Sunday, December 07, 2008

New job, new life

Well it's not excatly a new life - but I'm now a pediatric intern at a medium to large children's hospital. Life is weird like that because two years ago I thought I was going to be a single Emergency medicine intern in Ohio.

Internship is kind of rough, it's about finding the balance of work, sleep, and spouse right now. Call takes on a completely different meaning when you are an intern than it did as a medical student. You really are the doctor; you are supposed to have an answer for the problem. (But not THE answer, ask your senior for that)

I'm on my sixth month of internship, and let's see what I accomplished.

July: lots of well baby checks!! Saw my brother get married.

August: step down NICU and first call month. Attended multiple deliveries, saw 2 that didn't make it, and got my first infant intubations and line placements.

September: trial by fire in Peds ED. (Decided not to pursue Peds EM as a fellowship.) Lots of stitching and 2 lumbar puncture attempts.

October: learned alot about peds cancer and learned that to stop SVT you really need to smash that bag of ice on the baby's face.

November: Newborn Nursery - 20 baby checks per day with a gaggle of med students. Also, I'm not going into infectious disease.

December: back in step down NICU, remarkably easier this time as I am not completely lost.

I've still got multiple months on wards, NICU, and wards again before I am a second year. And also step 3.

Wish me luck, and I am still caffeine free (no caffeine since before my senior year in college)

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