I don't have any really fantastic stories from psych just yet but we are currently detoxing a patient from alcohol who is the exact same patient I had in the ER who came in after being "found down" who had apparently ingested many many drugs. I poked that guy in every single hole - foley catheter, two IV lines, cardiac monitors (not a hole but a check on my list), nasogastric tube. Anyway, he alone accounted for almost half my checklist in the ER so he's my friend.
Curiously, he never mentioned ever being in the hospital to the docs at Good Sam (he was at UK in December). When I told them he was familiar to me they were very interested. Detective Katie breaks another case! Whoo!
Oh, and Good Sam is Great so far. They have a "Doctor's Lounge" with FOOD in it all day! And there is a parking garage right next to the hospital. SWEET.
Oh! AND...we have to do a mock trial of a high-profile serial killer case where the defendant pleads insanity at the end of the month (I guess to see what it's like to be a medical examiner), but guess who gets to be the serial killer?! Yep, Krazy Katie the Killer. Okay, not really, but something like that. I'll let you know how that goes. :)
PS-I changed the layout today. I think it looks kind of 'springy' - what do you think?
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Neurology Recap
I've certainly been bad at updating this past month. I don't know why, really, because I think about it a lot, I just couldn't find time to get on the computer and pour my brain onto my keyboard. Anyway, lots of things going on: the weather is finally turning beautiful (and tulips everywhere made my heart sing), I'm getting somewhere (finally!) in wedding planning!, and I've learned a tiny little bit about neurology. I need to learn more, but thankfully we don't have the exam until next month after psych is over.
Trying to recap neuro is sort of a difficult task. Let me start out by saying that I think neurological disorders are super interesting, but I am never going to be a neurologist. Ever.
So I started out my neuro month in the clinic. That was okay, I saw lots of different things but it was basically just a glorified shadowing experience. Actually not even that glorified. My first day, Carol (the awesome nurse) told me that I was going to work with Dr. B (the "very busy" chairman of the neurology dept - he always wears bow ties, and must be from NY or something by the way he talks). Anyway, Carol explained to me that Dr. Berger is a very busy and important man and did not wait for anybody. Therefore, I needed to only knock on his door when a patient was ready, stick my head into his office and hold up one finger (indicating one patient ready). Then, I was instructed to wait by the patient's room until he was ready to see them. I did all this, and soon Dr. Berger flew out of his office into the patient's room. He said to me "Are you the medical student? What's your name?" and shook my hand (and about broke it in half) as I told him my name. We got into the room about 0.3 seconds later and he said "Katie, sit right there and be quiet." And I did.
And that was my first morning with neurology.
The rest of the clinics were a little less intense than the first experience, but still...not my thing. One good thing about neurology though is that they have tons of conferences with food. I definitely ate well this month!
The following week I moved on to Child neurology. Basically: Kids with Seizures service. It was a good week because we had a good resident (and a pretty good attending too), but pretty sad. The kids with seizures were often drug babies, their moms had had 7 or 8 other kids, took drugs, and didn't keep any of the kids themselves. These poor children had cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and brain malformations. Thankfully, the kids had been adopted by amazing parents and had great opportunities but it still made me angry to think that these children have no ability to reach their full potential because their stupid mother was too irresponsible to either 1) not do drugs while pregnant or 2) use a condom.
Following the kiddos, I moved onto stroke service. They either assign you to general or stroke. Stroke sees, well, strokes, and general sees everything else (read: all the cool stuff). I had a very interesting man as my attending. Dr. Phe was very intelligent and never used contractions when he was speaking and continually told us (the "hardworking and diligent medical students") that we needed to get our tuition's worth. I saw a lot of strokes. That's about it.
Actually, I saw a lot of heartbreak too. My very first patient was a large lady who had a very large stroke - it killed nearly half her brain. I was supposed to go down there and "gather a history" but since she wasn't able to communicate I asked her daughters (she herself was only 60) what had happened. They said they were enjoying Easter dinner and were sitting out on the back porch when she suddenly stood up, walked inside, and laid down on the bed. They went in a few minutes later looking for her and found her unresponsive and unable to move half her body. How scary is that?
