Official MCW Class of 2009 Thread

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Xandie said:
Oh yeah, and since Don and I don't really have a thread (we do, but honestly?), I wanted to post this here. I am tired of writing thank you notes! I actually enjoy the process, since I spend the time really thinking about that interview and remembering and it helps me to put everything in perspective, but still! I'm on number 26 and I don't even want to know how many more I need to do.

Back to the grindstone.
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This is what life was like before the assembly line was invented.

side note:

"Who throws a shoe? Honestly! You fight like a woman!"
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D5oKEVqQJg[/YOUTUBE]
 
Xandie said:
Oh yeah, and since Don and I don't really have a thread (we do, but honestly?), I wanted to post this here. I am tired of writing thank you notes! I actually enjoy the process, since I spend the time really thinking about that interview and remembering and it helps me to put everything in perspective, but still! I'm on number 26 and I don't even want to know how many more I need to do.

Back to the grindstone.
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Sick of thank you notes, sick of interviewing (only one left, but ugh, what a grind).

My rank order list is due Jan 3rd, and Urology Match day is January 21st. 😱

So I'll be totally checked out as of January 22nd. 👍
 
donnyfire said:
Sick of thank you notes, sick of interviewing (only one left, but ugh, what a grind).

My rank order list is due Jan 3rd, and Urology Match day is January 21st. 😱

So I'll be totally checked out as of January 22nd. 👍
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Do you get a special match day ceremony in january in addition to getting the one in march off?

Good luck! =)
 
donnyfire said:
Sick of thank you notes, sick of interviewing (only one left, but ugh, what a grind).

My rank order list is due Jan 3rd, and Urology Match day is January 21st. 😱

So I'll be totally checked out as of January 22nd. 👍
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Prior to your urology rotation, what led you toward that field? I was talking to Ashers yesterday, and I'm starting to get a bit concerned, because I won't have much time for elective rotations before I have to start applying for residencies. Any comments?
 
TheProwler said:
Prior to your urology rotation, what led you toward that field? I was talking to Ashers yesterday, and I'm starting to get a bit concerned, because I won't have much time for elective rotations before I have to start applying for residencies. Any comments?
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Was that yesterday? Wow. I seriously need to get over this stupid cold, and get back into real time.

Here's the generic SDN answer, "shadow people in all the free time you have as an M2 because as an M3, your time is not your own." Blarg. Or, take advantage of the ER elective that you guys will have access to next year.

A lot of the M3 electives were pretty lame. There were like 20 family med options, sports med, derm (only in may and june), uro, ortho etc. When we were going through our electives last year, I really didn't want any aside from ortho (that were available), and there are other specialties I would like to experience -- maybe derm (so I can see how I'll die from melanoma, or be extra prepared to spot the BCC or SCC on myself), endocrine, rheumatology, but noooooo.... these are all M4 electives when we don't even have much time for those. Boo! to all the stupid required things.
 
We just had the surgery rotation ortho lecture, and i must say it was absolutely terrible. Boring. Terribly boring. And my f-ing PDA is getting worse.


I think I'll be hanging out at Froedtert all night due to a potential liver. This waiting game is awesome.
 
Agent Splat said:
We just had the surgery rotation ortho lecture, and i must say it was absolutely terrible. Boring. Terribly boring. And my f-ing PDA is getting worse.


I think I'll be hanging out at Froedtert all night due to a potential liver. This waiting game is awesome.
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We didn't even get an ortho lecture in Sept/Oct. And the test questions weren't quite what I was expecting on that subject.

Actually, we had quite a few lectures cancelled in surgery.
 
akpete said:
We didn't even get an ortho lecture in Sept/Oct. And the test questions weren't quite what I was expecting on that subject.

Actually, we had quite a few lectures cancelled in surgery.
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same here, plus we have a reduced lecture schedule thanks to the holiday break.

