I just finished a 6-week program sponsored by the Illinois
State Medical Society for medical students to rotate through a number of
hospital departments. If you'll be in med school next year in Illinois, I would
definitely recommend this as something to do over summer break (more info here). It's a great
experience and by the end of it, you would have seen/done a lot of cool stuff
and maybe even figured out what you want to go into. So show and tell
about what I rotated though:
OBGYN - So in the office it's kind of boring. A lot of checking
cervical dilation of the expecting mothers and pap smears and stuff. So I
honestly didn't know what a pap smear was until I was on this rotation (except
it was something guys didn't have to worry about), and now I know what the
cervix of the uterus really looks like. Great. The days in the OR
are a little better. Saw a laproscopy, hysterscopy + D&C,
hysterectomy. The organs and tissues in a patient definitely look
different than the stuff we've seen on cadavers, where everything looks like
beef jerky. Oh and I saw a cesarian section, it was beautiful.
Actually, it was kind of disgusting and the baby was kind of ugly. And
this was my first time witnessing a live child birth. Previously I had
imagined that everybody in the room would start clapping and cheering when the
baby was born. That's not the case and I have no idea why I would think
that.
ED - The Emergency physician I was with was really cool, he actually
graduated from UIC and had the same anatomy professor I did. Actually,
there were a handful of docs I spent time with that went to UIC for med
school. Anyway, I was in the ED on an really eventful day. The
craziest event of the day, a gang member pulled up with a fellow gang member
that had blood gushing from his throat, all over his clothes and all over the
inside of the car. He was holding his neck and the EMT guys brought him
in and he was all like, "don't let me die." They stabilized him
after he ripped out 2 IV's from thrashing around and took him to the OR.
The trauma surgeon came out a couple hours later and said the internal carotid
had been knicked, and the patient was lucky to make it out alive. I found
out later he managed to get out without any neurological deficits either.
Ya, that was better than watching ER or whatever those dramatic medical shows
are on TV these days. Aside from that, I saw a chronic alcoholic who had
really bad ascites. I mean, really bad, they did paracentesis and drew 17
L of fluid from him. He honestly looked like he was two and half years
pregnant if that's even possible. It was more disgusting than the pap
smear. Also saw a few patients with foreign objects stuck in random parts
of their bodies, a classic case of appendicitis, and a case of strep
throat.
Cardiothoracic Surgery - another UIC grad. He was telling me when
he was in med school, they had a huge bonfire outside of SSR after anatomy was
done and they burned all their lab clothes. I wonder why we didn't do
that. Anyway, these open heart procedures are ridiculously long. If
you like having your hands covered in blood, the heart, and you can deal with
the pressure of stopping the beating of your patient, doing your thing, and
then get it beating again, then this might be for you.
Pathology - So the lifestyle of a pathologist is pretty nice. On
both days I was with this pathologist, I met her in the doctors lounge at 9am,
ate breakfast, then casually strolled over to her lab, looked at slides and
dictated, then casually strolled over to eat lunch, and then maybe finished some
slides up in the afternoon and she was usually done by 3 or 4. It’s pretty laid back, unlike surgery where
you show up to the OR at 7:30am and then you’re running around all
morning. Too bad I hated histology and I
don’t have a very good feeling about path either.
General Surgery –
So I scrub in the first procedure, and the surgeon is like, “Nurse, hand Andrew
the scalpel.” Haha, she was like, “but
he’s only a student.” So I made my first
incision on a live patient ever. It was
an inguinal hernia repair, so I made a superficial incision in the groin only
down to Scarpa’s fascia. And then he had
me put sutures in at the end.
Pediatrics –
Ped’s is a bunch of boogers and crying.
But what’s nice is you don’t have to know that many drugs, since your
entire patient population are little snots.
Radiology – Radiology
is another pretty chill field. I spent
an afternoon sitting in a dark room in front of a computer with 5 LCD screens
just looking at images with the radiologist.
The computer programs now make radiology so much better than the plain
film days.
