What recovery period?

We are now 1/16^th on our way to completing medical school. How daunting a prospect is that? Since I officially passed all my midterms, I am now $10,000 smarter than when I started (and just for fun, that makes me worth about EC$26,000. I might just stay here!). And we’ve already dived deeply into the material for the next half of the semester. In fact, the very morning after what could arguably be considered the most stressful week in my educational career (as it determined whether or not I could really continue in school), I was scheduled for my first patient interview at 8.30am.

Now, some of you might be saying to yourselves, “How interesting. I didn’t know you started learning those skills so early in your schooling.” Indeed, it would have been interesting had we received any advanced preparation for this sort of thing. In fact, there was not even an announcement from my favorite department (Clinical Skills) as they simply posted a notice outside one of the lecture halls during the exams. Conveniently, I might add, not the one in which I took all my exams.

Consequently, I found out on Monday evening, after several beers, that I had to be ready to speak to a patient at 8.30am, and was expected to know what to ask and how to review the systems (cardiac, nervous, pulmonary, etc.), and would be graded on this experience.

I found myself feeling rather lucky then, at 8.30am, that I had worked at St. Mike’s for so long. Working with the trifecta affords me the opportunity to literally assist with hundreds a patients each day, learning little bits and pieces of information about what questions are most pertinent to each situation (although, realistically, I am often teaching them, with such nuggets as “point 5 alive!”. I’ll never forget that as long as I live.)

(I’d like to take this moment to welcome the newest addition to the trifecta. You know who you are, and don’t think I haven’t heard about admitting patients to critical care from the NUC.)

Of course, what gets me miffed about the whole situation is the fact that it was 8.30am, basically unannounced, the morning after midterms. I mean, did they realistically expect people not to enjoy themselves a little more liberally that night as there was no new information being presented for the next 24 hours? Get serious, it’s Grenada. I’ve seen more bars here than in Madison. (OK, that’s obviously not true.)

I suppose, as a medical student, I am expected to undergo certain difficulties in order to “prove my worth” or “live through residency”; however, I might point out to those people who take this line that I am not, in fact, a resident, nor am I being judged on my ability to get up at 8.30am, yet. Nonetheless, I guessed correctly. Our patient, a lovely middle-aged woman with abdominal pain, played her part well. As it was our first attempt, it was funny to see us dance around the really painful issues, i.e., her recent sexual history, in order to arrive at the final conclusion of gonorrhea, but we all survived and are just that much better for being in class that morning.

What really bothers me about the whole thing is the fact that they gave us the lecture on patient interviews that afternoon, and then blamed half the class for not showing up (since only about half of us made it to the sessions) on not hearing an announcement, without acknowledging that there was not an announcement in the first place. As they say, you can’t win ‘em all.