We had a different (and very wonderful) attending the first few days of stroke, and we had a "family meeting" with this patient's family to discuss options. There was TWENTY THREE family members present for the meeting. It was insane. We had to find a conference room where they would all fit! Dr. D told them that their mom had had this huge stroke, and she may get better or she may die. It depended on swelling in her brain, and they need to discuss DNR status and so on. It was intense. I was sure she was going to die, but fortunately she's improved (somewhat) and I think she might get to go home this weekend. Not really a happy ending because of her huge disability, though, but happier.
Later the first morning, we were standing in the hall on rounds and A PATIENT CODED! In a room only 5 feet away from us! This was my first "real" code that started when I was present. An alarm went off and a bunch of nurses ran into the room. Then I waited for my doctors to go in before me (because I think technically whoever gets there first runs the code - and it sure as heck wasn't going to be me!). I watched all the commotion from the back corner of the room (trying to stay out of the way when there's 20 people in one room is difficult). She was actually one of the patients we were about to round on. She didn't make it, unfortunately.
The rest of the two weeks was more of the same but not quite as intense. I saw tons of patients who were perfectly normal then severely disabled in a matter of minutes. I got to watch an embolectomy - they go into the brain's blood vessels by threading a catheter from your leg up to your head, then try to grab the clot and pull it out. They only got part of it, but we went to tell the family that the surgery was partially successful, then we found out about 10 minutes later that the woman was deteriorating and she passed away in the middle of the night. Again, depressing.
I saw two patients with a rare and very interesting syndrome called Gerstmann's Syndrome. It happens when you have a stroke in one particular area of your brain that causes you to have the following symptoms:
1. Dysgraphia/agraphia - unable to write
2. Dyscalculia/acalculia - unable to make calculations
3. Finger agnosia - loss of the ability to recognize fingers
4. Left-right disorientation - can't show me her right/left hand, etc.
It's apparently really rare and we had two patients in two days with it. Pretty cool.
Anyway, not my favorite month this year. Actually much less than favorite. But that's good, I like it when I can narrow down my options a little more. :)
Trying to recap neuro is sort of a difficult task. Let me start out by saying that I think neurological disorders are super interesting, but I am never going to be a neurologist. Ever.
So I started out my neuro month in the clinic. That was okay, I saw lots of different things but it was basically just a glorified shadowing experience. Actually not even that glorified. My first day, Carol (the awesome nurse) told me that I was going to work with Dr. B (the "very busy" chairman of the neurology dept - he always wears bow ties, and must be from NY or something by the way he talks). Anyway, Carol explained to me that Dr. Berger is a very busy and important man and did not wait for anybody. Therefore, I needed to only knock on his door when a patient was ready, stick my head into his office and hold up one finger (indicating one patient ready). Then, I was instructed to wait by the patient's room until he was ready to see them. I did all this, and soon Dr. Berger flew out of his office into the patient's room. He said to me "Are you the medical student? What's your name?" and shook my hand (and about broke it in half) as I told him my name. We got into the room about 0.3 seconds later and he said "Katie, sit right there and be quiet." And I did.
And that was my first morning with neurology.
The rest of the clinics were a little less intense than the first experience, but still...not my thing. One good thing about neurology though is that they have tons of conferences with food. I definitely ate well this month!
The following week I moved on to Child neurology. Basically: Kids with Seizures service. It was a good week because we had a good resident (and a pretty good attending too), but pretty sad. The kids with seizures were often drug babies, their moms had had 7 or 8 other kids, took drugs, and didn't keep any of the kids themselves. These poor children had cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and brain malformations. Thankfully, the kids had been adopted by amazing parents and had great opportunities but it still made me angry to think that these children have no ability to reach their full potential because their stupid mother was too irresponsible to either 1) not do drugs while pregnant or 2) use a condom.
Following the kiddos, I moved onto stroke service. They either assign you to general or stroke. Stroke sees, well, strokes, and general sees everything else (read: all the cool stuff). I had a very interesting man as my attending. Dr. Phe was very intelligent and never used contractions when he was speaking and continually told us (the "hardworking and diligent medical students") that we needed to get our tuition's worth. I saw a lot of strokes. That's about it.
Actually, I saw a lot of heartbreak too. My very first patient was a large lady who had a very large stroke - it killed nearly half her brain. I was supposed to go down there and "gather a history" but since she wasn't able to communicate I asked her daughters (she herself was only 60) what had happened. They said they were enjoying Easter dinner and were sitting out on the back porch when she suddenly stood up, walked inside, and laid down on the bed. They went in a few minutes later looking for her and found her unresponsive and unable to move half her body. How scary is that?