The time is 2245...still no word on our potential liver.
 
oh, and what's the deal with the surgery OSCE? can someone break it down for me? thanks.
 
gotta love this:
For those concerned about the upcoming MCW ski trip, the OSCE schedule is now posted in the OSCE folder under the Lessons tab. Please note, those that may be scheduled on the 17th, this schedule is non-negotiable and we will not reschedule anyone who is away attending the ski trip, as the trip is not related to academics. Please plan accordingly.
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No flexibility. Why not say that students on those days will be responsible for trading with another student?
 
TheProwler said:
Prior to your urology rotation, what led you toward that field? I was talking to Ashers yesterday, and I'm starting to get a bit concerned, because I won't have much time for elective rotations before I have to start applying for residencies. Any comments?
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Make no mistake, you have no time for electives. Not at this school.

For me, the idea was sort of planted first year (although I was still heavily EM then), but not much action was taken on my part prior to third year. I figured out that I liked working with my hands during my research time (rabbit surgery), and going through the surgery clerkship hooked me on the OR. I knew I didn't want to do Gen Surg, so that left the surgical specialties. If you look at Uro, it's really a great field. More than the typical "it's a combo of medicine and surgery" line you usually hear. It ranges from clinic work, minor procedure, endoscopy, interventional radiology (tons of fluro work), all the way up to major 12 hour open cases. On top of all that, there is tremendous sub-specialization. Not to mention one of the better lifestyles among surgeons. Reading up on the other specialties, nothing else really appealed to me as much. So here I am.
 
Agent Splat said:
oh, and what's the deal with the surgery OSCE? can someone break it down for me? thanks.
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As I recall, the surgery OSCE was pass/fail, and you could only fail it if you did something egregious. It was more like show up/fail. Pretty straight forward initial exam sort of stuff; abdominal pain, etc. I don't really remember any details of it other than that it was very easy.

donnyfire said:
Make no mistake, you have no time for electives. Not at this school.
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Not that my opinion was asked for, but since when does that stop me? *evil laugh*

Alright, so I did these statistics using "Charting Outcomes from the Match", which only looks at NRMP data. Sorry early match folks, but I'm just not that ambitious.

Of the 14293 US seniors that applied in the match, 73% went into specialties that are covered by your third year core clerkships. The other 27% were in: derm, ER, ortho, path (although you could make an argument about that one, but it's only 300 students), radiology, rad onc or PM&R. There are third year electives available in ER (or, there used to be), ortho, radiology and PM&R. As I recall, some of the early matches (ENT, uro, etc) also have third year electives.

So the problem is this: if you have absolutely no idea what you want to do, and you don't like any of the core clerkships, then yes, you might have issues. But if you have an inkling (med vs surg, primary care vs. consultant, potpurri, etc), you should be able to target your third year to help you to rule in/rule out some things. I had my elective first and took radiology, because I thought that would be useful no matter what I did. And yes, I knew I wanted to do OB before the clerkship, but there was always the possibility I would change my mind.

Also, the beginning of your fourth year is a time to take electives to solidify your decision. July especially, but August as well. You can't submit ERAS until Sep 1, and letters of rec don't need to be in immediately, although it certainly doesn't hurt. The process of getting your fourth year schedule is a little strange, but most people get something in their top choice. I think I got either number 5 or 6 (we rank between 100 and 225 choices) as one of my courses. So if you've got a few things you're deciding between, you'll just put those up top and deal with the rest. You might end up with a weird elective, or bad timing for your med sub-I (those poor April people), but those are the decisions you make when you design your schedule.

Wow, I wrote a novel. Carry on.
 
Ashers said:
CJD contamination closed Froedtert's ORs!

Why couldn't this happen when I'm on surgery and not CPR?
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whoa whoa whoa, you mean something we learned about IN school actually happened?

