Back on track

Finally starting to get days and nights straight again.  All it took was ten days and several days of work / class following virtually sleepless nights.  Yep, it's the profession I've chosen, and I couldn't be happier with it :-)  So since my last post I've finished my pediatric EM rotation (hands down the best yet), had a week of a geriatrics intersession class that was designed to be "interprofessional" because the school received a grant for it (their idea of interprofessional was to toss about 25 nursing and pharmacy students in with 150 medical students who have been working and training together for the last 2.5 years...yeah, that's gonna work), and started pediatric neurology.  If you think you're starting to sense a theme in my clerkships, you're probably right.  What can I say, kids are just more fun than adults (cuter, too)!  This clerkship, however, is a bit more complex than most.  It's split into two sections -- 3 weeks for neurology, 5 weeks for psychiatry (why 3&5 vs. 4&4?  Who knows?).  The first week and a half for me are on the inpatient service at CHP which seem like they should be very good.  The workload is manageable, the residents are good, and the fellow and the attending are outstanding -- all in all, not a bad situation.  After that, I'll have outpatient for the next week and a half, which sounds like it will be mostly consults and a few scheduled visits.  Thrown in there next Friday will be an OSCE (basically an exam of an actor roleplaying some illness), and the Friday after that will be the neurology shelf exam.  After that comes 5 weeks of psych, but I have no information about that part yet, and then I'll have almost a week and a half at home for Christmas.  Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that!  We'll see how this goes...it probably won't be as much fun as peds EM, but it seems like it should still be ok.

Oh, one ethical question that I'd appreciate opinions on: one of the attendings that I worked with in the ED insisted that I ask residents to put in the orders I wanted on patients.  I understand her reasoning; she's already busy enough that there's generally a line of people waiting to present patients to her at any given time.  On the other hand, though, if I were a resident and a medical student (even one I knew well) approached me and asked me to write orders for a patient I hadn't even heard of, let alone seen, I'd be pretty reluctant.  I mean, that's really putting your neck on the chopping block if something goes wrong, or if the med student misinterprets the discussion with the attending.  I mean, orders don't take THAT much time to put it, and I'd much rather have someone who actually knows the patient better than as a two-sentence description given by the MS3 putting in those orders.  I'd really like to know what other people think about this, so please leave comments!

Anyway, that's all for tonight.  My goal for this rotation will be to post MWF with possible occasional Sunday ruminations; we'll see how well I stick to that.  Hope everyone's doing well; till next time, peace and God bless!