Playing Doctor

had an AWESOME holiday weekend at my parents' log cabin on the river. beautiful, winter-ish, relaxing and loooooots of good eats. my aunts and grandmas are some mean cooks & bakers, so it's easy to be indulgent. i am bloated and disgusting, but hella happy. i think over the course of the weekend, after many courses over many meals, i still made room for roughly 70 Christmas cookies. oh yes, 'tis the season. i have the greatest family ever. i really do. yours might be nice and all, and i don't mean to be rude, but mine win.

anyway. i started rounding at the hospital with my preceptor today and will do so in the mornings daily before going into the clinic. it's great. it's a sneak peak into internal medicine. she's good at what she does and it's wonderful to be in the hospital. i find energy in hospitals. i love the pace, the feel of it. even the sights and sounds (maybe less so the smells). it's just so comfortable for me there. i think your comfort zone depends on your background- mine was in an in-patient setting, and that's where i feel the most at home.

at clinic today it dawned on me once again what a fake experience this is. i'm seeing real patients, and even occasionally saying something helpful to them, but mostly i'm just practicing my skills for my sake. it's just part of being a student, and i certainly need all the practice and guidance i can get, while i have the opportunity. but it seems so totally ridiculous for me to look in a patient's ears and then have the real doctor come behind me and do the same thing. i'm like a little kid with her fisher price doctor bag using the fake foamy stethoscope on mommy to make her feel better (or using that giant 10 gauge plastic needle to stab her little brother in the name of medicine). it just seems goofy to me. the patients are all very kind about it and don't seem to think it redundant or lame. and it is a good education- the only way to do it, i suppose. when i find signs or acquire history from patients, i'm then able to put together a picture of what might be happening and come up w/ treatment plans and discuss these with the MD's, and that is very beneficial. i just feel bad for the patients.

so please, if you're ever in a teaching setting- don't let the student practitioners go nuts on you or your family, but do be patient and kind to them.