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locochoco
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Name: Loco
Country: United States
State: Virginia
Gender: Male
Interests: Music, hanging out with ppl younger than me, daydreaming about wholesome and unedifying things, and bossa nova.
Expertise: Messing up as a son, brother, student, and member of the Richmond community--yet, thinking about the grace of Christ that reconciles my broken self together.
Message: message me
Member Since:
3/28/2003
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| Well, I finally finished my intern year last Wednesday AM with my last shift of night float. I have to admit, night float was a lot more fun than I initially thought. First of all, it's the only time I actually got to work with my fellow interns, 2 of them in fact. We ate a lot, had many substantial conversations, watched a lot of movies, and best of all, no codes, nobody had to go the unit, and nobody died who was not on comfort care. All in all, that's the best kind of nights you could have. My favorite movie would probably go to "Seducing Mr. Perfect" (Very charming Korean romantic comedy). Other movies we watched were: Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (absolutely hilarious, highly recommend it if you're okay with a few raunchy jokes), Transformers(cartoon one from the 80s), Nacho Libre, Love Actually, Music and Lyrics, Bend it Like Becham, Family Guy One, and some others I can't remember, obviously, nothing too significant, mainly from http://movies6.net.
Well, unlike the rest of my class who went on vacation for our 10 days off, I was happily studying for my boards since my GF had to go to her super-edifying conferences, so that when our free time coincides together, I wouldn't have these stupid boards looming overhead. Also, it gives me a chance to focus on internal medicine, which will be good as my in-service exam is in October, and I'll be, dun-dun-dun, a resident-->in charge of a lot of stuff. It wasn't a total loss. I learned a lot about myself in struggling to regain the once, mediocre studying habits I had before. Of more significant importance, I learned a lot about my priorities, state of my heart, and self-centered motivations in the context of my relationship with the Lord. I'll confess, I've been a little too self-reliant, too egotistical in my approach to life this past year. I forgot that when sin happens in my life (when I acknowledge it), it's a reflection of my need of Grace and how it's really all by His Grace. So I needn't worry or stress over a whole bunch of stuff, especially my shortcomings, which sometimes, look hopelessly insurmountable. Such shortcomings may come in the form of wisdom, intelligence/competency, purity, desire to acquire trivial material possessions with my newfound income, self-righteousness, closing up my heart when about to meet a lot of other ppl's burdens when I really should embrace them to lift them up in prayer, Phil 4:7-->that's the way to really have peace, lack of sharing the love of Christ at work whether to patients or colleagues, never-ending desire to be entertained rather than seek fulfillment in Him, and so forth. My biggest regret, and I wasn't aware of this until my quiet time yesterday, was how little I've prayed this past year. It's really, well, it's like taking a big deep breath, and hoping that little amount of oxygen will get you through the week. Sure, I have my survival prayers which usually go something like, "God, please don't let this patient die right now as he is decompensating right before my eyes, or at least tell me what to do and don't let me mess this up!"
Although I wished I studied more for the boards, and made better use of my time off, or my time this past year, you know, the if only I did this, or should have, could have, but didn't, well, in the end, I couldn't and I can't, and that is why I need Grace and Mercy. My self-glorifying, self-seeking culture makes it so easy to fall into the trap of trying to create your own redemption, or be caught up in a purposeless rat race or fantasy world, and ignoring the deeper purposes of why we're here, of the greater fulfillment and joy we can have partaking in advancing His Kingdom in our communities, taking the fight to the poor, needy, starving, parentless, sick, addicted, etc. So, here's to looking forward to living the next residency year availing myself to His grace and mercy.
I also began listening to these CD's called, "Doctor's Digest," from the CMDA now that I've paid my membership dues, and they are so awesome and relevant for anybody in healthcare who gives a hoot about God. I highly recommend listening to some of them. Now my past year wasn't totally without its redeeming aspects because God is incomprehensibly gracious to me. We'll talk about those another time.
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| So, as I was writing my brother's b-day card, I made a profound realization: I think my family loves me more than I love them. Well, that's a humbling thought. And with that I'm off to bed.
