by Andrea | Apr 21, 2012
I have one remaining week of M3 year. It’s hard to believe, and I have enough studying to do that now is not really the best time to reflect on lessons learned or experiences gained. Suffice it to say for now that I’m looking forward to being done, and when I take brief study breaks, I imagine what my two weeks of summer vacation are going to look like before M4 year is off and running. It’s an awful lot like this:
Walter enjoying the newly remodeled Huron River canoe route just past Argo Canoe Livery.
Things I am planning to do starting 4/28:
- Ride my bike: I’ve got to get in shape for that ride coming up in July!
- Walk the dog: He deserves it after a year of craziness.
- Reading for fun: The list of books I need to read at this point is endless, but I might as well try!
- Things that are as yet unscheduled, because I will not need to be scheduled within an inch of my life…
by Andrea | Mar 20, 2012
It’s really warm out, and although that makes me very nervous for the imminent destruction of the earth as we know it, it is also really nice for walking the dog. For the last week or so, Walter has been smiling. Literally. His nose is so short that when he pants he has to open up his whole mouth and it looks like a giant clown smile. This is an old picture, but gives you an idea of the kind of grin I’m talking about:
I’ve got a week and a half left on my current service (general medicine at the VA) and then four weeks of outpatient medicine, and then this year is officially over, so I’ve been doing a little bit of smiling myself. Lots of friends matched last week, solidifying the plans they’ve been hedging around and making contingencies for over the past few months, and I really love seeing folks so happy and going to the residency programs of their dreams. Ann Arbor is a great place to live for a lot of reasons, and one of the bittersweet perks is that lots of friends will leave for amazing places and incredible opportunities. Match day was a wonderful reminder that at this time next year I too will be at the end of this crazy program, preparing for residency. I’ve also been really enjoying my time at the VA. For a host of reasons I won’t enumerate here (since many of them are administrative and therefore both complicated and boring), I feel so much more useful than I have on many of my rotations. Finally, I’ve actually been out riding my bike. Smiles all around!
by Andrea | Feb 19, 2012
I’m now two weeks into my internal medicine rotation, and I’m learning a lot. It’s been, how shall we say, a steep learning curve, and I finally feel like I’m getting the hang of it; it’s humbling to realize that even in the 10th month of my M3 year I still don’t really know what I’m doing. In spite of bumbling around more than a little, I realized that yesterday (and carrying over to today) I won the game, or rather, my residents won the game for me. Inside the hospital, patients who are admitted go to different teams on different days depending on who is on call. My team admits new patients every other day. This means that the other every other days (except for some minor technicalities) we don’t admit new patients, and instead just care for those that we already have on our service. This also means that if one manages to discharge all of one’s patients on a call day, that the next day there isn’t anything to do! This is called winning the game. That’s what happened yesterday – while I was away at lecture, my patients were discharged and I showed up this morning with very little to do. The reality of being a medical student (and arguably this is the only situation in which the interns have a better deal), however, means that I just picked a new patient from one of the many already on our list, and started reading about her for Monday.
Somewhere between celebrating that I might get to head out a little early on a Saturday, and lamenting that a med student’s work is never done, I wondered a bit at the phrase “winning the game.” It’s obvious that being in the hospital isn’t a game for most people; I’ve heard some general lecturing about how inappropriate it is to joke about patients, and do my best to be respectful of every person I encounter. That said, if you can’t laugh about your life (and my life is pretty much the hospital at this point), what can you do? Of all of the different coping mechanisms we all use to keep working when our patients leave for home, hospice, or the hereafter, I’m not sure that humor isn’t one of the least destructive options, so I guess I’ll just keep on laughing until I can’t…
by Andrea | Feb 3, 2012
Take 1 ridiculous moment as needed for anxiety
I’ve just finished my psychiatry rotation, and am more convinced than ever that all of the little things we do to keep it together during medical school are really, really important. Even with the amazing hours (and they call it “psych-ation” for a reason), psychiatry can be really emotionally taxing. There are generally a lot of small steps between mental illness and recovery, and at points it can feel like you aren’t going anywhere. My antidote to the sometimes overwhelming sensation that nothing I was doing was helping anyone was to spend a few hours to make something for someone else (and particularly for the little photogenic snuggly someone else you see pictured above and below).
