currently--one, for example, is comparing ultrasounds and x-rays in kids with broken arms to see if ultrasounds could be just as effective as a diagnostic tool (advantageous, since they involve no radiation).  We basically look to see if anyone is coming in with a suspected break, and when they do, we alert the physicians doing the study and get the ball rolling with the patients.  In the downtime, we are essentially free to do homework, but also to tag along on cool cases that come into the ER.  I'm pretty excited about it.  I'm also excited about working in the ER next Monday for my required preceptorship time, which I have been trying to set up for months now.  Hopefully I'll come back with all kinds of cool stories about getting to stitch people up and whatnot.