Good things!

First, an aside. I really need to update my links and things. It may not happen for a while. If I get time while I"m on call on Tuesday, I"ll do it then. To all the people whose blogs I mean to link to, I"m sorry!

I"m going to take a break from my usual whining and talk about something fun for a change. Or, maybe several fun things.

First of all, I have my first date in... almost a year today. :) She"s a critical care fellow. We met in the ICU. I"m nervous, but excited.

Next, I"m the ultrasound fellow for the month of March. I do miss the adrenaline rush of labor and delivery. I have to admit, emergent c-sections really are my favorite surgery; it takes 30min-1 hour (that"s about the extent of my attention span), there"s the aformentioned adrenaline rush, the outcome is good 90-95% of the time, and at the end, you get a baby! Right now, though, there is something sort of calming and restful about ultrasound. I spend all day in a dark room, talking to patients. I"m not responsible for their care, so most of the time, I get to say, "Want to listen to the baby"s heart beat?" or "Oh, look, the toes!", or "I think your baby"s sucking his or her thumb!" or "Do you want to know if you"re having a girl or a boy? Congratulations, it"s a boy (or girl)!".

So, mostly it"s a nice opportunity to kind of catch my breath. If I were a heart, this would be my compensatory pause after a PAC. I still work from 7am-7pm (Ultrasound is a 9-5 rotation but I have to work on all sorts of research and teaching things), plus call, and I try to put in 8 hours on either Saturday or Sunday to try to get some extra stuff done. But the level of stress related to the work I"m doing now is so much lower. The worst thing I ever have to do on this rotation is talk about birth defects to parents. Which, admittedly, is pretty tough, but its a different kind of tough.

The funny thing is, as a resident, I always thought that ultrasound would be my least favorite part of my job. You know, difficult, boring, etc. Well, it is difficult. I am learning to take pictures of heart valves on a heart that is moving (both beating and because the baby is moving) and about the size of the last digit on my index finger (or smaller, sometimes). I"m not very good at it yet, but I"m realizing that the challenge makes it fun. Watching the squiriming little fetus is fun. Also, ultrasound plays to my strengths.

As far as doctors go, I"m not super gifted. My surgical skills lie somewhere between adequate and good, but I don"t have particularly gifted hands. I"m not the kind of person who can memorize Harrison"s Principles of Internal Medicine, either. I frequently have to look up med doses. I"m the poster child for the fact that you don"t have to be brilliant to be a doctor. I"m also not all that good with people. I mean, I"m fair. My social skills are better than those of say... a slime mold or an iguana. I just don"t really know what to say to patients a lot of the time, and I"m sure I come off as awkward. Having said that, I do have some strengths. What I"m good at is spatial relationships and pattern recognition. Ultrasound is all about spatial relationships and pattern recognition (oh, and cute pictures for the parents, I always forget the cute pictures!). I"m not great at ultrasound right now, but I"m learning, and I think that one day, I could be really good at it. I"m starting to be a little good, I think, because US has started to page me when one of their sonographers is sick or the MFM attending covering ultrasound isn"t around. So, that"s fun, because right now, I"m on the part of the learning curve where I"ve started to know a bit about what I"m doing, and I get better almost every day. That"s a very rewarding slope to be on.

The other nice thing is that fellowship is a little bit of a break from what I find the hardest thing about medical training. Usually, once you start to get comfortable in a role (3rd year med student, sub-intern, intern, etc.) it is then time to move on to the next role. So the amount of time that you spend just feeling comfortable and ok in your role is really very small while you"re in training. That"s stressful, but probably necesarry to make medical training as short as possible. Anyway, I"ve come to the point where I am starting to feel comfortable with my role as a fellow. The really good part? I have 2+ more years where I get to feel comfortable in this role. I like that.

So, life is good. I hope life is good with everybody else today, too.