Polish Speaking Patients!

This week I translated 2 times! and when i say translated, i mean did my best to string together sentences with the limited amount of nouns and verbs i know. It was awesome.  Now people know I can speak it and its spread around to some of the staff so they have informed me that if they need me they are gonna come grab me and I have no choice [obviously i dont mind]. 

One of the patients had their daughter with them that was probably my age. She was more Polish then me though, having an accent when she spoke English but not so much to make her seem fresh off the boat. I introduced myself to her mom in Polish when i realized thats all she understood and then I began to ask her questions. her daughter, realizing i suck, started to interpret for me so i gave up and spoke english. Later, i smiled and apologized for my bad Polish and the daughter smiled saying “oh honey its ok, its so cute you tried.” 

mean

I done good

One day on a peds shift, I was working with a new doc, Dr. B. It was the Sunday after my crazy interview/board exam week and had worked a 12 hour peds shift on Saturday [the day before] so needless to say, i was pretty tired! I was pretty run down and sick and it was pretty hard to pretend to be happy, spunky, and hard working while feeling like crap.  But, i still hit the ground running when i got to my shift and apparently it showed.

In the afternoon, Dr. B walked up to me, looked at my ID and said "Your a medical student?"
 "Umm, yes? What did you think I was?"
"Well you are performing at an intern level. Your presentations are wonderful and your just doing a great job and I had to stop and tell you that. I hope you will give me an evaluation to fill out about you. "(conversation continues about where I'm from, what I'm going into and him sellin the program to me!)

Then at the end of my shift another doctor took the time to stop me, thank me, and write down my name so she could remember me for my evaluation.

it was a great pick-me-up!

Last Exam of Medical School!

After driving to Long Island on Wednesday for my interview, I jumped into another rental car on Thursday night and headed down to Conshohocken Pennsylvania with Anna. I had to take my board exam, the physical exam portion. This is what my school has been training me for. In the last 3 years we have had dozens of patient/actor encounters on campus where they time us and give us specific tasks we need to do and a specific clinic note we have to write. Going into the exam on Friday, I felt very confident and prepared because my school had trained us well....and i dont say that very often!

On Friday, I got to the testing center at 7:30am and was there until 3pm. I had 12 patient encounters. Each was 14 minutes then we had 9 minutes to write up a clinic note. Right when that 9 minutes was up, we walked to the next room and started the next encounter right away. We had 4 "patients" at a time, then took a lunch break, had another 4, took a 15min break, then finished up with 4 more. It was exhausting and my hand was hurting by the end of the afternoon.

 It wasnt considerably hard, just time consuming and EXPENSIVE. The test itself costs $1200. Yuuuuup, they sure do know how to make money off of med students.

Ill find out if i passed in about 6 weeks. It has a 97% first time pass rate so i'm not too nervous [hopefully that doesnt jinx me!]

First Interview- Good Samaritan Medical Center

First interview down. Thank god I got beta blockers beforehand or else I would have had trouble keeping my voice from shaking!

The interview indirectly/ informally started on Tuesday night over appetizers and beers with 2 current residents and 3 other interviewees. It was a nice way to ask questions and relax. One of the residents was Wojtek, obviously polish. Another interviewee was Marcin, a polish guy from Detroit. He knew my old college roomate. Very small world!

The next day started at 10am with an orientation of the hospital and then a tour. There were 7 of us there. Right off the bat, I got a great vibe from the place. Everyone was friendly and i could feel the family vibe. After seeing the ED, we went to the medical education offices and sat in a large room eating our lunches. Around 1pm we were left alone in the large room and were called out 1 by 1. It was very nerve wrecking. I was fine until that point, that was when I took the beta blocker to kill the adrenaline. Boy did it work.

My first interview was with the chief residents, very informal just trying to get to know me. At one point, the resident quoted a wonderul line from a letter of rec that was in my file. She said I'd like to hear what you have to say about this line "it is refreshing to meet someone who is so well liked by everyone she worked with while working so diligently" or something along those lines... I got really emotional hearing that and had to pause to catch my breathe, I almost cried. Seriously, I said it out loud that I just had a wave of emotions and I really nearly cried from hearing such a nice comment. Finally hearing some feedback about how I was doing and reassuring me that I was noticed workin my butt off was very emotionally overwhelming. We dont get a lot of direct feedback so when it does come, its very much appreciated.

The next two interviews were much more stressful! First was 3 faculty members who pretended to be almost bored. Im sure it was an interview tactic because one was the guy who gave the orientation and tour and he was acting very differently. I tried my best to keep them all engaged. My interview strategy is to make people smile and laugh, and I know I did that quite a bit during the interview. So hopefully they remember me!


The next interview [the last of 3] had 3 faculty members interviewing me, including the program director. I felt relaxed during it and answered questions openly and honestly. One question I got was "What is one case or scenerio where you would feel very uncomfortable. As in, you walk in the room and want to run right away asking for help?"
 "Scabies," i answered "or any other bed bug type presentation. I can deal with blood shooting everyone but bugs I cant see make me cringe." This made them all bust up laughing and the doctor that asked the question said "great answer, havent heard that one before!"

In all 3 interviews I was myself. I was able to express myself calmly and smiled through all of it. I made them laugh several times and am positive they were able to get a good sense of my personality.

I drove to the interview which gave me a good chance to see the area. There are great homes and long island has a lot of money. Great to live there I'm sure...but not on a residents budget.
I left the day thinking I could see myself living and working there. The hospital was small but big enough to get a great education. We'll see how it compares to the other places I will visit!

STRESSSSS

Board scores are in, PE next week, first interview next week, trying to keep my shit together and act happy/energetic during all my shifts.

im exhausted just thinking about all of it!

First week in Brooklyn

Well, I am def not in Michigan anymore!! I went from suburban white population to the most diverse patient population ever! Its a crazy ED with TONS of people.
We had orientation on Monday morning and being emergency medicine, we had the rest of the day off. We then met Tuesday morning for lectures and then simulation lab.

Sim lab is great. Its a life-like [or as best as it can get] mannequin laying in a clinic bed with monitors, screens, everything. just like the ED. the room is small with a window in the back just like in interrogation rooms in the police department...the ones where they can see you but you cant see them. So the attendings running the sim lab stand back there and talk for the patient through the speakers in the room. and the mannequin blinks, has a pulse, breath sounds, all of that.  Its a great learning environment but very intimidating. its nice that we do it in a group, not by ourselves!

Then Wed I had my first shift and of course my first patient is a typical Brooklyn guy in his 30s. Ya know, the tough guy with lots of tattoos and a thick accent. Well, he was there for chest pain but it wasnt hurting enough to stop him from hitting on me. After i did a quick history and physical exam, I brought my attending over to see him. Immediately he says "hey doc, you gotta tell your med student to stop asking for my phone number. im married." the attending and I laughed it off. After we spoke with the patient and were walking away she pokes me in the side and said "you know, its kinda frowned upon here to hit on your patients." Thank god she knew he was joking and played along! I had some more trouble from that guy later but he didnt stick around for too long considering there was really nothing wrong with him [at least life threatening!].

Interview Invite #?? I lost count...

I have been getting lots of good emails asking me to come interview at their program. I have lost count actually, its up to 6 or 7. Keep em coming!! Still waiting for the ACGME programs though!