The Internship Blues

[Toadkiller Dog]

Anybody else out there busy mucking their way through the miseries of internship? Here I am, on call for the ICU, surfing the web at 5 am while I wait for a patient in respiratory failure to be brought in by transfer.

When I get done with that, I get to pre-round, then round, on all my pulmonary patients who are busy hocking up big loogies. Then I'll hopefully get done by noon so I can go home and stay under the 30-hour limit and not get yelled at by the PD!

Oh well. I guess if you wanna play in the bigs, you gotta come up through the minors.

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[benit100]

What? You mean I can't get drafted straight out of high school like LeBron? (By the way, I may have spelled that name wrong, not really being one to watch basketball myself...)

 

[rubensan]

hey toadkiller,
yeah, i've been there! though i believe we will still be in the minors during our 1st year of ophtho. gotta love those 430 AM ICU admissions. thank god for respiratory therapists! hope you had a good post-call sleep.

Anybody else out there busy mucking their way through the miseries of internship? Here I am, on call for the ICU, surfing the web at 5 am while I wait for a patient in respiratory failure to be brought in by transfer.

When I get done with that, I get to pre-round, then round, on all my pulmonary patients who are busy hocking up big loogies. Then I'll hopefully get done by noon so I can go home and stay under the 30-hour limit and not get yelled at by the PD!

Oh well. I guess if you wanna play in the bigs, you gotta come up through the minors.

 

[JR]

hey toadkiller,
yeah, i've been there! though i believe we will still be in the minors during our 1st year of ophtho. gotta love those 430 AM ICU admissions. thank god for respiratory therapists! hope you had a good post-call sleep.

The pain will be different next year, but it'll be there. Although, everytime I do a r/o shaken baby or papilledema on the peds floor, I secretly thank god that I am in ophthalmology .

And, look at it this way- just a little over 6 months left!

 

[Retinamark]

Every time I walk through a medical ward & get "that smell", I thank God I chose ophthalmology
Every time I walk through the ER & see patients on the screen with back pain, or "not coping", I know I made the right decision
Hang in there, it is all worth it (I hope)

 

[rubensan]

ahhh, "not coping" my favorite call from the ER for a medicine admission!

 

[Mirror Form]

ahhh, "not coping" my favorite call from the ER for a medicine admission!

My favorite one that I've now seen multiple times is: "patient came in with chronic back pain, and we gave them so much IV demerol that they can't get out of bed, much less go home anytime soon, so they have to be admitted."

 

[FlyingDoc]

My favorite one that I've now seen multiple times is: "patient came in with chronic back pain, and we gave them so much IV demerol that they can't get out of bed, much less go home anytime soon, so they have to be admitted."

Try "this patient had an acute dystonic reaction to the phenergan we gave her for the mild N/V she was having so we gave her a total of 150 of benadryl and 10 of ativan. Now she won't wake up, so you have to admit her" (because we snowed her)...

 

[limbus]

Try "this patient had an acute dystonic reaction to the phenergan we gave her for the mild N/V she was having so we gave her a total of 150 of benadryl and 10 of ativan. Now she won't wake up, so you have to admit her" (because we snowed her)...

I've been in denial the last 6 months. Trying to enjoy the medicine internship in hopes that it would somehow pass by just that little bit faster.

"So we need to admit this guy because we can't control his pain with vicodin, and we need to free up rooms in the ER. Yeah, I know he's been here since 10 am and it's 2 am, but we just sent his wife home. Oh, you mean he's not in pain anymore? Well, too bad, we are admitting him for pain control."

The freaking bane of my existance this year.

Can't wait to cut on some eyes....

 

[Andrew_Doan]

Hang in there... it will get better real soon!

 

[Visionary]

Yes, the prelim year is a pain; however, it makes you appreciate ophtho all the more. When I run into my former classmates who are in other specialties, they typically ask "so how are you liking ophtho?" My standard response, without hesitation, is "I really love coming to work every day." I have never heard the same from them. One of their responses sort of sums it up: "I'm still waiting for that feeling." You've chosen a great speciality, and the wait is more than worth it. Heck, I waited for 9 years to get here (PhD, then MD).