Gastroenterology
– GI was pretty fun actually. You do a
lot of colonoscopies, and it’s like playing a video game. You have a joystick to control your scope as
you tunnel your way down or up somebody’s you know what. If you find something interesting, you just
put the grabber tool in there and snatch it out like its treasure. Seriously.
Orthopedics – Orthopods
are the jocks of the doctor world. They
have a lot of cool tools if you’re into that kind of thing and you get to put
big pieces of metal in the bones of your patients.
Otolaryngology –
Saw a handful of T&A’s, fiber optic laryngoscopy, and a few other brief procedures. It seems that most the procedures these guys
do are short and sweet.
Anesthesiology - So the anesthesiologist I was with is really funny. He speaks with this korean accent so sometimes he's hard to understand, but he really wanted me to do a lot of stuff. So he had me start practicing starting IV's on patients while they were knocked out during the procedures. I got the hang of it now and I was 4/4 one morning for starting IV's on the patients coming into the OR. That was fun. He also had me intubate patients, put in LMA's and I also did a spinal (under his guidance of course). Pretty sweet.
Urology – You
have to be pretty passionate about you know what to go into this field.
Plastic Surgery –
So I was standing there during one of the three hour procedures thinking to
myself, “So why are we doing this again???
Oh, because this patient isn’t happy with the way she looks in the
mirror.” I didn’t really like this
rotation that much.
Podiatry – I
learned all about bunions and hammer toes.
Cardiology – The
cardiologist I was with was really cool, another UIC grad. So cardiology is really big on physiology, so
if you liked cardiophys, this might be good for you. And there’s pretty much just 3 types of drugs
you have to worry about—blood thinners, diuretics, and B-blockers.
Family Medicine –
So the family med doc I was with worked at a correctional facility, so I had to
go to jail! But I saw a suicidal inmate
there, in one of those isolated cells where you have to open a little slit in
the door to talk to the other person, just like you see in the movies. And I also saw an inmate who had Huntington’s
chorea. That was crazy.
Neurology – So neurology
is growing pretty fast, I think because we’re getting a better understanding of
the human brain and how to treat certain conditions. Anyway, I got to see a patient with Tourette’s
syndrome, cerebral palsy, and a patient with Alzheimer’s who remembered his
wife’s and daughter’s names, but didn’t know where he was, where he lived, or
that he was even in a hospital. It was
really sad.
Ophthalmology – I
saw some LASIK procedures, which are fairly easy. You pretty much have to tell the patient to
stare at this thing and the machine does most of the work. Also got to see a couple intraocular contact
lenses implants, which they told me is a relatively new procedure that’s only been
out for about a month. They basically
stick a contact lens in behind the pupil but in front of the natural lens and
it’s for patients who aren’t good candidates for LASIK.
Wow, that turned out longer than I thought. I don’t expect anybody to read that. Anyway, what else have I been up to. I built a computer a few weeks ago, it looks like a spaceship. And massive yardwork, one of the things I don't miss too much about being in Chicago. I've gone to quite a few CME dinners as well. Some are interesting, some are boring, but free nice dinners paid for by the overly wealthy drug companies are just awesome.
The ENT doc I was with took me out waverunning on the river with another buddy of his who's an internist. For those of you who don't know, this is what waverunning is:
So he started me out on a slower one so I wouldn't kill myself and then he traded me for his yamaha 1200cc beast. These things are INSANELY fast and fun. Growing up next to water I wish I did more of this stuff, but then again, it can get expensive.
Earlier this week, I went to go test drive the Honda Fit:
I've read that Honda is supposed to come out with a hybrid version next year. If so, I might have to get one. It may not be fast and furious, or sexy, but it's incredibly simple and practical. Pretty much everything you could ask for in a practical car. And my 12 year old Nissan is having issues now that haven't figured out yet and none of my friends can either. sigh.
I'm going back to Chicago this Sunday, hopefully playing and having fun before m2 year starts in august. You guys know where to find me.
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