Prilosec (Omeprazole)... Taco Bell... Med Wards... Time Magazine...

So, Saturday was our monthly intern gathering. (Once a month we have an intern retreat, so we get together as a group and socialize). On the way to our hiking destination the 3 of us in the car were chatting. This is the summary of part of the conversation. One of my peers has recently started taking omeprazole as well! Here I am, trying to hide the fact that I'm self-treating some GI upset issues and come to find out that 3 of the 7 of us are all on PPIs, as well as quite a few other residents in our program! Even more shocking, this intern has also had to QUIT COFFEE!! Woah there, lets not get all crazy! Come on, I pop those little pills in the morning so my stomach can tolerate the coffee!

Anyway, Saturday was outstanding. Amazingly, we were all off on Saturday. So we had a lovely hike, followed by dinner, followed by dessert, followed by drinks in this tiny bar with 2 guys playing what I learned was Americana music. Good times. We have a great intern group!

This is my last free weekend til sometime in June, so it's been a nice lazy weekend. I was also out Friday night, which, ended up at Taco Bell at 3am. Wow, haven't been to Taco Bell in prob 2 year?? Suspect it'll be another 2 years as well.

Blah blah blah, blah blah blah.

Oh, so this is cool. When I was having dinner with J&J on Friday, they had this great candle burning, that sounds like a "crackling fire." So, I had to get one of those today as well. Cool stuff.

That's really about it for now. I'm starting med wards on Wednesday. Aside from the 6 days a week, I'm actually kind of looking forward to it this time around... Speaking of medicine, the new issue of TIME has an article about medicine, and I'm not the biggest fan of time, but a part of this story caught my eye, and that part was a slam against residents.. I have only read the first part of the article, so I'm deferring final comments til later...

Alright, should probably get some sleep...

How I spent my morning...

I wish it was laying in bed, reading the paper and listening to NPR while my servant brought me a french press and fresh fruit and a warm scone. Really, that would have been preferable.

When, in reality, this is how it went... I was laying in bed, wondering if the woman who paged me at 11:30 last night was in fact having a heart attack, or was in just indigestion. While eating my oatmeal for brekky, I logged on to work and decided to do some follow-up. I had told her to go to the ER to be seen. Shockingly, there was no record of her being in the ED last night. Well, maybe she went to the private hospital down the street. While I was there at the computer, I decided to follow up on another patient...

So I got a call from a mom at 6:30 last night. She was concerned that her child may have been harmed, intentionally. I was concerned that her child was harmed, intentionally. We talked for probably 10 minutes on why she needed to take her child to the ED to be seen by a pediatrician, and she was in complete agreement. So, shockingly, that child also wasn't seen in the ED last night. ARGH! So, had she gone to the ED last night, at bare minimum, the child would have been evaluated by the pedi res/doc, who could have gotten the story better than I did over the phone, and they would have all the info needed to involve social services, and maybe the police. However, since she didn't show up to the ED, and since I'm a "mandatory reporter" the fact that I have concerns about the welfare of this child means that this morning I had to try to reach this mother, and when I failed at doing that, I had to call social services and pass on what paltry information I did have. 2 hours of phone calls and forms. The mom isn't answering her phone... And all I can think about is if this kid is ok...

Cruising on autopilot & Next Year's Schedule

Kind of going through the motions more than anything these days. Which I think is ok. There really isn't that much going on, and try as I might, I can't bring myself to get extra projects done.. I'm suppose to be doing this 2 week elective in radiology, interventional radiology. 2 days would have been plenty, 2 weeks is just damn painful. I kind of just float around the radiology department popping in here and there to observe. Well, ok, not just the radiology department. I did manage to pop into Costco and then the grocery store yesterday, and then popped home and to the gym. I justified it on the basis that after 39 hours of work responsibility, I was free to go...

So, I had these grandiose plans to come home and read up on some nagging topics (what is the outcome in lichen planus), do some practice questions for my next board exam, read a few journals. Yeah, I took a nice nap, instead...

This is my free weekend, the last one til June. Does it seem ridiculous that I was going to go away this weekend? I was torn between driving somewhere (Philly, Burlington, Montreal, NY), or backpacking. Instead I'm going to chill out this weekend and get caught up on social engagements.

My Schedule (including vacations)

May-medicine wards (6 days a week, don't expect to see much of me)
June-2 weeks geriatrics, 2 weeks ambulatory (2 weeks of jeopardy call)
July-Pedi Ward (as a senior resident-pretty crazy)
August-Pedi Surg (vacation #1 to HG's wedding)
Sept-Pedi ICU
Oct-Adult ICU (hence, long stretch!!!!)
Nov-Going to Ireland the first week
Nov-Elective
Dec-Medicine Wards (prob home new years)
Jan-Pedi development
Feb-Neonatal ICU
March-Indian Health Service (Arizona/New Mexico Border)
April-first week vacation in Denver
April-Adult ED
May-Medicine Wards
June-1 week night float, 3 weeks community medicine

Subject to change at will...

Cheers,
B

Married to my pager...

I've been married to my pager since 9pm last night, and am married to it until at least 8am. Lemme think.. so that's like 37 hours. Let me explain...

So last night and Friday night I was the overnight intern, which means I went to work at 9pm and then the other medicine residents signed out their patients to me. I was covering somewhere around 70 to 80 patients. Those night went well. Even managed to get a bit of sleep Friday during the night.. I finished at 8:30 this am.

