Apr
16
Don’t Tell the Spartans
April 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment
(Many of you are about to start third year and are looking forward to it with feelings of both anticipation and dread. You know that it’s going to be the real start of your medical career where you finally get to see what all the fuss is about. At the same time, despite the propaganda, [...]
Mar
25
Family Medicine (Some medical schools have a formal Family Medicine rotation while others have a regular continuity clinic that runs concurrently with your other rotations in third and fourth year. Osteopathic medical schools hit Family Medicine and primary care like a pimp with his biaches, that is, hard and often.-PB) Your Real Responsibilities: Nothing. You’re [...]
Feb
20
Panda’s Quick n’ Dirty Guide to Third Year Rotations: Part 5
February 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment
(Some schools offer students the chance to rotate in the Emergency Department in third year while some only offer it as an elective in fourth year.-PB) Emergency Medicine Your Real Responsibilities: Nothing. You’re a medical student. You don’t count. But that’s all right. We’re happy to have you. It’s true you’re not much help but [...]
Feb
18
Panda’s Quick n’ Dirty Guide to Third Year Rotations: Part 4
February 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment
(Disclaimer: I hated surgery with the burning fire of a thousand suns so you may have a different experience-PB) General Surgery Your Real Responsibilities: Nothing. You’re a medical student. You don’t count. Your job on the surgery team is to be the butt of jokes and to give everybody someone to laugh at. Hey, I [...]
Feb
9
Panda’s Quick n’ Dirty Guide to Third Year Rotations: Part 3
February 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Internal Medicine (“Medicine”) Your Real Responsibilities: Nothing. You’re a medical student. Remember those red-shirted crew members on Star Trek? That’s kind of like you. Your only function is to walk around filling out the scene. Sometimes bad things will happen to you, sometimes you will provide comic relief, but mostly you will just fade into [...]
Feb
4
Panda’s Quick and Dirty Guide to Third Year Rotations: Part 2
February 4, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Pediatrics Your Real Responsibilities: Nothing. You’re a medical student. You don’t count. I hear that in Arizona they’re going to replace medical students with migrant workers. Sure, they’ll have to pay them minimum wage but this is peanuts compared to the cost of educating a medical student. This way the hospital will save money, the [...]
Feb
3
Panda’s Quick n’ Dirty Guide to Third Year Rotations: Part 1
February 3, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB/Gyn) Your Real Responsibilities: Nothing. You’re a student and you don’t count. Every medical student in the hospital could vanish and apart from less crowding on the elevators, nobody would notice. Your Pretend Responsibilities: Following pregnant woman pre-, ante-, and post-partum. Assisting in vaginal and Cesarean deliveries. Assisting in gynecological surgeries including [...]
Nov
14
Tomorrow Will Suck
November 14, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Third Year in a Nutshell I wasn’t really looking forward to patient contact. Because we spent all of first and second year far removed from the clinical practice of medicine I paid lip service to the idea that something was lacking in our medical education but to tell the truth, we had a pretty good [...]
Feb
18
Scrubbing In: Part 2
February 18, 2006 | Leave a Comment
All Dressed Up, Nowhere to Go Are you essential to the running of the OR? Will your skills be of any value? Of course not. On the other hand, just because you don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to surgery does not mean that the team does not [...]
Feb
15
Scrubbing In: Part 1
February 15, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Yes, the Scrub Nurse is Laughing at You The dreaded day has arrived. You are on your first surgery rotation. After a brief orientation you are told to report to the operating room to “scrub in” for your first surgey. Get ready to run the gauntlet. You have the potential, in the next few hours, [...]