Real Live Medicine

My but time flies. I survived the path shelf (with flying colors) and the micro shelf (hopefully with flying colors) and have since continued studying pharmacology and started a class they call clinical neurosciences--basically neuropathology and psychiatric pathology. I still really enjoy pharm, but I find it more difficult to ace the tests simply because it is a LOT of rote memorization--just straight out knowing what each drug does, how it interacts with other drugs, what side effects it causes, and any other miscellaneous info. It doesn't help much that a lot of the drugs sound the same--Imipramine vs. Ipratropium, Colzapine vs. Clonidine vs. Colchicine. It's more than a little bit mind-boggling, especially when we're cramming upwards of 100 drugs a week into our brains. It is really interesting, though, to finally understand what drugs you've always heard about or seen on tv are actually doing to a person's body.

The more exciting news this week, however, is that we are preparing to select our third year tracks--basically, the order in which we'll do our rotations next year. At my school, we have to complete the following "classes" in our third year of training: 6 weeks of OB-Gyn, 6 weeks of family practice medicine, 8 weeks of pediatrics, 10 weeks of Internal Medicine (basically a general practice for adults), 8 weeks of surgery, and 6 weeks of psychiatry. There seems to be much myth, pomp and circumstance surrounding the order of these rotations. For example, if you are interested in a particular specialty as a career option, you shouldn't do that rotation first, because you want to have enough experience under your belt to look like you know something so as to impress attendings and get good letters of recommendation. But you also don't want to do that rotation last, because you need to make your schedule for 4th year before that and you don't want to be burned out. More than this, however, there are tons of other little snippets of advice tossed around. Do psychiatry first because it's a nice easy rotation to start out on. Do surgery first so you can get it over with while the residents want procedures so you have an easier time. Don't do pediatrics in the winter unless you want to be a pediatrician.

At my school, we don't get complete control over the order of our rotations. What happens is we have a lottery--each student is randomly assigned a number in which they will choose from about 24 different "track" combinations. The earlier your number in the lottery, the better chance you get exactly the rotation you would like. The later your number in the lottery, the more you can base your choices on the other people who are already assigned to a given rotation (if you want to try to be with friends, or avoid certain classmates--which is totally legit, considering some people are just *not* team players, unfortunately). I was lucky enough to draw number 8 in the lottery, which means I get my pick of rotations. As a result, here's what I plan on doing:

OB-Gyn

Psych

Internal Medicine

(Christmas break)

Pediatrics

(spring break--1 wk)

Surgery

(2 week vacation that's just built into our schedule--we can technically do an elective at this time if we choose)

Family Medicine

And there you have it, friends. My life, from July 2010 to July 2011.

But first I have to pass the boards. (eep!)