Paging Dr. Silly Blonde Girl...

You may be not-so-surprised to find that as this year goes on and my life is only further consumed by the work I do...this post will probably start looking more and more like the post of a crazy wanna-be doctor.

So intern year...the time in your life where you realize just how little you know.  As a dear friend of mine put it, "it took all of fourth year to build up my medical confidence, and about 12 hours today to take it away."  I would call that the MOST accurate description of all of the facebook lamentations I've seen over the last few days.  Literal lamentations.


I started my very first day of an intern on the busy hospitalist service.  It was great.  The attending who is the very reason I wanted to come to this program was on so the day started great...until I started having to actually see patients.  I can honestly say I do not remember the last time I wrote a note on a patient, let alone an admission history and physical...I think it was probably about the time I was last in Lansing...which make it last November.  Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), I'm a little rusty.  Easy things I've been writing as second nature are taking time to think about.  I can't just rattle off a differential of ridiculousness because I've tamed the ridiculousness by going to Europe and generally not studying a whole lot over the past two months off.  So hospital day 1 was a little bit of a shake-up.  Add to it a horrible clinic day trying to figure out how to see a patient and manage a computer all at the same time and you have a very anxiety-ridden day numero uno.


Since that time I've had nurses call me asking for narcotics, which I've refused and given nitro; I've been called "that silly blonde girl" by a patient who I had left to get water for as he was asking his nurse for some (dude, if you didn't want me to get it, don't waste my time sending me to do it), and today I was graced with a blister-laden scrotum as punishment for calling dibs on a septic shoulder rather than a swollen scrotum earlier in the day.  Oh, I also called my attending "dude" today...and later in the day when I asked to see a patient with him he rewarded me by taking me in to "check on" the great bearded woman (I kid you not, there are only a few men I know who could rival the facial hair on this woman - full beard and mustache...it is the most impressive display of hirsutism/bearded womanism I have ever seen or could ever imagine)...


I love my attendings, I love my fellow interns, and I totally dig my residents.  I am loving every minute of residency despite my acute awareness of my incompetence...and I'm praying daily for the patients who have the misfortune of being sick and hospital admitted at this time of year.


I know why everyone doesn't do this job...but I have no idea how there could be anything cooler in the world :)