One Hundred and Eighty-one, Everyday Doctoring Stuff

Last week Wednesday I received an email from the Beatnik.  He'd recently done 129 questions to see what Dungeons and Dragons character build he would be and was curious what our friend circle would get.  This was in the morning.  I set aside this task since I was heading into the hospital and decided to confront this monster of a quiz later on that day.

Wednesday continued and I learned that I would be participating in a big surgery starting at 2 PM called a "free fibula flap" surgery.  If you Google it, the second hit that comes up does a good succint job of describing it.  I describe it below in brief.  Anyway, we didn't finish the surgery and I didn't get back to the apartment until 1:00 AM Thursday morning from the hospital.  I had a pounding headache from lack of food and liquids but I had just seen an amazing surgery.  I saw a slew of emails from all of my friends who had replied their character builds throughout the day as they completed the 129 question quiz.  The last one was from the Beatnik again, addressing all of us.  Here it is, and pardon any language that might be offensive to you.

The Beatnik's question to the world:

"Well our party is pretty varied.  We have Drock as the all powerful wizard.  I'm the tree hugging hippy druid.  Crazy Blonde is the know it all Wizard.  Woodwind is the touchy feely Cleric and Lord Chaos is our soul devouring Fighter/sorcerer.  The Engineer is our totally not gay Bard.  And I know you are all wondering the same question I am,

 

WHAT THE FUCK IS DAVE!?!? TAKE THE GOD DAMN TEST!

 

Our group make up would put Lord Chaos in the front.  Me and Woodwind in the middle with the Engineer close behind (Dancing or doing whatever the fuck bards do), Crazy Blonde and Drock as our artillery in the rear (tee hee).  And I know you are all curious about one thing,

 

WHERE THE FUCK IS DAVE?

 

I know me too.  Kinda fun, maybe we should all cosplay sometime (shudder) 

love,

The Beatnik 

p.s.  TAKING THE FUCKING TEST DAVE! "

Reading this at 1:00 AM, I quickly sent out a reply to everyone:

"I just saw a guy’s left jaw taken out, then a bone from his leg taken and put in with a metal bracket to work as a jaw, then his pec from his left chest pasted over the bone, and then multiple skin grafts.  This morning I briefly read your email at 6:00 AM before running off to the hospital.  There I have been until 1 AM right now.  I don’t think I need a test to tell everyone that I’m some type of good cleric

I’ll take it one day. 

-Dave"

I felt that while this might be harsh, it helped explain why I hadn't replied and that I'd get to it when I had a chance.  Little did I realize but in the couple of hours of sleep I got, the Beatnik had responded:

"Lol, now was that so hard?  I kind of realized your crazy schedule after a little while.  You're doing something right now that I could never do.  I know that you're in a world of doctors and people who do this shit all the time.  But, those of us who don't have MD in front of our names are pretty impressed by what you're doing right now.  Just thought you should know. 

Keep up the good work Cleric Dave,

The Beatnik"

This was 6 AM Thursday morning after a 4 hour nap.  I paused.  

and continued to pause.

I have become so inundated with cholecystectomies (gallbladder removals) and hernia repairs (fixing weak areas of bellies and groins) and other surgical terms that I was missing out on the simple fact that the majority of humanity never sees the things surgeons and the OR staff do.  Yeah, during the surgery I wondered who the hell thought up taking someone's bone from a leg to rebuild a jaw, but the actual procedure never amazed me because it made sense.  To laypeople though, it's practically magic.  The patient sees the difference between what they used to look and feel like compared to how everything is after a surgery and it's amazing.  

That's what my two months on Surgery have boiled down to: Amazing.

One Hundred and Fifty-three, Aftermath

It went by quickly. Two kindly old ladies put us all in our cubicles in a timely manner and kept a vigilant watch over us. It actually felt straightforward. Granted some of the questions were outright unknowns where I knew I didn't have the knowledge stored away in a manner that I could access no matter how hard I tried. And other times they asked me what was the first amino acid used to create any new protein.

