Back in the ER

The title was going to be a throwback to "Back in the USSR," but I really couldn't find a way to fit "Big pediatrics hospital ER" into the lyrics.  I've got about another half hour left in this shift, which I wasn't all that excited about when I came in today, but has actually turned out pretty well.  I've just joined on to do another study in addition to the ones we've been working on, and in this one I actually get to recruit patients myself, rather than just paging doctors when something promising shows up.  Gives me something else to do, anyway.  Also, the head of the student research program is here today and just let me listen to a severely asthmatic little boy.  Crazy how bad this kid was--I wanted to tell him that I had asthma too, but he was pretty out of it.  It's all been grand, but unfortunately, it's prevented me from doing the serious catch up work I was planning for this afternoon.  

Last night I was all ready to be uber-productive, but then D got home from work around the same time as I got out of school, and we took a nap together because those 6-4 days are killer.  I woke up and did a marginal amount of studying, but then my mom called, and the whole family (who have been in DC all week for spring break without me, boo) was going out to dinner since they'd just gotten back to town.  They invited D and I to join, so of course we did.  Then we helped them take their rental car back to the airport.  Then we picked up a copy of Quantum of Solace, since it just came out on DVD.  And a copy of Sleeping Beauty, because I'm obsessed and those dang Disney people are about to put it back in "the vault" to prevent me from buying it ever again.  I also need to get my hands on the Sword in the Stone before that goes away too.  

In addition to the studying that's going on for our block exam next week, we've had an interesting little round of Problem Based Learning modules this week.  It's actually been rather enlightening--essentially reviewing physiology by discussing an actual patient case and figuring out what's wrong with this person in light of what we know about physio.  Unfortunately, it's brought to light a really interesting question for me--when do we actually learn how to apply all this stuff?  I mean, if you asked me right now how high hematocrit affects blood flow or how exercise affects oxygen's diffusing capacity in the lungs, I could pretty much tell you with no trouble.  But if you showed me a patient with symptoms of one of those problems, I feel like I would be completely lost at where even to begin.  I guess that comes as we go--and it's one of the reasons I'm really excited about my externship this summer.  I'm hoping (and have been told this is pretty much true) that it will be a huge help because I'll learn a lot about the day-to-day act of diagnosis, but at the same time I'm still not required to actually know anything so I don't have to feel pressured to study.  It's just flat up learning how to do things like take histories, do physicals, and apply the findings to diagnose (along with all this science stuff I've supposedly learned this year).  Should be interesting--and, hopefully, help me answer this question.