skipping out

yesterday was a blast. finally. showed up for 5:30am rounds and saw 6 all new residents on our surgery service (it happens at the end of every month, this changing of the guard, so to speak). after all the introductions, etc, i sized up the situation in my head....2 OR's, 2 attendings, 6 residents...and me. lucky number 7.
yeah. basically there would be nothing for me to do for the rest of the day but stand around and watch everyone else do something. superfun.

so at morning meeting, when the vascular surgeons asked for help in their clinic, i rapidly jumped ship. which is probably PRECISELY why i would not be very good at this military stuff. following orders is not so much my thing.

i went and watched a hernia repair (running tally this week: 8) in the OR to pass the time before clinic started. i chit chatted with the rep who was there to show us all the new mesh samples he had, which was moderately interesting. it's made of polypro and goretex. just like a raincoat for your intestines.

then i went to vascular surgery clinic for the rest of the day. and i learned more from them in one day than i have in the last 2 weeks combined. it was amazing. having great surgeons double as phenomenal teachers and just plain good human beings made all the difference in the world. for whoever else rotates through here, put it on your must-do list. plus, there's a PA who works in their office who helped me immensely with all my charting and who drew me into the secret club of vascular surgery. i was totally eating it up. and....loving it. who knew?

none of the patients i saw were under 70, the oldest was 94. a few were doing well enough to be discharged from our service, which was wholly satisfying to know that even geriatric patients with a laundry list of problems can get better and do just fine. but the best part was again, listening to their stories, which they are not shy to tell. probably because they think i'm too young to know any better. and they all tell time in reference to war and who was president at the time, which i find fascinating.

i got schooled by one gentleman who let me know just what he thought of obama and his "re-cycling" attempt. so i had to bite that one. he explained that at the end of WW II (which incidentally started on his 10th birthday, how dare they!) the only person that could solve the depression/recession thing was eisenhower. the eisenhower interstate saved us, and now obama thinks he can just re-cyle that idea and save us all again, but it won't work...obama ain't no eisenhower. and that's how we sort of left it...and as i went to walk out of the room he told me "i always wanted to be a history teacher..." well, man...it was your lucky day.