BABIES

tomorrow.  my uterus is all a-flutter.  so many teeny tiny fingers and teeny tiny toes!!!
 

everyone knows the it's the stork who reallllly delivers babies

just kidding - as doctors, we get to help the babies hatch

Anne Geddes, making babies even cuter (and creepier) since 1956.

Adventures in Nomenclature: Jersey Finger

When first reading about the Jersey Finger in the surgery review book (I know, I'm still stuck on surgery, but the disorders just have some great names), I thought maybe it was an injury that had to do with the middle finger, and that it was named after the beautiful state of New Jersey due to Jerseyans' (Jersey-ites?) propensity for cursing people on the roads.

Turns out that's false.  It's called the Jersey Finger because it's the injury that occurs when someone playing football (or I guess any sport?) gets their finger caught on another player's jersey as that player is running away, thus causing injury to the flexor digitorum profundus tendon and keeping the finger in forced extension.  Less fun, and also less relevant to me.

photo credit

But come on, if this happened to the middle finger, wouldn't you think it would be a cursing reference?  

Also, I'm bad at computers (espeeeeeecially for someone who calls herself a blogger) and I have no idea how to flip that image so it's not upside down.  Help?

Superlatives

And the award for the most alliterative symptom goes to . . . [drum roll please] . . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

Scintillating Scotoma!

The runner-up prize goes to Horton's Histamine Headaches (whether or not it's the same Horton from Horton Hears a Who is still up for debate).

Hmmm

I kind of really like neurology, like, a lot (which makes me even sadder that two of the four weeks of the rotation were stuck on neurosurgery).  This may require some exploring...

Not For Me

Now that I am officially done with surgery, I think I can safely say that it is not for me.  I like clinic wayyyy too much (surgeons are supposed to hate clinic with a vengeance), and I also really love writing notes (cue everyone ahead of me in the medical world rolling their eyes and thinking: oh just you wait, honey).

Don't get me wrong - being in the OR is really really awesome, and the idea of being able to go inside someone and just fixing them with your bare (but scrubbed and gloved) hands is so freaking cool (and I totally get the whole God complex thing - you are fixing someone WITH YOUR HANDS).

But once I got past the wow factor of seeing someone's insides manipulated, I've realized that my favorite part of surgery is actually seeing the patient each day after the operation on morning rounds and seeing what progress they've made.

I like hearing their stories; reading their charts; asking them about their ability to poop, pass gas, and ambulate ("have you passed any gas from below?" "you mean farted?"); meeting their family when they come to visit.


I've noticed that it's the lowest-level residents who spend the most time on the floors with the patients, and the least amount of time in the OR, and as you get more senior, you get to spend more and more time operating.  This makes sense, as the final goal of a surgical residency is, of course, to be doing surgeries (duh).  But I think I like what the lower residents do better!




Plus, I'm already bored of some surgeries.  After I saw like, two thyroidectomies, I was totally over them and chose not to scrub into any because I felt like I had already been-there-done-that.  But the same surgeon does at least a few of them every single day.  You probably lose some of the wow factor after your 50 billionth thyroidectomy.

Plus plus, writing long, detailed notes is like writing a story!  You get all this mumbo jumbo of information (uch, patients as historians are the worsttttt, amiright?), and you get to organize that info in such a way so that it is coherent and will make logical sense to anyone else who reads it.  Challenge accepted!  And rounding is just telling that story, hearing other people's stories, and coming up with the next chapter (sort of?).  I think I could handle the whole rounding-until-noon thing if I get me some comfier walking shoes.

Plus plus plus, the hourssssssss.


Soooo... internal medicine? yesnomaybe?

Quotes From the OR

Scrub Nurse: Put a towel down on the floor, don't make a mess in my OR!

Surgeon: But if we don't make a mess, how will anyone know we did anything?

All in a Row

Today's post is just an observation.  On many rotations (and so far it seems like neurosurgery especially since we're (understandably) not trusted to do a whole lot on our own), the med students are like little ducklings that follow our mother duck (the resident) around blindly.

(for clarification)

I have this vision that one day the resident is going to just stop short, and each of us is going to just just bump into the person in front of us, one after another.  This hasn't happened ....yet.  But one morning this week on the way to the cafeteria after rounds, one of the residents walked past the entrance to go to the bathroom and everyone did continue to follow until we realized where he was going.  Oops.