You have between .04 and 50% risk of getting CJD of you snort something off of the or floor in those ORs
 
How are your PDAs working out? Do they have integrated paging?
 
indo said:
How are your PDAs working out? Do they have integrated paging?
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PDAs are great for lots of things, I'll let the M-3s fill you in. You can page from them only if you have the internet available (not generally in the hospital, because wifi can be a HIPPA/security problem).
 
I gave up on using the internet on my PDA about a week into having the thing. It's terrible for that.
 
My PDA mostly only serves to weigh down one side of my white coat enough to make it twist around my neck weird. That, and annoy me with iForms.
 
surgery is especially awesome cause you have to do 50 iforms. luckily some of these patients have so many comorbidities you can get about 5 iforms per patient.
 
and you have to do a number of iForms to prove that you've been exposed to assorted conditions?
 
TheProwler said:
and you have to do a number of iForms to prove that you've been exposed to assorted conditions?
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yeah. not like they really look into it that closely, and some course directors actually encourage you to be a little creative. I had a patient that had pepcid on her list of inpatient meds so I checked off that I had seen a patient with GERD, even though it never came up in her care. minus one iform!
 
Family med you have to do 80 in 4 weeks, and get 80% of the top 20 diagnoses. You get graded on that. I used some liberties with that... not like making up patients, but sorta like Splat's pepcid thing. Pt comes in for HTN check, she starts crying because she's depressed and illiterate... BINGO! +1 iform for depression.

CPR has iforms too, and I don't get them, especially with the paper we have to fill out. I also don't see how we're going to get the minimum number of art lines, IVs, ventilations, intubations, spinals/epidurals done being in the OR in 6 days total.

Day 1 -- 1st day, attendings don't trust you to do much of anything, you shadow and mask ventilate
Day 2 -- CJD shuts down OR, case that's supposed to have art line doesn't get it even though it's the only case to go

ugh


BTW... Gimlet, Bejeweled will always rock. How else could I have played it for hours a day while "studying" for the MCAT? And, my residents and attendings are trying to convince me to go into anesthesiology. Maybe I'll consider it if my OB/gyn grade excludes me from ortho. I like the pharm stuff. 😉
 
Ashers said:
Family med you have to do 80 in 4 weeks, and get 80% of the top 20 diagnoses. You get graded on that. I used some liberties with that... not like making up patients, but sorta like Splat's pepcid thing. Pt comes in for HTN check, she starts crying because she's depressed and illiterate... BINGO! +1 iform for depression.

CPR has iforms too, and I don't get them, especially with the paper we have to fill out. I also don't see how we're going to get the minimum number of art lines, IVs, ventilations, intubations, spinals/epidurals done being in the OR in 6 days total.

Day 1 -- 1st day, attendings don't trust you to do much of anything, you shadow and mask ventilate
Day 2 -- CJD shuts down OR, case that's supposed to have art line doesn't get it even though it's the only case to go

ugh


BTW... Gimlet, Bejeweled will always rock. How else could I have played it for hours a day while "studying" for the MCAT? And, my residents and attendings are trying to convince me to go into anesthesiology. Maybe I'll consider it if my OB/gyn grade excludes me from ortho. I like the pharm stuff. 😉
Click to expand...


if you can't get into ortho we should start a colo-rectal practice together!
 
Ashers said:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The one case today I was in was a bowel resection for Crohn's Disease. I didn't like block 3 anatomy. I liked blocks 1 and 4 (minus the pelvis).
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bowel resections are sweet. those GIA tools rock my socks.
 
TheProwler said:
Dr. Ashers won't be doing hip replacements?
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pffft. when we're all doctors, it will be the future. your limbs are hanging loose at your sides. Yours legs, they ain't got nothing to do. Some machine's doing that for you.
 
Agent Splat said:
pffft. when we're all doctors, it will be the future. your limbs are hanging loose at your sides. Yours legs, they ain't got nothing to do. Some machine's doing that for you.
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What will doctors be doing, exactly?
 
