still haven't lost the desire to get my eyebrow pierced.

this still might happen.

early afternoon sleepy morning breakfast

i love living with this man.

life as a PA.

i'm about 2 months into my first job as a physician assistant.

the transition in general has gone pretty well. first few weeks were stressful -- first getting used to a new place, figuring out what paperwork needs to be done when and who goes where. it was really overwhelming at first to be responsible for care and not have anyone to just be like OK, sounds good or yes, that's right. i felt like i was just totally guessing and trying stuff out to see what was working-- which is scary when it comes to healthcare. thing is, i guess i still feel like that... its not that i got more confident in my decisions, i just got more comfortable with the feeling of guessing.

someone who is not in healthcare probably finds this really scary. to be honest that was my biggest lesson during rotations -- no one else really knows what they are doing either. nothing is for sure in medicine. you have your base knowledge and then you just have to do your best to adapt to each patient and presentation being different and do what you can while trying to "kill as few patients as possible" as my boyfriend would say.

overall, i like my job, i think. i like being a PA. i like most of my patients. its just at times that its a little too stressful and frustrating. not because of my patients though, i think its more because of the "system". for one, i don't have enough time with my patients. its go-go-go all the time, we have walk-ins coming out of our ears, and 15 minute appointments, half of which are usually taken up by the MAs getting the patients ready, so that leaves me with 7 minutes to go over the 3 chronic illnesses and 2 acute problems the patient is likely to have, examen them, confirm all the meds, write prescriptions and orders and shoo them out the door before i have to run to the next one. oh, and most of the time this is all done in spanish. and for two, we can't get any of the tests we need done. our patients have no money and no one in the area is willing to see them for specialty care. so a lot of the time i'm just the holder of risks and bad news with no real outcome or direction to go in besides "wait and see".

my chart/documentation skills have definitely gone out the window, but my spanish is getting pretty good.

i think that it will be a good experience. its kind of like throwing me into the fire and seeing what happens... but i think it will turn out OK. i don't plan on staying too long-- i'd get way burnt out, but it will be good while it lasts.

home stretch!

...well, sorta.  one week of studying, psychosocial final project thursday, pharmacology exam friday, endocrinology exam monday, research and statistics exam tuesday, clinical laboratory medicine exam wednesday, and EKG exam thursday.  and don't forget the 8 hours of lecture i have every day next week as well.  :)  oh, and also, you should know... we have spent the last 6 hours of lecture in gen med solely on diabetes.  and there's much more to come.  oye vey.  i'm feeling much better than i did last week though.  everything feels do-able and i think i will make it out of there not only alive and kicking, but hopefully with some A's under my belt.

i am really looking forward to my week off though.

the other news of the day is that i got a little more information about overseas rotations.  apparently i can do an entire elective rotation in belize!  it's a month long and costs 1500, which doesn't sound too bad to me and it would be a fantastic experience.  the other thing i want to do, is a medical mission trip that is in january to guatemala for a week.  so those are both very exciting.  i need to start saving.

near-drowning.

so about a month ago (around the time i wrote that last post) i was treading water.  good pace, constant motion, keeping my head above water.  now i'm pretty much attempting to half-float, because my arms and legs are so tired from treading and letting my head bob up and down above the water, taking gulps of air.  it's not that the information is difficult.  it's fairly straight forward. some of it's pretty complicated, but i get it.  it's not even the fact that there is so much information... it's really just that it does. not. stop.  it's like each test is a huge pile on our desk of files to go through in the "in" box and we never get to the bottom of that file by the time the test comes, so we just stick the rest in the cabinet and move to the next pile that has grown tall since we've been studying the previous pile.  and the process continues.  so there is always the pile thats right in front of us that we are chipping away at, but the difficult part is that not only do we never reach the bottom of that pile, but there's a whole cabinet of other files that we never go to next to that, and not only that, but behind that cabinet is a whole closet full of files that we are never going to get to look at.  ...at least not this year.  *sigh.  and i'm not doing poorly.  i'm doing fine.  i'm just tired.  we are in the home stretch though.  5 more exams, two weeks and then break time.  the problem is that i don't think that my week off is enough time for me to feel rejuvenated enough to come back and tackle another quarter.  i need at least two.  oh well, gotta do whatcha gotta do.  hunker down and keep treading.  the low point of my day today was when i got out of my car in the starbucks parking lot and my 300 flashcards from pharmacology fluttered out across the asphalt.  the high point was after this when i said that i hated pharmacology and rachel replied, "well, it could be worse... you could be married."

hahaha.  okay, to explain that last part... we were discussing today about how everyone that isn't going to grad school is getting married, and at least we got out of having to deal with that for the time being.  ;)

it's official.

med school ate my life.

want to know what i did today?  got up at 5:45.  worked out.  showered, ate, ran to class.  sat in a chair for FOUR hours and soaked up knowledge about valvular disorders.  ate.  studied pharmacology for 45 minutes during my lunch hour.  sat in that same chair again for FOUR MORE hours, 1 and a half of which was about statistics (during which i studied cardiology) and two and a half of which were about shock.  went home.  ate.  went to starbucks.  studied for four and a half hours until they kicked me out.  came home.  studied for an hour.  cleaned my room.  danced around for like 3.25 minutes before i got exhausted.  decided to blog before i hit the sack.

typical day.  the people at starbucks, panera, the library, and soon to be caribou coffee all recognize me, i recognize them, i know who works what nights at starbucks and what kind of music they like to play.  i also know who makes which lattes the best.  i have certain places i sit in all of these locations and i rotate through these locations pretty much on a daily basis.  it adds a little spice to my life.  

it's okay though.  work hard, play hard.  it's just been one of those "work hard" streaks for the past... week.  friday i get to play after my pharm test.  ...and then spend the rest of the weekend studying for the test i have on monday and the two other tests i have on tuesday.

oh, and ps. pharm sucks.  so many different drugs all with crazy foreign names.  yikes.  and i'm highly doubting i will remember the names of these drugs when i'm actually practicing.  especially since we're learning the real names... which no one actually uses.  //shrug.

off to bed.

intense day.

53 out of the 62 people in my class are female.

we spend around 7 or 8 hours a day in class with each other, 5 days a week.

seeing that almost everyone one of us moved here from somewhere else, after school, we often hang out with other also.

...i'm wondering what it would be like if we weren't all on birth control, and all of our cycles synchronized.

eek.