We had a different (and very wonderful) attending the first few days of stroke, and we had a "family meeting" with this patient's family to discuss options. There was TWENTY THREE family members present for the meeting. It was insane. We had to find a conference room where they would all fit! Dr. D told them that their mom had had this huge stroke, and she may get better or she may die. It depended on swelling in her brain, and they need to discuss DNR status and so on. It was intense. I was sure she was going to die, but fortunately she's improved (somewhat) and I think she might get to go home this weekend. Not really a happy ending because of her huge disability, though, but happier.
Later the first morning, we were standing in the hall on rounds and A PATIENT CODED! In a room only 5 feet away from us! This was my first "real" code that started when I was present. An alarm went off and a bunch of nurses ran into the room. Then I waited for my doctors to go in before me (because I think technically whoever gets there first runs the code - and it sure as heck wasn't going to be me!). I watched all the commotion from the back corner of the room (trying to stay out of the way when there's 20 people in one room is difficult). She was actually one of the patients we were about to round on. She didn't make it, unfortunately.
The rest of the two weeks was more of the same but not quite as intense. I saw tons of patients who were perfectly normal then severely disabled in a matter of minutes. I got to watch an embolectomy - they go into the brain's blood vessels by threading a catheter from your leg up to your head, then try to grab the clot and pull it out. They only got part of it, but we went to tell the family that the surgery was partially successful, then we found out about 10 minutes later that the woman was deteriorating and she passed away in the middle of the night. Again, depressing.
I saw two patients with a rare and very interesting syndrome called Gerstmann's Syndrome. It happens when you have a stroke in one particular area of your brain that causes you to have the following symptoms:
1. Dysgraphia/agraphia - unable to write
2. Dyscalculia/acalculia - unable to make calculations
3. Finger agnosia - loss of the ability to recognize fingers
4. Left-right disorientation - can't show me her right/left hand, etc.
It's apparently really rare and we had two patients in two days with it. Pretty cool.
Anyway, not my favorite month this year. Actually much less than favorite. But that's good, I like it when I can narrow down my options a little more. :)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
balloons!
Baloon Glow Party ’09
Chris and I went to the Little Kentucky Derby hot air balloon show last week. It was awesome (15 balloons!) and Chris got great pictures. I have lots of updates but you're going to have to be patient for those. :)
Monday, April 6, 2009
happy holy week
Well I certainly haven't been very good at updating.
Uhm...medicine final was tough, hopefully that went okay. I hopefully did well but don't think I could have done anything differently. We'll see.
Neurology has been...different. Neurologists are a different breed. Not my particular type of breed, but they're okay I guess. Clinic was last week and this week I'm on Peds Neuro. It's okay, but I don't really like to do new things so I won't really like it until the weekend when I go off service anyway.
Maybe I'm leaning towards medicine again? Stay tuned!
Met with a wedding florist this weekend. HOLY COW flowers everywhere. Need to cut back a little on that. Or hydrangeas that are $10 a flower - who knew? Maybe my grandma will offer to do the flowers for me - she used to own a flower shop, you know. Anybody ever heard of ranunculus? They come in all sorts of colors, and I think I like them.
I just finished watching House and it was super sad. I won't spoil it for you, though! Sometimes I don't want to be a doctor because lots of sad things happen.
Happy Holy Week! Palm Sunday was yesterday and it's my favorite church day of the year. The music is always awesome and it's not as crowded as Easter. I also love all the other services during the week - the washing feet on Thursday (okay I don't like washing them that much but the service is nice) and Walk the way of the Cross on Friday, then the Passion play Friday night, then Easter Vigil - and Chris is going to become Catholic! (officially!) Yeah!
I have some cake and bought Chris some "holy presents" but I think that neuro will make me work on Sunday. It would be super nice to have off the whole weekend, though, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. Unfortunately, because my mom is a CPA and Easter is April 12 (only 3 more days until Tax day!) she will probably be working on Easter, too. Maybe we can celebrate with the Eastern Orthodox church... or maybe I'll just eat cake after work.
Anyway, I need to go learn about hypotonia, seizures, tuberous sclerosis, and tons of other things. Maybe I'll update a little better this week!