Six weeks. Six weeks of freedom. Four weeks of my first rotation. It will be grand!

One Hundred and Fifteen, Day Twenty-Nine

When was the last time you jumped? I still remember asking my dad this question once when I was in high school. He couldn't remember. I was saddened by this.

Here we encounter a day whose very name implies its action: leaping. I hope you had a chance to jump at least once today. Many people in the world either can't, or never think of it. Take a moment, prepare yourself, and jump.

I leaped 7 times today.

Eighty-two, Life Doesn't Stop

I've been reading a new book I borrowed from a friend.

Soon I Will Be Invincible
by Austin Grossman

An excerpt:
"I'm not a criminal. I didn't steal a car. I didn't sell heroin, or steal an old lady's purse. I built a quantum fusion reactor in 1978, and an orbital plasma gun in 1979, and a giant laser-eyed robot in 1984. I tried to conquer the world and almost succeeded, twelve times and counting."

I read that and see pure comic genius.

Aside from that, I've been keeping busy with school. Big exams coming up this semester ranging from cumulative pathology exams to microbiology exams to the big one: Boards, USLME Step 1. And of course, I do my best to keep up with friends far and near. How about you? Staying sane in this crazy world?

Fourty-one, Humanism in Medicine

There's a reason why the number one complaint by patients about their doctors is not that they don't know what they're talking about. Rather the biggest complaint is that their doctor isn't treating them like a person. They barely spend time with the patient; they just don't get to know him/her; the doctors' abrupt manners affect their patients.

My thinking is that over the past 60 years, medical education has evolved in its ability to pass vast amounts of scientific knowledge to the learners which, unfortunately, has moved hours from the bedside to hours in a lecture hall. This lack of bedside hours equals directly into lack of communication skills with patients. And that's what doctors do. Anybody can make the diagnoses doctors can make as long as they learn the language which is vast. So the doctors have to take the knowledge they hear/see/feel and convert it into English. While I do think it's important to be able to build the knowledge base so that everything you hear/see/feel means something to you, I don't think one should neglect the ability to talk to the patient. After all, if you know everything wrong with a person you see, what's the good of not being able to inform them?

Our Dean recognizes this and is willing to stumble along in trying to find a solution. I'm just sad that I'll be missing out on his changes.

Thirty-eight, Question to Ponder

Why do some of the enemies in Super Mario games look so innocently happy as their mere touch kills Mario?

Ten, Questions

"PLEASE DON'T COME TO CLASS ANYMORE.
IF YOU DO PLEASE STOP ASKING QUESTIONS WITH OBVIOUSLY NO CLEAR ANSWERS.
THAT IS WHAT OFFICE HOURS ARE FOR.

MAJORITY OF CLASS"

-February 18th, 2004 passed person-to-person up to me in the front row of Genetics

I ask a lot of questions. Sometimes relevant, sometimes not. But I've come to realize that my learning process is deeply embedded in this question-asking. So, I might ask questions and not learn from it, but it is very difficult for me to learn without asking questions.

Often I ask questions that are self-explanatory. I used to explain this by the idea that even if it only occurred to me for a moment before I had solved it, others might want to know, so I'd go ahead and ask whatever occurred to me for the benefit of the rest of class. Looking back on it, I guess I was a bit presumptuous thinking that I was able to figure stuff out but others around me were having trouble with it. But, I still like to think that at least one person was glad I asked questions in class because they were able to keep up with stuff.

Some people learn best when they sit and absorb a lecture with no interruptions. This is where rightful strife can enter into a classroom. One set of students learns with no talking, sharp attention. The other learns with interaction and pointing out of key things. I've spent much time wondering how to teach with these two groups of people. Obviously the majority are "listeners" since they don't ask questions as they occur to them. Does that mean that the questioners must give up the route for their proper learning? I know most people with questions hold them until the end of a lecture, but sometimes, you lose the moment to keep that important fact in your brain and asking it later doesn't help in retention as much as during the lecture.

So what is a Questioner in a land of Listeners to Do?