Musings from my time away – Akpa gbator (first part)

Hello, good day, how have yall been for the past 3 or so months? Yes, that is how long it has been since my last post and no one has been more cognizant of those months than me. However, since you, my loyal readership deserve better than spotty writing, I would like to apologize for my unannounced hiatus and ask that you continue with me as we resume this journey. So let me tell you what I did in the time I was away. The short of it is I completed my General Surgery Rotation to wrap up third year of medical school.

It was an interesting year overall, one of the greatest periods of growth in my life. The year begun with Internal Medicine which was three months of what can best be described as intense investigative work. The diagnosis, to be sure, was generally known to residents by the time the patient came up to the medicine floors from the emergency department. However, the student was required to work things out himself and from the often varied history elicited from the patient and the carte blanche physical exam of a beginning third year medical student, he was expected to formulate differential diagnoses and gather information to rule them out or in.

After extensive literature review, pimping (aggressive questioning) by resident and possibly senior resident, and for the lucky like myself, a lot of teaching, one was usually ready to nail the presentation and answer the questions to follow from attending physicians. This was what could be considered good reward for 5-page scholarly medical notes and 30 plus hours spent in the hospital often with little sleep every four days. But sometimes, things were not so rosy. Sometimes, you got lost in the details and stumbled through tedious notes that did little justice to the work you put in. Those times, one could get discouraged but there were luckily few of these occasions.

Obstetrics/Gynecology, ObGyn for short, was my next gig, my first surgical experience as it was. The birthing process was awe-inspiring and much more violent/terrifying than I had anticipated. It was a rather weird experience, not the most pleasant. Getting the privilege of delivering twins increased my appreciation of the pain my mother went through delivering my big-headed brother and sister twins with no pain control. But those crazy mothers were always so happy when they saw the babies and swearing to have others. I decided then never to get a woman pregnant.

I intend to become a cardiac surgeon so it was the surgical aspects of ObGyn that really appealed to me. Typically, the life of the third year medical student involved standing silently for hours on end, sometimes scrubbed which meant you could not even scratch an itch, watching the laparoscopic screen. It was mind-numbing at times but one lived to put a stitch through the skin and throw a few knots at the end of everything and if a harried pace made that impossible, it felt like someone had robbed one of his very soul.

Pediatrics rounded out the half year and is a memory better forgotten. I loved it, I did and I absolutely loved the little kids as well. But the one thing it came to show me was the need for self evaluation and the politics of the hospital and grading policies. It seemed the nature of the pediatricians I worked with was non-confrontational and accommodating, which was in line with the work they do and made them very good doctors. But this was not always the best environment for the student because what it fostered was a situation where students could not get the most straight forward feedback when they elicited it. You could thus find yourself doing the same things and garnering praise for them only to end up with rather lukewarm written evaluations which allowed people to say things they could not tell you in person. If nothing at all, it was an experience that would change my approach to third year and for the better, I’d argue. It also showed me my need for honest feedback, good or bad from working colleagues in my future practice.

In my next piece, I will tell you about neurology, touch briefly on psychiatry and radiology and a closer look into the workings of surgery. Ask me questions about the more details you would like to know and if the HIPAA laws allow it, I will let you know.

Prime

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This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
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