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| So, you guys probably know by now that I don’t update very often, so, well, when I do, it could be a big deal. Well, this next entry is a big deal. It is dedicated to a very special someone in my life whom I am holding hands with in a picture below that has been purposely shoved way beneath the text with some other pictures so you guys will actually read what I say and not just skip straight down to look at the pictures. Girls, you know what I mean when a guy just stares at you up and down without paying much attention to what you’re saying. It’s like going for cheap sex, the kind without a meaningful relationship. No, I’m not judging anyone. I just think sex is better in a married relationship. Annnnnnnd that’s my two cents of edification for this entry. (I have to maintain my image as a righteous, prude, ya know?) Alright, now for those that looked prematurely at the picture and cringed, I bet you wish you read the text first. That’ll teach you, “not that there’s anything wrong with that(Seinfeld).” Well, before I begin to talk about said person, I wanted to thank all of you faithful xanga readers, for being, well, faithful. I don't know why I have such a hard time letting you all know about what's going on in my erratic life, but I sincerely appreciate how much you all really do care to know. I'm sorry I haven't responded to any of your comments in around 8 months. Sorry if any of you felt dissed or detached from me. I’ll try harder to be more interactive and encouraging. In anycase, I was up late last night at 11:30PM(yes, anytime past 10:00PM is late for me now) because I realized that I needed to acknowledge a very special day. So, what special day was yesterday? (Begin cheesey background music that sounds terrible through this Xanga player) | | |
| More often than not, I regret buying this CD, but I have less regret since I got it at Tower Records' liquidation sale. I should have paid more attention to the observation that there were still a lot of these CDs left and it just wasn't an esoteric CD. However, there are moments in this CD where I'm really glad I got it because I can't imagine hearing anything like it anywhere else. Finally, the Octavarium Orchestra stinks, even factoring that it's not a world class orchestra to begin with, and the bass player for the band also stinks. They should have gotten Op18a to play bass. Then, it would have been a decent album.
Anyway, so life after Liver service is pretty chill. Our switch day happened to conveniently fall the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and having ambulatory right now, allows me to have Thanksgiving off at no expense. (I still get New Year's off). Praise God for good scheduling. So, I'm currently chilling out in Boston hanging out with my girlfriend's family and EIH's fiance, D. (to be continued)
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| So, uh, yeah, it's been a really long time huh? Well, I've been busy, to say the least. I don't even know how folks in residency survived before the 80 hour work week set-in. But then again, we didn't have to do as much paper work, write as detailed, legally sounded notes, nor take care of as many complex problems, let alone be held liable for slight mistakes as much as folks did back then. I think this intern year as most interns would attest(except for you slackers at the cush programs) would have to be the hardest year of my life. That's a funny thing to say, because every subsequent year, I would say that to my parents starting as far back as 6th grade from what I remember (with the exception of 4th yr med school). But this time, I really mean it, which is what I always say as well, but seriously, no, this time it's exponentially harder than any other previous year of my life(I've never said that before). There have definitely been days where I thought about quitting, and regretting that I didn't go into family medicine, where it seems the happier people are, not to mention they seem to have a monopoly on recruiting most of the Christian physicians. If it just weren't for those darned kids I'd have to learn to take care of, not to mention that I don't naturally think on their wavelength (Example: Compare myself to Chunkychen). But the feeling of giving up doesn't really bother me, because here, everybody feels that way on several occassions. I thought Jefferson was supposed to be one of the less malignant programs, and it is, about less malignant than the most malignant programs out there. But folks here are really happy, which is encouraging to me. I haven't quite figured out why they're happy, but they are. They actually like working really, really hard, which is quite different from the slower-paced, more relaxed life of the Southerner. So, two weeks ago was a particularly rough week. For one, we were rounding with one of the more intense attendings, and it was my 4th day, and my resident's and 3rd yr medstudent's first day, who have not done a rotation at Jeff in 5 months (missed the changeover to an upgraded computer systerm as well as the advent of computerized discharged) and at all, respectively. Also, I'm on the Liver service. So, at one point, out of the 13 patients we were carrying (actually, I was carrying intially), 9 of them were Liver. My colleagues told me that it's pretty easy if you have 4 Liver patients and 7 gets to be really busy, but 9?!? Who am I kidding? I'm the least qualified person to have that many cirrhotics/OLTs on my service, well second to the medstudent. Well, praise the Lord, 1.5 weeks later and post admit day, we have 7 people total, 5 of whom are Liver and they're all pretty straightforward. Yes!! Looks like I'll have more free-time to play, ahem, talk to my girlfriend I mean.
