Needing some encouragement...

[powermd]

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Please tell me how life gets better after internship. I'm miserable with life right now, I'm sick of working 80 hour weeks and feeling like I have no control over my free time. I hate the work I do every day, and sometimes I just want to quit. I won't, but it's depressing to feel that way after working so hard to get here. I'm not looking for anyone to feel sorry for me, I know I'm not alone. I'm just looking for some encouragement that life will be better as a CA-1.

 

[chillindrdude]

life will be better as a CA-1? not where you're going! 😉

just kidding...

don't mean to hijack...but you know what sucks right now as a MS IV? the unknown of whether you'll get an interview and unknown of where you'll match.

did you look for cush prelim spots?

 

[hawkslo]

For what it's worth man, when I did my away rotation . . . I occasionally bumped into some of the anest interns. They always looked as if the life had been sucked out of them and they'd be happier chewing their arms off.

The CA-1s, however, had a much brighter outlook. They talked about how much they were enjoying this year and constantly bragged about how anesthesia is second to none in the medical field.

 

[Krafty]

Please tell me how life gets better after internship. I'm miserable with life right now, I'm sick of working 80 hour weeks and feeling like I have no control over my free time.

Man,

Internal Medicine Sucks. It's important to learn, but practicing is another animal. I'm getting to that miserable point myself. There is another Aneshtesia prelim in my program, and we've both lost that "spring" in our step, from when we first started out. I don't look up nearly as many articles, and we walk around with our heads hung an inch lower. So I hear you there, brother.
I am still holding out hope for next year and here's what keeps me going.

- Nowhere in your CA-1 will you EVER have to fill out a discharge summary and 1,500 prescriptions for HTN, DM and CAD medications that YOU KNOW WELL they won't take...👍

- Nowehere in your CA-1 will you have to stay post call longer than 7:30AM... 👍

- Nowehere in your CA-1 will you have to have an aphasic patient in your ER brought from some obscure nursing home with no past medical history or a point of where to start... 👍

- Nowehere in your CA-1 will you be forced to put a femoral line because all the med interns are scared shaitless of IJs and Subclavians 👍

We will be quick on our feet and good with our hands, and when the shiznit is done...we'll be on our way home.
None of this 'calling in consults' and 'chart checking' for attending notes crap. Or so I hope.

Stay strong and give bitchy/dingus nurses hell. 😡 If it comes between you and them, write for q15min vitals check, and file incident reports when they don't comply. Teach them not to fudge with prelims (especially anesthesia).

1/3 of the time done, a little more pain to go.

- K 😎

 

[VentdependenT]

Have a beer, find a lady/ies, lift, download music, watch a funny ass movie every day (I propose something the on level of Ali G or Lock Stock & two smoking barrels), find other interns who are cool and commiserate as much as possible, treat yourself to some tastey food.

I throw in smoking with the ER nurses which usually helps. It will end man. I understand your pain.

If you ever feel like you are gonna crack just rip a giant fart behind the attending who is driving you most crazy, say hello, and watch his visage take a turn for the worst from a distance.

Gas rocks and we only have 8 months to go man!

Ventypoo

 

[Senor_Dinero]

Just remember a certain time of day: 4:20........'nuff said. 😀

 

[djipopo]

If you ever feel like you are gonna crack just rip a giant fart behind the attending who is driving you most crazy, say hello, and watch his visage take a turn for the worst from a distance.

dude you are crazy!

 

[Krafty]

Have a beer, find a lady/ies, lift, download music, watch a funny ass movie every day (I propose something the on level of Ali G or Lock Stock & two smoking barrels), find other interns who are cool and commiserate as much as possible, treat yourself to some tastey food.

Good call. Hey, how bout listing some top funny mvies to top off a tough day.

pix:
1) Austing Powers I (FIRST ONE ONLY)
2) Dazed and Confused
3) Ferris Bueller's Day Off
4) Clerks

(not in any particular order) Additions?

RespeK

 

[Swaydaa]

dumb and dumber works for me

 

[UTSouthwestern]

You won't believe how much easier life gets after your medicine internship. You hate it now, but you will be way ahead of the game when you hit your CA-1 year because you will be able to formulate your anesthetic plan more quickly than your colleagues and your stamina will be geared toward the hectic chase of IM. You will find yourself with more time than you can possibly imagine now and you won't know what to do with it.