Note to self: try not to forget this lesson for the 1,000,000th time…
For those of you who are wondering, the pattern for the coat is courtesy of my very own nemesis, Martha Stewart. I considered several other options, including this one, but was drawn in by Martha’s dog fashion show (scroll to the sidebar)…
by Andrea | Dec 26, 2011
I think I’m not alone in occasionally feeling on the edge of hypomania around the holidays…
Clinical definition: Hypomania is an episode of at least four days of elevated or irritable mood different from the individual’s normal mood that does not cause marked impairment of function or hospital admission, and which includes at least three of the following
- gradiosity
- decreased sleep
- more talkative than usual
- racing throughts or flight of ideas
- distractability
- increased goal direct activity or psychomotor agitation
- excessive involvement in pleasurable activities even if they have a high potential for negative consequences.
Although oftentimes my family and friends’ extracurricular expectations of me are low, I love finding, wrapping, and giving gifts, and have been known to go a little overboard sometimes. This year I think it was brought on by the realization that I hadn’t handmade any gifts for anyone. Usually I knit like crazy during the summer, fall, and early winter to make sweaters, socks, hats, and scarves for friends and family. I knew that wasn’t an option this year, with the clinical calendar as it is, but decided to make small gifts for my extended family members. This blossomed from a well-intentioned little craft project into a bit of a crazed mission involving large volumes of chocolate and Martha Stewart branded craft materials.
(Another note: This gifting is not the extent of the holicrazy. I also made squash soup from scratch, which included roasting the squash seeds as a snack, and was posted earlier this week… Also, I drafted all of these holiday posts in a single morning when I was feeling particularly productive…)
Since they were all mailed last Saturday, and should have arrived already, I think it won’t be spoiling anything for anyone to post some pictures and the recipe here…
Chocolate Bark
adapted slightly from Seriously Good Improvisational Chocolates by Sally Schneider
Chop up 1 lb (or more, or less, depending on how much you want) of really good chocolate into 1-inch or smaller pieces. I used Callebaut chocolate, which they carry at my bulk food store, and Ms. Schneider recommends Valhrona, which I’ve seen at Whole Foods, or Sharfenberger. You can use either dark semi-sweek chocolate or milk chocolate. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Melt 1/2 of your the chocolate in a saucepan floating in another saucepan of water on the stove (or use a double boiler if you have that sort of fancy equipment). When half the chocolate is melted, remove it from heat and stir in the remaining chocolate until it’s all melted. Use a spatula and spread it into the parchment paper so that it’s about 1/8”-1/4” thick. Let it sit for 3-4 minutes to set a bit, and then sprinkle with the toppings of your choice. I’ve listed the festive holiday options I chose below. Let the chocolate sit for a few hours or until it’s firm. Break it into shards, and package it up! Per Ms. Schneider it will keep for several weeks in a sealed container at room temperature.
For Mexican hot chocolate: Vietnamese cinnamon or other very fragrant cinnamon, and cayenne pepper. Sprinkle the cinnamon liberally, and go easy with the pepper.
For candy cane: Crush candy canes in a plastic bag (I used a rolling pin) and spread the shards over the chocolate. This is pretty!
For fleur de sel: This may seem obvious, but it’s just fleur de sel. It can be as coarse or fine as you’d like to grind it.
For gingerbread: This was (I think) the best one. Smash up some gingersnaps or other gingercookies in a plastic bag until the largest pieces are about 1/2” across. Sprinkle these over the chocolate, preferably dark chocolate and spicy cookies, and enjoy.
