Friday, March 30, 2007

Another systems course down; four more to go. The cardio/resp exam has come and gone and I actually did remarkably well. (The preceding sentence is meant to portray shock, not pride.) I am not sure where the last course got away from me but, with about 3 weeks left in the course, I started feeling like the heart and lungs were some sort of alien forces outside my understanding, outside my control, outside this world. Beta-blockers and agonists are my version of Jedi knights.

We have now started renal. So far I have the tubes and ions in hand, but I don't know how long that will last. I have planned my summer elective in Nepal over our exam rewrites (unavoidable given our schedule) so I have to pass this next course. Hopefully that will keep me motivated. My husband has managed to get 4 weeks off during his busiest time so he can join me. So if I fail and wreck all my plans I am also wrecking his plans for the only major vacation we will be able to have together for the next many years.

Seems hard to believe that we will be off to clerkship in less than a year. The fact that I may be responsible for patients' care is not causing me as much stress as the fact that I have made no progress towards choosing a specialty. Just about everything we have taken so far has interested me. I try to count this a positive because I think I could be happy in many different areas. But it is not helping to narrow things down.

3 comments:

Tall Medstudent said...

The not being able to decide thing does seem like a problem. Today was my first day of neurosurgery, and I was awestruck. So, I can add two more specialties to the list I can't decide what to choose from: nuerosurgery and neurology. I still have two electives that I can play with...

Have you shadowed in those two fields yet?

med neophyte said...

I shadowed in neuro for two days. But it was neuromuscular which isn't for me. I am doing two weeks in pediatric neurology this summer and I am really looking forward to that.

Tall Medstudent said...

Oh, I think you mentioned that to me before. :)

That should be good.