over!

peds is over!
well, almost. one fifteen-minute interview away from being over. I have to go interview a resident pretending to be a parent and find out what's wrong with her imaginary kid. The bummer part of that is that I'm much better with the kids than with the parents. I suppose that's why they make us do this. Anyway, it shouldn't be too bad and then I have the weekend off!!
This morning I woke up and it seemed that a huge weight had been lifted after the shelf test yesterday. It was harder than I expected, but I could say that about most tests in med school. And now I don't have to think about it any more until we get grades back in six weeks.
Tuesday I leave for Hastings... I have mixed feelings. I am excited to do some procedures and learn new stuff. I am definitely not excited to have to stay in Hastings, in a dorm, with the nursing students. In a dorm! This didn't seem so bad last year when I set up my schedule, but now that it's here, I am not looking forward to it. Shared bathrooms, no kitchen, tiny little room. Sigh.

strep

The kids gave me strep throat. What a nice gift for my final days of peds.
Actually, the rapid strep test was negative, but there are clearly white patches of disgusting bacteria on my tonsils so the wonderful people at Student Health decided I should be taking antibiotics anyway.
So, totals for the last eight weeks:
Infections: 5
Antibiotics: 2
People I've passed illness on to: 1 (sorry Tom)
Days called in sick: 1

I think I should be able to add all these numbers to my shelf score.
Hopefully we'll feel better by this weekend. Jay and Grant are coming up for dinner tomorrow.

no one will notice

Mel: Heh, a little cover up and no one will notice that zit.

Little girl #1: You got a owie on your nose!

Little girl #2: You got a owie on your nose!

Little girl #3: What happen to your nose?

Mel: Doh.

Don't know about funny

There are two problems with funny kid stories:
One is called Hippa, and for those with less medical background that means that if I talk about a patient and someone finds out I will be fired. Oh wait, I don't get paid for this... I think they'll throw me in a Chinese prison then.
The second is that I'm not sure anyone else will find my kid stories funny.
For instance, today I saw the biggest newborn I've ever seen, weighing in at almost twelve pounds.
Is anyone laughing yet? No?
I managed to make one of my patients laugh... she was a one-year-old and as I was talking to her mom I was making faces at her. She was apprehensive, to say the least, but all of a sudden she burst out with HA HA HA! So I laughed back, and for the rest of the time she would look at me and go HA HA HA at random intervals. Only she wasn't really laughing, she was imitating me laughing. I've never seen a one-year-old imitate me before. I'm flattered... I think.

Of note: This NPR story - researchers used palm pilots to measure happiness and found that kidney patients undergoing dialysis are as happy as healthy people.

Whew

Two weeks until my peds shelf. ugh. I definitely don't feel that I've learned enough to be even remotely proficient in peds. Every specialty has its own set of language/rules/info to learn, but I think the peds set is larger than most. You have to be good at genetics, infectious disease, orthopedics, psychiatry, parental counseling, pharmacology, infectious disease, pulmonology, and oh yeah did I mention infectious disease?!

I'm just a bit stressed out. And in the middle of it all we're making schedules for next year's rotations. I haven't been able to CHOOSE what I study since college. And in college, my roommate made my schedule for me! Erin, where are you when I need you? There are all these rules about how many rotations must be in your chosen field of medicine and how many must be basic science selectives and some have to be pre-approved by the department and everything has to be signed by an advisor and What If I Change My Mind and Then How Am I Going to Schedule Things?
On the bright side, last night Tom and I went to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy with the Omaha Symphony and it was great. That music just makes me want to dance. I highly recommend it as a stress reliever.

Next time... funny stories about kids