 

[VentdependenT]

Good call. Hey, how bout listing some top funny mvies to top off a tough day.

pix:
1) Austing Powers I (FIRST ONE ONLY)
2) Dazed and Confused
3) Ferris Bueller's Day Off
4) Clerks

(not in any particular order) Additions?

RespeK

Go
Bad Santa
Swingers/Made
Snatch
Fight Club...I actually laugh at those antics. Yeah I'm a sicko.
Animal house
Curb your enthusiasm, South Park, and The Chapelle show Always do it for me as does Mr. Show. You can DL most episodes on Limewire.

You can always make yourself feel better by slapping your categorical medicine and surg colleages on the back, shoot em a wink, and say God bless ya for putting up with this.

 

[powermd]

Thanks guys. Girls too, if there are any around here. Krafty- my PM box is no longer full.

I've always found Office Space a great movie to watch when I'm sick of my job.

I'm off to work in a few moments where I will 1) dig through nursing boards and tally vital ranges on 5 unit patients 2) write ten orders to replete mag, K, Ca, and sometime Ph. 3) dig through charts to read indecipherable attending notes so I know "what's going on" with the patients. 4) Transcribe all the labs into my notes. 5) Check the EKGs. 6) Check the CXRs. 7) Check the Echos. 8) Check the cath reports. 9) Call rads for reads not yet "in the computer". 10) Spend 3 hours walking around the unit getting pimped and feeling incompetent for not knowing long lists of criteria for problems I don't care to know about. 11) Miss conference/lunch because rounds took too long. 12) "Call the consults" too late in the afternoon for anything to be done on my patients today. 13) Eventually sign out because- thank God, today is not a call day. I would become superfluous if they just hired a secretary and a PA. Maybe just a secretary, if she (or he) was really good.

 

[timtye78]

With great enjoyment I have read this thread! Not happy that intern's lives suck everywhere, but at least we are together on this Also funny how similar our experiences are.

What helps me literally drag my bod out of the warm bed at my apartment everyday, is that next year and the years afterwards my attendings will be doing the same things, checking serial urine electrolytes, asking people if they've had a bowel movement, and "tell me about your diarrhea?" Walking through clouds of "code browns." Oh yes, I will really miss working on an admit or two, and the pager goes off "Yeah, Tim, this is DrX in ER. We have three more for you...this is a 79 y/o from NH and...blah,blah,blah."

I look forward to abandoning case presentations in medicine. "Now I know you are going into anesthesia, but do you know why it is important to know..." Blah,blah,blah..

 

[Krafty]

I've always found Office Space a great movie to watch when I'm sick of my job.

Damn.
I can't BELIEVE I forgot Office Space. Life is good when you're a gangsta.
And Go. VentD, you got some good ch-izz-oices up there. Solid work

I'm off to work in a few moments where I will 1) dig through nursing boards and tally vital ranges on 5 unit patients 2) write ten orders to replete mag, K, Ca, and sometime Ph. 3) dig through charts to read indecipherable attending notes so I know "what's going on" with the patients. 4) Transcribe all the labs into my notes. 5) Check the EKGs. 6) Check the CXRs. 7) Check the Echos. 8) Check the cath reports. 9) Call rads for reads not yet "in the computer". 10) Spend 3 hours walking around the unit getting pimped and feeling incompetent for not knowing long lists of criteria for problems I don't care to know about. 11) Miss conference/lunch because rounds took too long. 12) "Call the consults" too late in the afternoon for anything to be done on my patients today. 13) Eventually sign out because- thank God, today is not a call day.

Actually I gave up on trying to decipher the attending notes anymore. They don't have anything new to say, other than what the consultants suggest anyway. Plus they're all practicing medicine from whatever year they graduated residency in. I guess when the HMOs are making you see 50 patients to break even, you don't really have the time, nor the will to read.


So I mentioned an idea to some of my co-interns about a weekly, or maybe bi-weekly funny movie night. People were receptive. I think we're gonna go for Swingers as soon as I get it from www.BarterBee.com

You're like a BEAR MAN, you've got these...CLAWS...and these...FANGS...and she's just like this little bunny...
-Sue

Keep on truckin'
-Special K

 

[Wahoowa]

dumb and dumber works for me

Dumb and Dumber is a classic. Check out Meet the Parents and Death Becomes Her.