So, among life on the floors, other exciting things I've done are: Do chest compressions where I felt the ribs crack beneath my hands as the patient went into Vfib, and yes, the person lived after 1x schock only to go back into Vfib while going to CT scan to rule out Pulmonary Embolus that same day, but no big deal, we just shocked him again, broke out of Vfib, and well, I hope he made it out okay (he was a surgery patient). Get to actually be the first one in a room of a coded patient, waited around a good minute to confirm that the pt was "do not ruscusitate/do not intubate", and with no definitive answer from the clerk since the attending has not signed the order yet, decided to start running the code. Then, a few minutes later, the attending walks in and is like, "She is DNR/DNI and I'm the attending." Only attendings are allowed to sign those orders and he was a little less than prompt in signing it. That was a family medicine patient who was coming back from Echo and actually coded during transport en route to return to her room so that by the time she was back and hooked up to the monitor, she was in asystole (flat lining). I was grateful, cause it would have been a discouraging code to run, essentially trying to ressurect her from the dead. I think part of the problem with internship, is that I'm so busy taking care of business, trying to not get frustrated when things don't turn out how we like them to, and trying to remain as nice as I can, as well as trying to not curse when things go awry, that I forget to just drop everything and enjoy it. If I could journal about each day in the hospital I would have written volumes by now of how aweomse the field of healthcare is because there is just such great satisfaction in helping people in real, meaningful ways, whether we're relieving suffering (which is what we do most of the time), improving the quality of one's life that they can live more effectively, or every now and then, being able to give counsel to non-medical issues because patients tell their doctors almost everything, even the drug-abusers and sex-offenders if you ask the right way. It's easy to get pretty jaded here because there is a lot of criticism for lack of knowledge, and little appreciation for being the one on the forefront of patient care. But it's alright. The patients are satisfied and I guess, as long as God says well done good and faithful servant, that's all that matters really. Of course, I'm notorious for not being a very faithful servant, but God has been disciplining me (e.g. the 9 liver patients or the admissions 2 minutes before my admitting shift is over).
Of the many challenges here, I think the hardest one is maintaining one's relationship with Christ. It's so hard to remember to trust in Him and not rely on my own strength or fund of knowledge (or lack thereof) because my whole environment is self-success based and self-centered ambition driven. I forget to pray with and for my patients, remember that my relationship with Christ defines me, not my evals, and that I can "chill out" and don't have to stress like everyone else in my program will because I'm not actually the one who is doing the healing, bringing home the bacon, making things happen, etc. God is the one who is sovereign and it's by His mercy that the sun shines on the good, the bad, the ugly, and myself. However, since I'm one of the few people in my program who is aware of such truth, it's very easy to forget, and often lonely since I'm displaced into a new city without the intimacy of my prior community, small group, church, "do-gooder" Christians who are actually living out their faith, and of course, other Christian healthcare workers. I have a hard time trying to fall in love with the "City of Brotherly Love"(our slogan) since it's anything but, cost of living is exorbent, the outdoor scene isn't as accessible as back in Richmond, not to mention Philly has a lot more problems than Richmond. But we know what God would say about that. Ultimately, my main goal during my stint here is to sincerely seek the peace and prosperity of the city. ( Jeremiah 29:something) Anne(my special friend) and I were at 10th Pres one morning and the pastor was giving this awesome sermon titled, "A Prayer for the City." He mentioned how only when we prayed for the city, does the city really have a prayer. Simple, but provacative eh? Afterwards, there was coincidentally a medical campus outreach lunch meeting where I got to hear spiels on the burden of ministry amongst healthcare workers.
I remember when I first started out this Xanga site almost every entry would coincide with prayer requests for an upcoming exam. Now with my only exam being way far away in May(Step III boards), my main prayer request is that God would humble myself beneath His mighty hand to change my perspectives and my heart so that I will embrace His calling for my life and start living life to the full, for the sake of His Kingdom and this darned city and hospital, haha. | | |
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