One Hundred and Ninety, Epic Fail

I won't say a game is sucking my life away because that would imply that I am miserable playing it both with people I know and with people I've never met.  That, however, is not the case.  I felt a thrill of joy in the weeks leading up to the release of the expansion and now I have some goals on what I want to accomplish with it.  I've taken my first steps into Northrend and they are thrilling and sturdy ones.

One Hundred and Eighty-nine, Passion

I had a surgeon tell me about a procedure he was going to help perform back when I was on surgery.  The procedure was the one mentioned briefly in this entry.  And while to you or I it might seem like a long, amazing, and possibly tedious surgery, to him it was why he lived.  The excitement on his face was a beacon for me.  As I go through pediatrics and look back on Ob/Gyn and Surgery, I realized that I want what he has.  I want to experience the same glowing feeling, the same Drive for a particular line of work.  Doctors are in their profession for life.  I want to do something that I will thoroughly enjoy for the rest of mine.  

One Hundred and Eighty-eight, Dalaran

The search begins in two days for the city that used to fill this crater.

One Hundred and Eighty-seven, Seven Rocks!

It's still the 10th!  So there!  Nothing here though.  Check back another day!

One Hundred and Eighty-six, Patient Continuity

So this daily blogging isn't going to work as is apparent to all who read my last one and then glanced at the date on this one.  Ohwell, ONWARDS!  

Continuity of Care is important in medicine for particular doctors.  Mainly Family medicine, Ob/Gyns, Psychiatry, and Pediatrics.  You see the same patients regularly either for checkups or for sick visits.  Hopefully the former, but the world isn't perfect.  Friday closed a chain of events in which I had interacted with a particular patient through three separate events, as opposed to following a patient stuck in a hospital during my rotation.  The first encounter was during my Ob/Gyn month during clinic where she came in for a 28 week checkup.  I can recall the exacts of her circumstances, older mom, excited that she quit smoking during the pregnancy, and with a particular medical condition which required some vigilance on our part when delivery-time came but was not a major worry.After her checkup that day, I placed her out of mind and figured, like the rest of the patients I had seen during those months, that I would let her melt into the pool of faces and names and diagnoses that collects all the patients I see.

Ten days ago during Newborn nursery my fellow classmate was examining a baby who had just come from the OR where mom had just had an emergency Caesarian section.  I didn' think much of it as I was writing my note on another baby while listening to them talk about a medical condition plaguing some mothers when I happened to hear the baby's last name.  I glanced up and without thinking uttered a first name.  The attending glanced down and read the mother's name.  Perfect match.  Mom was not exactly with it since she was recovering from her operation so I didn't get a chance to congratulate her then.  I felt a little warm inside with this patient continuity but again I figured that this was it, the end of the line.  I was prepared to let her and her child melt into the pool of patients although I figured it would take a little longer due to this second interaction, however remote it was.

Two days ago in my pediatric outpatient clinic, again I found myself sitting writing up a note on a patient I had seen while listening to the residents and attendings interacting and teaching/learning.  This time I heard about how this newborn's mother had a particular medical condition but it had been handled properly and there was no sign of damage to the baby due to it.  This time I glanced over at the folder the resident was working on.  There was the last name again.  This time I did go in to say hi.  

I don't know what I want to do yet, but I do want continuity.

One Hundred and Eighty-five, Memories

One of my favorite teachers in high school taught me history.  As the Engineer pointed out to me tonight, she often would draw a boot on the board and say, "And here, scholars, is clearly a map of Europe."  Learning from her about events long gone instilled in me a deep respect and love for history.  Hearing about events that occurred centuries ago and how they shaped the world was very moving.  As you learned, some minor events could end up shaping the world (such as a single assassination in Austria).  Other events you knew would be important as you learned about them.  The number of "firsts" that this relatively young country has seen proves to me that today is a day schoolchildren of the next millennium will have to memorize (or at least to know what decade this occurred).  Today a new president was elected.  Not because the way he spoke or the color of his skin or his gender, but because of his beliefs in how to run this country.  That doesn't change the fact that history books of the future will look back and note that this was the day when a non-Caucasian person was first voted to the title of President-Elect.  What does matter is that this nation didn't vote its first black president into office.  No, I know that the majority of this nation finally voted for an American whose beliefs they likened to who happened to be a man of color.  

On that note, I begin NaBloPoMo [five days late].