I just finished two weeks on Labor & Delivery for my OB-Gyn rotation.  I spent one day in the clinic, 2 days in triage/attending C-sections, and then 5 nights straight (including a final 23-hour nonstop stint) in triage/c-sections/deliveries/anything else.  This rotation is strange because you see younger patients in general, and literally anybody ( Read more... )

There was a story on NPR this morning about the head of chaplaincy for a region of VA hospitals, and how he was notified of every military death for his region.  It got me to thinking about death.... what it must be like to have a loved one die in a war zone ( Read more... )

I'm feeling much more myself, and that's a good thing.  But right now, I'm sort of at a loss for understanding the world.  Stuff just keeps happening.  My father was discharged from the hospital (those of you who don't know -- he had an abdominal abscess, is doing fine and will fully recover, but it won him 5 nights in the hospital with IV ( Read more... )

I readily will admit that I'm being cryptic, and that's fine. That's what I want to be ( Read more... )

Over the past week or so, I've been listening to more and more music.  I've been playing violin for at least an hour a night if not more (thanks to midi files that let me delete violin solos and create my own piano accompanist) and listening to my iPod all the time ( Read more... )

Today was a long day.  It's already been a long week.  The past while has been a long while.  But at this very moment, my entire life is paused and it's the most perfect moment ever.  I'm sitting out on my porch right now with a thunderstorm around me.  I've always loved thunderstorms, and as scarier as they were when I was young, I was always ( Read more... )

Today we had a panel on ICU experiences, all of which were from a patient or family perspective -- even though some of the patients or family members were doctors themselves, they brought their perspectives from the non-doctor side.  It was an enormously hard thing to watch actually, because these were all people who have been through unbelievable ( Read more... )

In the past two months, I've spent a lot more time than ever before facing difficult, unpleasant aspects of medicine.  That's not necessarily a bad thing.  I always find it to be an enormous privilege to be present in people's lives during such events, and it carries a lot of responsibility, but it's truly a privilege.  There's not a time that goes ( Read more... )

I had overnight call and was sent to bed around midnight.  I set my alarms (yes, alarms) for 3:45am and was going to head off and do my rounds.  At 6:22, my pager goes off and I read "Rounding on 3100 asap!"  Thanks to technology, I'd been fucked over.  My pager is set on silent so it just vibrates -- a great way to wake up.  However, although all ( Read more... )

 I flew home from NC to NH today, and on the second flight, the pilot made the usual announcement, including mentioning the weather in Manchester being foggy.  Then: "Hopefully with the sun some of that fog will burn off, but if not, we have the equipment to handle it, so we should be okay ( Read more... )