Weblog » Archives » January 2007

  • ABSITE

    Every year on the same day at the same time every general surgery resident across the nation takes the dreaded ABSITE (I think it stands for American Board of Surgery In-Training Exam, or something like that). It's the s…

  • My life in Technicolor

    Medical education being the long and convoluted journey that it is, I sometimes have a hard time explaining to people what point in my career I'm at."Well, right now, I'm an intern, or a first-year resident, in general s…

  • $Pesos

    My trip to Chile involves taking a domestic airline from the capital of Santiago to Punta Arenas, the Chilean gateway to the southern region of Patagonia. This domestic airline (which I understand is only a couple years …

  • Chilly

    The tour is booked, the plane tickets bought, and the call schedule adjusted.February 2 begins my four straight weeks of vacation (the only vacation for the whole of my internship), and the first twelve days will be spen…

  • Goat lab

    Goat lab this week was -- uhh -- interesting. We were supposed to do a thoracoscopic sympathectomy, but after introducing a couple ports, it became evident that we couldn't identify the usual anatomical landmarks within …

  • Sports!

    Since the military hospital is about forty miles away from my home institution, the visiting civilian residents (such as myself) are put up in an apartment about six miles from the Air Force base. It's actually a very ni…

  • A good black weekend

    I was on call this past Saturday. The majority of my day was spent napping, reading, falling asleep, and surfing the Internet on the one computer in the military hospital that allows me to access Web sites other than gov…

  • Knife thing

    If you've never been into an operating room before, you may be amazed at the sheer number and variety of different stainless steel instruments used in any particular operation. A hundred tools may be laid out for a simpl…

  • Porcine specimen

    This week I started my four-week tour of duty at the Air Force base military hospital 45 minutes away from my apartment. (This in and of itself is a whole different blog topic.)One of the cool things about working at the…

  • Done with CT

    CT surgery pushed me to my limits of patient care. While I got along with the attendings and most of the nurses just fine, the patients tested my compassion, my knowledge of medicine, and my comfort zone of medical pract…

  • Mouthwash

    Because of med school graduation, the beginning of internship, a change in insurance, and a cross-country move, I haven't been to a dentist in over a year. This marks the longest interval in my life where I haven't seen …

  • 2007

    I've never spent New Year's Eve in a hospital before until last night. With two minutes left before the ball dropped, all the nurses in the SICU poured out cups of sparkling apple cider. When midnight came, there was a c…

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