Lots to catch up and and I don't have much of a desire to stare at my computer for a long time so I'll just hit on the high notes of January.

I worked at Montclair Clinic twice this month and the most memorable patient was a 47yo female with bipolar disease who was there for us to 'check in' on how she was doing with her medications. She seemed very normal but the longer I talked to her the more I realized her slight irregularities in mood. She would try to laugh things off and smile and then she would get really sad and nearly started crying several times. She was on a ton of medication for anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder and of course, hypertension [everyone at Montclair is on HTN med's]. It was an interesting experience to talk to her because really, I had no idea what to say. I tried to listen and just nod along with it but there was no way I could relate to her problems or her family troubles. It is going to take me some time to perfect the empathy in me, to really TRY to put myself into a patient's shoes rather than just sit there thinking 'wow that sucks, dont really know what i can do...' [that is mostly what i was thinking]. Also, another component to add was the first year student also in the room who was watching me [and learning from me...LEARNING from ME..] At this time in the year, we are starting to 'pass the torch' of our duties to the first years as the year starts to wind down into prime Board studying time. Since none of us will want [or have time] to be doing extracurricular activities, the first years start to take shifts at Montclair and eventually will take over working there. Before they can do so, they must shadow one shift...and that is where the first year in the room comes in. He was shadowing me...a second year student. It is amazing to think that I already know enough to be able to start teaching other students. I am astonished that being 2 years in, I have already developed a feel for taking a patient's history and doing their physical exam.

This was the 2nd time I worked this month so this was already the second time I had a 'shadower' with me and I got used to the idea of someone watching and learning from me. I like the practice of having someone intimidate me. Well, intimidate isn't the best word. what i mean is, I like having someone watch me and make me nervous because that is pretty much how I am going to feel most of the time during rotations. I of course want to impress the residents and attendings i am working with [or at the very least, look competent] and to do so i need to be able to get through the nerves and think logically. This has always been a challenge for me so the more practice I get the better. My entire career is going to involve being nervous or intimidated so the more I am exposed to it early on and get comfortable with controlling my reaction to it, the better doctor i will become.

On that note, it is reassuring that I will some day be able to put the nerves aside [or hell, even not get nervous] when around patients and residents. I know that one day I will because when medical school started and we began doing standardized patient encounters, I was nervous as hell for each one. With palms sweaty, neck red and blotchy, I would enter the fake patient room and spend the first 5 minutes lowering my heart rate as I pretended [with all my power] to not look nervous. But now, almost 2 years in, I walk into a SP's room and just chat.... I may get nervous if I run out of questions to ask or say something stupid, but I don't get nervous by the situation anymore. Even better is that after the SP encounter we sit with the actor for 5 minutes and they give us feedback and everytime I get the same comments: you looked confident and organized, I trusted you, you connected with me really well, [and the best one], if this were a real doctor's appointment I would come back to see you.


Another very fun part about this month was learning all about pregnancy and then learning how to deliver babies. Residents from Riverside County hospital came to school to teach us, on models of course, how to safely help deliver a baby and what to do in different emergencies. I found myself really loving it and have started to consider what life would be like as an obstetrics and gynecology doctor. It would't be too bad except for the long hours, stressful situations, or extremely high mal-practice insurance [highest of ALL doctors in fact]. Even with all this negative information, I am still very interested in it and can't wait to see if I still feel the same way on my OB/GYN rotation which is the first rotation I will do starting June 20th! Oh, and I cant help but be a little hesitant about going into OB/GYN because the likelihood of me meeting men in this field is pretty low.... If you think about it, the only patients I will have are women and the only men that will be around will be the baby daddies...not a lot of single men mixed in there, right?!

Annnnd last thing to mention, I scheduled my USMLE and COMLEX dates which are June 3rd and 7th respectively. It is coming up FASTTTTT.

Oh, and we just ended a hell week of Cranial OMM which I will have to talk about later.... now I am going to go watch a movie and relax before studying some more for my Cranial exam on Monday...