Status/post week one

From Dose of Reality:

I started writing this post last week, but couldn’t find the time to finish it until today… I’m finding inpatient to be much more challenging in terms of finding time for everything. The math:

24 hours in a day

- 10-12 hours in the hospital

- 7 hours of sleeping

5-7 hours in which to do everything else

Since “everything else” includes taking care of the dog, eating, bathing, and walking to and from the hospital, there are really only a few short hours in which to fit in studying, exercising, cooking, and maintaining any kind of social life. Given my limited time, I think I may be sticking with the list format blog posts for a while… Lessons learned:

• It can be difficult not to cry on rounds. This is not, as you might have initially imagined, because it is embarrassing not to know the answers to questions posed to you about your patients. Although that is difficult, I got over it pretty quickly when I realized I knew almost nothing. Instead, sometimes on rounds you have to see parents describing how worried they have been about their children’s health. Watching a parent cry during rounds was one of the hardest things I’ve done this year. I’d never met the patient before, and I knew it would have been inappropriate for me to start bawling, but I still had to work pretty hard not to let the tears slip out.


• Scheduling social events for your days off is important. As much as it seems like a great idea to spend the entire day and night catching up on reading and practice questions (which does, in fact, always sound like a great idea), having a really inflexible schedule can be isolating and lonely.


• Mom makes awesome quiche that is delicious when reheated in the hospital. Enough said. Thanks mom!


• Subscribing to a CSA (community supported agriculture) was a great idea. I can count on having produce at home even when I’m too busy to make it to the store. I’ve been making a lot of salad dressings to keep things interesting.


• I have learned the phrase “status/post”, and I like it. It means “after” something has been intervened on, as in, after the play-doh I put in my sister’s nose when we were little was removed, she was “a 3 year-old girl with play-doh in her nose, status/post removal.”

Apologies for the randomness of these insights (?), but I’m starting on nights in a few short hours and have some stuff to finish up before then!