Ashers - ever been to Copper Mountain or Breckenridge? The house I'm staying at (for free) in Colorado is in Silverthorne, which is about 10 miles away from either of those. I'm really psyched - I compared the biggest place I've ever skiied before with those places on Google Earth, and it's crazy.
 
TheProwler said:
Ashers - ever been to Copper Mountain or Breckenridge? The house I'm staying at (for free) in Colorado is in Silverthorne, which is about 10 miles away from either of those. I'm really psyched - I compared the biggest place I've ever skiied before with those places on Google Earth, and it's crazy.
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I've been to Copper. It's really big and fun and busy (I had cell phone service all over the mountain). All those resorts are in the same area. You basically drive along a road, and it's like turn here for Loveland, Vail this way. I'd recommend also going to A-basin (where the locals go -- not as many tourists, not as busy, no cell phone service) they got a new lift this year -- according to the news. A-basin's near Keystone where they have night skiing.

I haven't been to Breckenridge... I was going to go there at Thanksgiving, but my parents canceled the trip because I wasn't sure if I'd have it off.

My new snowboard wants to be used on a real mountain. =(
 
good Lord, was reading the Step 1 forums as intimidating for you guys last year as it is for me? 😛
 
TheProwler said:
good Lord, was reading the Step 1 forums as intimidating for you guys last year as it is for me? 😛
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The what now?

Myself, I'm too busy checking out assisted living facilities for after I retire.
 
TheProwler said:
good Lord, was reading the Step 1 forums as intimidating for you guys last year as it is for me? 😛
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yes.

but I also felt like I knew what to do to be prepared from reading it. my execution of that plan could've been better though...
 
organ procurement (aka "harvesting") is really weird. Never thought I'd see something like that, let alone actually assist with it.
 
TheProwler said:
good Lord, was reading the Step 1 forums as intimidating for you guys last year as it is for me? 😛
Click to expand...

Honestly, I'm glad I wasn't really into SDN when I was preparing for Step 1, because I was plenty stressed out without the forums.

Come to think of it, you shouldn't be thinking about that yet anyway, just rocking path and pharm is the most important thing for Step 1, you can do dedicated Step 1 studying after classes end.
 
Apparently they wanted the iforms for peds all in by yesterday. Oops.

I really hate this shelf on wed, osce on friday afternoon thing.
 
akpete said:
Apparently they wanted the iforms for peds all in by yesterday. Oops.

I really hate this shelf on wed, osce on friday afternoon thing.
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i really can't wait to replace this horrid PDA i have. it's been restarting itself all night over and over and only given me about 2 chances to try to finish iForms up, and usually let's me get one done if i'm lucky before it restarts itself again. when i don't need it next month it's getting freaking replaced by warranty.
 
achybrachy said:
Honestly, I'm glad I wasn't really into SDN when I was preparing for Step 1, because I was plenty stressed out without the forums.

Come to think of it, you shouldn't be thinking about that yet anyway, just rocking path and pharm is the most important thing for Step 1, you can do dedicated Step 1 studying after classes end.
Click to expand...
I'd like to be at least a little familiar with my review books before I actually start studying for boards. I'm planning on buying some review books in a few weeks.
 
achybrachy said:
Honestly, I'm glad I wasn't really into SDN when I was preparing for Step 1, because I was plenty stressed out without the forums.

Come to think of it, you shouldn't be thinking about that yet anyway, just rocking path and pharm is the most important thing for Step 1, you can do dedicated Step 1 studying after classes end.
Click to expand...

I didn't look at the step 1 forums until after I took step 1.

I agree. Study path/pharm/etc. I bought Qbank questions way early with good intentions of doing some every night, but that didn't happen. I did maybe 20 before finals were done, and I still finished all of them.
 
thought I'd post a few of these

l_ae935b26806c88ff76cb4964a07cd475.jpg


l_6832893b908dd6bddb4f18fa2e8afcdb.jpg


1185926617391cu8.jpg
 
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