But, since 8 am I have been the on-call doc for clinic patients. Pretty chill today as well, but means I need to be available to call people back..


Things I miss about Dublin (yes, there are some things).
-It is raining today. It's the perfect day to spend it indoors (obviously) having friends over for tea and conversation. I don't know why that doesn't really happen here. Maybe it's because aside from J & J, my friends are co-residents. When you're working gobs, it's kind of tough to make spontaneous coffee hanging out things happen. Maybe that's a bullshit excuse. I dunno.

What I do know, is that since I'm on call today, and when I found out it was going to rain all day, I decided that this would be the perfect day to stay home and finish some house chores, including organizing my books so I can hopefully start being a bit more productive in my study habits..

I'm more inclined to sip coffee and think about tea with friends in Dublin.

Speaking of Dublin.. possible trip to Dublin in November.. shhh! I'm keeping it quiet til I know for sure.

Cheers,
B

Springtime...

Nice day today. Amazingly got out of clinic by 5:30 pm. A record! I even cleared out all the charts and mounting paperwork in my box. Form. Refills. The part of my job that I loathe! Paperwork.

The days are getting longer. Green is making a comeback in the outside world...

Work hasn't been too shabby the past few days. I'm bopping around in the radiology department trying to get a bit of a scoop on what really goes on when we sent people down for special tests...

I'm on "night float" this weekend. Maybe I have mentioned this elsewhere... Night Float, so when I show up Friday and Saturday night, I get to be the lucky intern to cover all the house medical patients... Should be fun fun fun. So, will be sleeping all day Saturday.. And then Sunday during the day I am on clinic call, so will be available by phone to the clinic patients.

Can't believe only 2 months left of internship...

Cheers,
B

Lima Taxi

Taxi #1: from the airport. the hotel was suppose to send me a taxi to pick me up. it never showed. got my own taxi. haggled a price to what the hotel said they would charge. taxi driver wants to take me to another hotel. no thanks i say, i have a reservation at this place. he keeps pestering me to change hotels. i suspect he has a connection at the other place. end up at the hotel i booked.

Taxi #2: going into central lima yesterday. young looking kid driving. i get his life story in a matter of minutes. married 8 months and hating married life. he has "a few" other girlfriends on the side. reading between the lines i think he´s trying to find out if i want a hooker. when he points out the hookers on the steet 5 minutes later, i confirm my suspicions.

Taxi #3: leaving central lima yesterday. almost get into a minor fender bender. will, it may have not been all that minor since the taxi i was in would have held up as great as aluminum foil. traxi drier races ahead and yells obscenities at the other taxi driver. this goes on for 5 minutes over the couse of a few stop lights.

Wanna have fun in lima? take a taxi.

Holy Friday... most things are closed. i was crushed to find out that the starbucks where i was going to spend most of the day is closed. damn.

back to the us tonight.

from lima,
B

Hi From Lima!

Wow, lots to mention ..

arriving in lima. sleeping in the airport. flying to puno the next morning. walking around that day in puno, trying like mad to remember basic spanish, taking in all the sights, smells. feeling great to be somewhere new and exciting. walking around getting lost. taking an afternoon tour to the burial area of sillustani. back to trown. finding the local market and walking around at dusk buying local fruits. waking at 6am for desayuna, bread and jam, yoghurt with quinoa (this awesome grain with huge protein content). taking the boat out on lago titicaca (lake titicaca) to Los Islas Flotantes (the Uros Islands). amazed that these FLOATING islands are man-made, last 30 years, and some 2000 people live on the 35 islands. continuing on to the island of taquilli. nice hike in the sun, boat back to puno. spening the evening eating at one of the local food stalls (dinner cost me 60 CENTS) chatting with random stranges, not seeing any other tourists. Taking a 6 hour bus ride to Cuzco the next day, stopping along the way at local markets. Arriving in cuzco, meeting up with susanna. cuzco is much pretier than puno, but far more touristy as well. no blending in here, look non-peruvian and you´re approached constantly. spending the next day walking to 4 inca rouins, including ¨sexy woman¨among others. meeting that night with the tour group for the inca trail. the inca trail. what to say about the inca trail. i´ll summarize the inca trail in a separate blog to do it justice. beautiful. hard. amazing. diverted through aguas caliente due to mud slide, waking at 4 am to head to Machu Picchu. i´ve seen it in pictures, but in person, it´s just amazing. back to cuzco last night. had been fighting some kind of GI upset on and off for days, thought it was related to food, not sure. finally started cipro last night, didn´t eat for 24 hours, and can finally eat today. i am officially giving up beef for life. in lima today. exhausted. have been getting up anywhere from 4am to 6 am the entire trip. wandered around miraflores section on lima a it today. found 2 starbucks!! sick, i know. along the beach, elevated on a cliff, starting to read ¨The spirit catches you and you fall down.¨ last too tired to go into central lima and be a tourist today. just need a bit more down time. . .

Impressions:
1) poverty sucks
2) i like being outside of america, and i can´t explain why, and am not sure i need to
3) when on the inca trail, don´t look at how steep the trail is, just focus on the next step
4) i have a lot more material shit than i need in life
5) manners have gone by the wayside in the US.


i´m too tired to proof this, the web page is in spanish, and i don´t want to delete the thing by trying the spellcheck...

From Lima,
Brian

Leaving...

I am headed for the airport. Yesterday was beautiful! Sunny. Went running outside. Had coffee at Starbucks. And then finally got around to packing last night..

Will try to drop a blog or two from Peru.

Til Then-

Cheers