Uhm...medicine final was tough, hopefully that went okay. I hopefully did well but don't think I could have done anything differently. We'll see.
Neurology has been...different. Neurologists are a different breed. Not my particular type of breed, but they're okay I guess. Clinic was last week and this week I'm on Peds Neuro. It's okay, but I don't really like to do new things so I won't really like it until the weekend when I go off service anyway.
Maybe I'm leaning towards medicine again? Stay tuned!
Met with a wedding florist this weekend. HOLY COW flowers everywhere. Need to cut back a little on that. Or hydrangeas that are $10 a flower - who knew? Maybe my grandma will offer to do the flowers for me - she used to own a flower shop, you know. Anybody ever heard of ranunculus? They come in all sorts of colors, and I think I like them.
I just finished watching House and it was super sad. I won't spoil it for you, though! Sometimes I don't want to be a doctor because lots of sad things happen.
Happy Holy Week! Palm Sunday was yesterday and it's my favorite church day of the year. The music is always awesome and it's not as crowded as Easter. I also love all the other services during the week - the washing feet on Thursday (okay I don't like washing them that much but the service is nice) and Walk the way of the Cross on Friday, then the Passion play Friday night, then Easter Vigil - and Chris is going to become Catholic! (officially!) Yeah!
I have some cake and bought Chris some "holy presents" but I think that neuro will make me work on Sunday. It would be super nice to have off the whole weekend, though, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. Unfortunately, because my mom is a CPA and Easter is April 12 (only 3 more days until Tax day!) she will probably be working on Easter, too. Maybe we can celebrate with the Eastern Orthodox church... or maybe I'll just eat cake after work.
Anyway, I need to go learn about hypotonia, seizures, tuberous sclerosis, and tons of other things. Maybe I'll update a little better this week!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
whoopsie
The ER test today was okay. Sort of random but that's Dr. Young. Plenty of easy peasy questions but then he would put in something that nobody ought to know. Except probably Jeff, but that's fine with me. Other news: I ate an entire bag of spinach today for lack of any better food. Don't worry though, I cooked it down so there wasn't that much to chew. Does anyone else have the problem with spinach making their teeth gritty? I hate that feeling.
I didn't study today. Not one word.
Now it's 11pm before my 8:30am "National Board of Medical Examiners Internal Medicine Exam" and I am thinking "whoopsie"
Maybe I'll go read a few pages and then fall asleep.
But, I repeat, how does one study for ALL of internal medicine?
PS-Chris is drawing a piece for the humanities festival. I love when he draws and I don't know why. I miss being five-year-old Katie who was going to grow up to be an artist (or a ballerina) and drawing all day. Ah, growing up.
I didn't study today. Not one word.
Now it's 11pm before my 8:30am "National Board of Medical Examiners Internal Medicine Exam" and I am thinking "whoopsie"
Maybe I'll go read a few pages and then fall asleep.
But, I repeat, how does one study for ALL of internal medicine?
PS-Chris is drawing a piece for the humanities festival. I love when he draws and I don't know why. I miss being five-year-old Katie who was going to grow up to be an artist (or a ballerina) and drawing all day. Ah, growing up.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
studying as usual
Ugh. I can't study any more! I've read too much. Done too many questions. Seriously. But yet when I do new questions I still get them wrong! I know that I don't know things, but I don't know what the things are that I don't know, so I don't know how to know them. (Figure that out!)
Anyway, I thought I would write a little post about things that have recently made me happy. Because otherwise I will be stuck alone in a conference room at school with a stinky trashcan on a drizzly Wednesday with nothing better to do than be miserable and studying. So here goes:
1) xkcd.com - Sometimes this comic is a little weird, but sometimes just absolutely cracks me up.
2) Running. Really! I've been running a couple times this year (after not running in over 5 months - okay, that first run was rough) but it's actually been ...enjoyable! I don't know how it happened, either. I'm afraid to actually say it out loud because then I'll jinx it. I have been "running" on a sort-of regular basis since med school started (not counting the time in 6th grade when I tried out for the track team - awkward!), but I never really enjoyed it. Mostly, I did it because it's a cheap and time-efficient way to exercise. I'm afraid to say anything too soon but if this keeps up you may just see me running a marathon! Okay, just kidding.
