I have been back in the hospital for eight weeks! So much has happened, but I haven't been able to sit down long enough to write. I started back in the hospital just four days after finishing my step 2CK. My first rotation back was adult infectious disease. I wasn't too excited to do another infectious disease rotation because I already did a pediatric infectious disease rotation (which I loved), but I wanted to be exposed to something new.
The first week of the rotation, the main doctor was out of town. The doctor who was covering was nice, but he had a private practice so he didn't arrive at the hospital until late in the afternoon. I enjoyed working with him, but I didn't see him too much. When the main doctor came back, the fun really started. She no longer had a private practice so she was a full time infectious disease doctor in the hospital. The residents would divide the patients then we would go see the consults or new patients. Late in the morning or early afternoon, the doctor would arrive and we would spend the next few hours seeing all the patients as a team. I learned so much! Some of the patients were really interesting and unusual, such as extra-pulmonary T.B. I really loved the doctor that I worked with--she is a well known name in infectious disease and I feel so lucky that I had a chance to work with her. It really was a honor. I even attended a HIV conference at the Millennium UN Plaza Hotel! The food was great and I learned about new diagnostic tests and treatment regimens.
After my month in adult Infectious Disease, I started my sub-internship in Pediatrics. A sub-internship is basically when a 4th year medical students gets as close to being an intern (first year resident) as possible. I was responsible for (helping) admitting patients, making daily plans, managing care and discharging patients. Obviously, I was monitored closely by a resident, but I was responsible for getting paperwork done, getting old charts (if necessary), following up with the patients throughout the day, drawing bloods and basically anything else that needed to be done.
I had to do a week (5) night calls, which was surprisingly fun. There were two interns on call and one senior every night...well two interns for four nights and one intern for one night. The first four days when we had two interns, it was super slow. There were two patients at one point! I spent part of every night rocking a baby, whose parents couldn't spend the night. In the middle of this week of nights, the earthquake hit New York. I work up about 2pm on Tuesday, August 23rd. I thought that I overslept my alarm and that Farley was shaking me awake. Then (logically) I thought someone was in my house shaking me until my bed started shaking again and I realized it was an earthquake. I got up and watched the news for a while before going back to sleep. Despite being from the west coast, I haven't lived through any substantial earthquakes, but I really wasn't concerned about the earthquake. East coasters, on the other hand, were a bit up in arms. Luckily, New York City was a-okay. The last night of night calls was the only busy night: it was the night they were shutting down hospitals in the evacuation zones for Hurricane Irene. We only had one patient transferred (as the hospital is far from any of the evacuation zones). This patient was rater ill, not unstable, but had a chronic condition. It is sad to see chronic conditions in children, but on the other hand, there are treatments available now whereas there were not before. Anyway, I think a lot of people were a bit anxious about the impending storm because extra kids seemed to be coming up from the ER that night. In the morning, I ended up taking a cab home because the buses and subways were running more slowly in preparation for the shut down. I got home and slept for a few hours before getting up and going to the gym. My neighborhood was lucky and there was no damage--it was just a storm that lasted all day. Other neighborhoods were no so lucky.
My first day back to the day shift started with a bang. The subways and buses were still not running so I had to take a taxi again. When I arrived at the hospital, I found out that is was change of service so I didn't have to present my patients (the senior residents were presenting as they were rotating). There were a new batch of medical students starting and two very unstable patients (who happened to be coding back to back). Needless to say, it was a rather exciting day and thankfully, both patients were okay.
Overall, I enjoyed my pediatrics sub-internship and I am happy with my decision to only apply to pediatric residency programs. I submitted my application for residency during the middle of my sub-internship and I have heard back from four programs--50% interview rate--so far. I applied to a bunch of programs so who knows where I'll end up...I just hope it is in the same city as Farley.
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