The weekend and other updates

Drew and I had a great weekend - it was fantastic to finally be in town, we were traveling the last three weekends and will be doing so again this weekend for a wedding and a baby shower! We got quite a bit done around the apartment - it needed a lot of cleaning, and we had lots of laundry to do since we have been too busy to get around to these things. I also had a chance to get some errands done. Saturday we even had time to take a bike ride on a local bike path down the the next little town (it was only three miles each way) and although it was quite chilly, we still had a nice ride. Sunday night Drew got a call from one of his med school buddies that they were one man short for their softball league and asked if he could sub. Although I was disappointed that I couldn't spend the evening with him I encouraged him to go because I know he won't have many opportunities to play softball this summer. His friend ended up pulling his shoulder out of his socket and Drew ended up getting hit not once, not twice but three times ... once in the arm and twice in the exact same spot on the side of his knee. Below is a picture of his knee when he came home last night - if you look closely you can see the marks from the stitching on the softball(s).

And here you can see how swollen it is here . . .
And here is a picture of his knee tonight... the swelling has gone down but now he has quite a bit of discoloration!

(Now that I have thoroughly grossed you out)

Drew is in his last week of peds, which means that he has a tests on Thursday and Friday. Next week he will start family medicine (his last clerkship/rotation of third year!) He also has three applications in to three different hospitals hoping to get away rotations or Sub-I's there. One of them emailed him last week to say that they were missing medical information but NOT to call them. He has emailed them twice with no response - this is extremely frustrating because the program is competitive so we want to get them the necessary information so that they can review his application as soon as possible! We're trying to be patient, but that is not particularly my strongsuit.

Also tonight Drew and I got to attend a reception honoring contributors to the innocence project at the governor's mansion. To briefly sum it up the mansion was amazing and the event was truly inspiring - they had two men there who had been wrongly convicted and had spent years incarcerated (and on death row) but were eventually exonerated by the work done by the various innocence project volunteers. I am quite proud to work for a firm that is so concerned with helping such noble causes (and is not just focused on making a dollar but also contributing to society).

Pediatrics

The first three weeks (of six total) of Peds were outpatient, which started at roughly eight or nine in the morning and ended as early as one or as late as five. Needless to say it was a pretty easy schedule and overall Drew enjoyed it. Right now Drew is in inpatient peds. Inpatient starts a 6:30 a.m. and usually goes to five p.m. The hours aren't bad but so far Drew has severely disliked this part of the rotation. This is because it has been very quiet so he spends the majority of his day in the student lounge. And since there are multiple medical students on this rotation they all have to alternate when a patient comes in. This means during the day he only gets every fourth patient or so. It also doesn't help that sometimes the residents forget to page them when a patient comes in. Drew has tried to still be somewhat productive by studying or doing something else during this time but it still provides for very long days since they go by so slowly.

On Call...

Drew and I both are on call tonight . . . my friend and coworker is getting close to her due date and her husband is not expected back from Afghanistan until Monday (he is in the military) so should she go into labor before then Drew and I have to be prepared to run her to the hospital. We think her precious baby boy dropped last night because her belly looks lower (its not the high up basketball anymore) and she was very uncomfortable all day because she could feel his head in her near her pelvis. This morning she woke up with contractions so we are thinking labor could be coming. Personally I am so excited but I hope for her sake her baby waits a few more days so that his Daddy can be there for the birth.
Speaking of babies Drew is now in his third week of his pediatrics rotation. His first three weeks are outpatient, and his next three weeks will be inpatient. This week he is actually on nursery, which personally I do not understand why its considered "outpatient" because the new babies are technically in the hospital?
I don't know about the rest of the country but it has been very rainy this week in central Illinois. We had rain all day Monday and Tuesday, which with the change in barometric pressure tends to cause women to go into labor. So the Drew has gotten to see lots of babies this week since the nursery has been filled!
This rain is another reason we think my friend may go into labor because although the rain subsided today it is forecasted for Thursday and Friday... So we'll be sleeping with our phone in our room tonight just in case we get paged...