3) Doing non-school things. Surprise, right? I'm dancing in 3 songs for our bi-annual "humanities festival" and maybe doing a duet with Sabrina of Carmen with flute/clarinet. It's awesome to do stuff with my peers that doesn't involve any studying or geeky talk whatsoever. (Geeky talk is okay but school-related geeky talk is unacceptable.) It also gives me a good opportunity to make friends with people I otherwise don't get to talk to. Be there, April 3!
4) Having days off during the week. Awesome. I don't know if I will get these again anytime soon, so hopefully I enjoyed them while I had them. You get to sleep in, hang out, make all the appointments and do all the errands you heart desires, and still be done by 4pm. After 2 months of medicine (where 6-day workweeks come standard) I really, really appreciate my days off. Especially when they're in the middle of the week. Whoo!
5) Making lists of things that I like. Just kidding, that was a cop out. I'm in a better mood now and better get back to learning the entirety of internal medicine and emergency medicine before, oh, tomorrow morning. Wish me luck! :)
Anyway, I thought I would write a little post about things that have recently made me happy. Because otherwise I will be stuck alone in a conference room at school with a stinky trashcan on a drizzly Wednesday with nothing better to do than be miserable and studying. So here goes:
1) xkcd.com - Sometimes this comic is a little weird, but sometimes just absolutely cracks me up.
2) Running. Really! I've been running a couple times this year (after not running in over 5 months - okay, that first run was rough) but it's actually been ...enjoyable! I don't know how it happened, either. I'm afraid to actually say it out loud because then I'll jinx it. I have been "running" on a sort-of regular basis since med school started (not counting the time in 6th grade when I tried out for the track team - awkward!), but I never really enjoyed it. Mostly, I did it because it's a cheap and time-efficient way to exercise. I'm afraid to say anything too soon but if this keeps up you may just see me running a marathon! Okay, just kidding.
3) Doing non-school things. Surprise, right? I'm dancing in 3 songs for our bi-annual "humanities festival" and maybe doing a duet with Sabrina of Carmen with flute/clarinet. It's awesome to do stuff with my peers that doesn't involve any studying or geeky talk whatsoever. (Geeky talk is okay but school-related geeky talk is unacceptable.) It also gives me a good opportunity to make friends with people I otherwise don't get to talk to. Be there, April 3!
4) Having days off during the week. Awesome. I don't know if I will get these again anytime soon, so hopefully I enjoyed them while I had them. You get to sleep in, hang out, make all the appointments and do all the errands you heart desires, and still be done by 4pm. After 2 months of medicine (where 6-day workweeks come standard) I really, really appreciate my days off. Especially when they're in the middle of the week. Whoo!
5) Making lists of things that I like. Just kidding, that was a cop out. I'm in a better mood now and better get back to learning the entirety of internal medicine and emergency medicine before, oh, tomorrow morning. Wish me luck! :)
Monday, March 23, 2009
The Dress
I have a dress! Hooray! I have pictures posted... katietwist.shutterfly.com :) Chris figured it out, too. I came home from the store and he immediately could tell I had a dress (because I was excited, duh) but he looked at me for a minute and said "I know which one it is!" - and he did. That's okay though, he's not allowed to see it anymore until October! When I'm wearing it! Next I need to choose some bridesmaid dresses (and what color I want them to be!) Since my dress is darker than I originally planned, I want to go with a darker color. I'm thinking a teal or maybe brown. I had been thinking navy too, but that may be too formal/wintery.
Anyway, part 1 of 3 of my medicine final is tomorrow afternoon. Wish me luck! It's a standardized patient exam, so basically it's like I'm having an afternoon full of pretending doctor in a pretend clinic! I need to brush up on my smoking cessation counseling, but other than that I hope I am ready. I don't really know how to study for this! :)
PS- I am loving the weather right now. It's PERFECT outside! even when I have to sit and study it still is nice to go out for some fresh air. HOORAY!
Anyway, part 1 of 3 of my medicine final is tomorrow afternoon. Wish me luck! It's a standardized patient exam, so basically it's like I'm having an afternoon full of pretending doctor in a pretend clinic! I need to brush up on my smoking cessation counseling, but other than that I hope I am ready. I don't really know how to study for this! :)
PS- I am loving the weather right now. It's PERFECT outside! even when I have to sit and study it still is nice to go out for some fresh air. HOORAY!
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