Thanks?

Nurse: Ah, you get to go home soon right?  You look tired.

Me: I literally just got here 10 minutes ago.

but thanks for noticing

Step 2 CK Is Over!!

Party Time!  Excellent!

but I am le tired.

Elena's Parking Space Theorum

Back in elementary school I had a teacher who told me not to worry (my pretty little head)* about math but just focus on the things I was naturally good at like reading and writing.  I've always had a bit of a complex about math since then, but LOOK AT ME NOW, I just invented a mathematical theorem:

*note: I added that condescending part myself, but that's definitely what her tone implied.


How much your life stinks on any given day is inversely proportional to how good a parking spot you get at the hospital.



It's true, here are some examples:

• You get to the hospital at 5am for surgery rotation: parking spot right next to the door.

• You're on outpatient and you don't have to be there till 8 or (gasp!) 9: forget it, you're parking on Mars... if you're lucky.

• You're on call on Sunday: park annnnnywhere you like.

• You take a study/research month, and mosey in around 11 for a quick meeting: don't even bother driving, take the train.

• You're on night float and get to the hospital at 7pm after everyone's left: park inside the ER for all we care.

So in summary:  Life Happiness = 1/Parking Spot + B 

where B includes other factors such as weather, fun dinner plans, an upcoming exam, world events, etc.



And that, my friends, is Math Made Easy by Elena.

Best Summer Vacation Ever

I took my last exam of third year on Friday, had some amaaaaaazing time off, and then fourth year starts today!  I can't wait to see everyone, and see how they spent their summer vacation - traveling, volunteering, research? 

Lucky for me, I am actually using June as a study month for Step 2 CK.  For those that thought Step 1 was the end of it - well, nope.  It (literally) never ends.  So even though I wan to do really well and will be studying pretty intensely all month, 3 months of medicine were definitely exhausting, and I am pretty happy not to be jumping immediately into another month of intensity on the wards.  That can wait until July. :)

Quotes from an Internal Medicine Attending

"Everyone sees medicine through the anoscope* of their own specialty."




*[anoscope: it's better than a rectoscope]

Breaking Up with a Med Student

When normal people break up, there's a certain amount of time afterwards where you are insufferable because every little thing reminds you of your significant other and you just have to tell everyone about it.  "This song makes me so sad, we used to listen to it all the time" [most popular song on the radio].  "This is that the ice cream place we passed once and almost thought about going into."   "We're right near where his brother used to live!"  Friend's response to all of the above:  "Oh ...sorry?"

And of course long after you stop being annoying, little things still remind you of him, catching you off guard way too long after the breakup than you probably care to admit.  For normal people, the trigger could be a commercial you laughed at together, a friend suggesting a restaurant the two of you always ate at, a politician you made fun of, a dessert you shared - whatever it is, you see the trigger and your heart rate speeds up a tiny bit, or you get sadly nostalgic for a moment, and then you move on.

When two med students date and break up, it's a little bit of a different story.  I was recently reading a Wikipedia article peer-reviewed article about cutaneous conditions, and one of the pictures on the side was of Norwegian scabies (don't look it up, it's gross) and I kid you not, my heart totally skipped a beat.  I'm not sure what it says about me, or him, or the relationship in general, but Norweigan scabies (and Surinam toads - definitely don't look those up either) are always going to be my trigger.  Fortunately these are things that don't ((often)) come up in everyday conversation.

Pretty Much the Same Thing

Patient: You bite your nails?
Me: Unfortunately, yeah.  It's my nervous habit.
Patient: Well, we all got our addictions.  You and your nails, me and my heroin.
Doctor: ::shakes head::