 

[Lonestar]

My first 4 months involved medicine, MICU (Q6), CCU, medicine. God bless those medicine months. Presenting patients just sucks. Fortunately for me, medical students help me out with all the social bull****. In exchange, I let them go home between 2-3 everyday. The attending does not give a rats ass of what we do, and he certainly does not teach the students anything. I was the first one to show anyone of my 5 students how to read an EKG and CXR in their 3rd year. Our rounds last 30 mins (sitting) even with pt list of 15 for two interns. Attending wants to get as many folks out the door as possible. Gotta love this guy. Regardless, Medicine is scutwork and lots of it.

My upcoming months include Radiology, SICU, Anesthesia, ENT, Pulm, ER. God bless the integrated transitional year.

Good movies:
Pitch Black
House of Sand and Fog
Dune (yes the 4 hr movie)
Airplane

 

[LilJohn]

Powermd, is it the program you are at, or internship year in general that is so bad? If you wouldn't mind sharing your thoughts of NYC PGY-1 year programs, I would really appreciate the heads up. (Similar to your post on NYC Anesthesia programs).

 

[Huskie]

Good call. Hey, how bout listing some top funny mvies to top off a tough day.

pix:
1) Austing Powers I (FIRST ONE ONLY)
2) Dazed and Confused
3) Ferris Bueller's Day Off
4) Clerks

(not in any particular order) Additions?

RespeK

Ron Burgundy is the man!

 

[CambieMD]

For what it's worth man, when I did my away rotation . . . I occasionally bumped into some of the anest interns. They always looked as if the life had been sucked out of them and they'd be happier chewing their arms off.

The CA-1s, however, had a much brighter outlook. They talked about how much they were enjoying this year and constantly bragged about how anesthesia is second to none in the medical field.

You guys/girls have done several months of medicine. I have done about eight years of primary care if you count my internships and residency. Yes I did say two internships. I was told by a PD that I am working much harder in primary care than I would in a gas residency. Working in the hospital I see the stark contrast between my schedule and the anesthesia folks schedule.Do not get me wrong, they work hard but their work has an end point.

Please forgive me for repeating myself over and over again when I say, Anesthesia Rocks 😎.

CambieMD

p.s. Good luck with the match. The truth is that just about all of you will match. Look at recent match statistics.

 

[powermd]

The program I'm at is fine, in fact, I think it's a great program- the patient population is good (for IM..), ancillary services are adequate, fellow residents are great people, the physical environment is good, the food doesn't suck, and call is reasonable. That doesn't change the fact that I hate the responsibilities of being a medical intern.

I'm starting another month of ward medicine tomorrow, I already have 7 rocks on my census for whom it appears, from the previous month's notes, both the primary team and consultants all just pretend to actually be helping the patient, when the real problem is 1) medicine does too good a job keeping people with no quality of life living, and 2) placement to live out the rest of their diseased prison term, until death sets them free. I hope that didn't sound too macabre.

 

[Krafty]

The program I'm at is fine, in fact, I think it's a great program- the patient population is good (for IM..), ancillary services are adequate, fellow residents are great people, the physical environment is good, the food doesn't suck, and call is reasonable.

I'm at one of those too. People, patients, call, stuff is all good. I just realize that I SINCERELY don't like the specialty of internal medicine. Once I admit that to myself the one ward month I have left seems fine. Elective cruise for the rest of the year baby.

I'm starting another month of ward medicine tomorrow, I already have 7 rocks on my census for whom it appears, from the previous month's notes, both the primary team and consultants all just pretend to actually be helping the patient, when the real problem is 1) medicine does too good a job keeping people with no quality of life living, and 2) placement to live out the rest of their diseased prison term, until death sets them free. I hope that didn't sound too macabre.

You might be overstating it just a bit. Assuming a lot of us (I dont dare to say most) will try to avoid the chronics epidemics of the American (and increasingly the World in general) public - of DM/CAD/HTN I still feel for the people that weren't so lucky. That's the way it goes. Keep your head at a slightly upward direction and remember next year - if it isn't going to kill the paient inthe next 24hours - refer it to the primary.

Rock'n'roll.