Neuroradiology Clerkship

So I never really covered Drew's unit in neuroradiology. He spent two weeks in this elective rotation in which the credit will apply to his fourth year. Drew seemed to enjoy his rotation in neuroradioliogy but I don't think he could have handled more than two weeks of it. He described it to me as spending the day in a dark room looking at a computer screen and reading digital slides. I guess they just verbally dictate the results into a dictaphone that is transcribed later. He did have a little patient interaction, which involved procedures such as drawing spinal taps (which I believe he actually go to do/help with a few). Drew really struggled with having such little patient interaction, but I still think it was a very good experience for him. He learned a lot about reading different scans and it was a good test of his anatomy knowledge as well (the Resident he worked with quizzed him a lot).

Why I love third year...

I cannot speak too much as to first year because my husband and I were 365 miles (a 6 hour drive or a 12 hours by a short car ride with two train rides to allow for adequate study time while I was in law school) apart. But I can speak in regards to second and third years of medical school. Second year the days were long (but manageable) but the excitement and nervousness of first year had worn off for Drew. While he was still excited about his dreams of becoming a doctor he began to get worn down with the long days of his nose in a book. The only change from studying and lectures was to practice on fake patients. Drew didn't really enjoy this first year and then only to continue it in second year to advance to doing pelvic and rectal exams was no improvement. The year dragged on for Drew and he was often exhausted.
We were worried to start third year; we had heard it was going to be tough, long days, busy weekends and very little free time. I guess with all the worrying about how "terrible" it was going to be we weren't really prepared for Drew to enjoy it.
Once Drew got past the orientation part of his rotation he would come home each night so excited. He was different, it was like someone had relighted his fire and passion for medicine. Drew started with "longs" which are Internal Medicine (IM) and Surgery (and are called longs because they are 10 weeks, rather than the rest of the clerkships which are only six.) Typically the "longs" are considered the most intense and most demanding. And while they most certainly were, I still can say that Drew (and even I) have been so much happier than last year. Internal medicine usually started at six or seven and he was usually home by six or seven. He was gone Saturday mornings but most of his Sundays were protected (meaning he had the whole day off). Surgery was a little less consistent. Most days he started at five or so and was done by five-ish but there were the occasional days where he got out in the early afternoon or other days where he went till 8 or 9 at night. Weekends were the same is internal medicine. While this seems miserable keep in mind that Drew's "shorts" psychiatry and Oby-gyn thus far have been shorter days and offered him most weekends off.
Although the schedule of IM and surgery seems intense, it was really quite bearable. I kept myself busy by visiting friends some weekends and we made every Sunday our day, all day, even if it meant laying down on the couch all day. I have also learned to love even simply times like when I lay in his lap while he studies. While I have gotten a little off-course (thanks for staying with me here) the point of my post, is that I have found third year to be the most rewarding. There have been so many days where Drew has come home so excited, and although exhausted he couldn't wait to tell me what he got to see, hear, or do that day. For us it was like all that time that he had spent with his nose buried in a book had finally paid off. He has finally gotten to see so many of the things he had only before read about. He is actually working with real patients, with real problems. It made the idea of becoming a doctor a little more real.
My favorite of course was surgery because each night I could watch his eyes light up with such awe and enthusiasm as he spoke about his day. It didn't matter what he spoke about, it wasn't what he said, it was just so wonderful as a spouse to see the one I love find his passion. It was the acknowledgement and satisfaction that all his hard work (studying and self-discipline) had paid off. I think it also provided a huge amount of joy and relief for him to not only know that medicine really was his calling, but also to know what your calling is.
And while finding the right specialty can be stressful for some, when they do find it, there is just a huge sense of relief and contentment. So if your spouse struggles to find something they like my advice is to try and calm their fears and encourage them to just learn from what (rotation/clerkship) they are in, even it means learning that they never want to do it ever again!
So while third year takes some accommodation and adaptation, it is a very exciting time - especially as a significant other getting to watch your spouse transform from a student to a future doctor.