This week has seemed a blur as I have started into my medicine sub-internship. I say that because I am realizing just how busy it is going to be when I am an intern full time next year. I had to ask Steph to look at the calendar to remind me what actually happened this week outside the hospital.
I was on call Monday and Friday this week. Being on-call entails being at the hospital from 6:00 am one morning until 1:00pm the next day – about 30 hours total. During an on-call day, our team can get up to 10 new admissions, usually starting in the afternoon. There is a senior resident, three interns (including me) and two junior medical students, so we take turns going to meet the new patients, usually in the emergency room. On Monday I got two new patients – an older gentleman that had fallen in his home and been stuck on the floor for two days before being found by his neighbor, and a lady with multiple sclerosis (MS) with a bladder infection. As an “intern” I am in charge of meeting the patient, conducting a full history and physical, writing all the admission orders, and then taking care of the patient while they are in the hospital. I still have the senior resident who looks over all my orders before they go out to make sure they are ok, but it is a new experience to be in charge of making so many decisions. I am at a new location that uses a computer system that I am not familiar with, so it has been an uphill learning experience on that end as well.
That first call night I got about six hours of sleep, which was great – I didn’t have to go home and sleep the next day. But I did miss the Labor Day ward BBQ that Steph went to with the boys. She said some of our friends helped her with the three boys and that the boys loved playing on the playground.
My other call night, Friday, I got about 3 hours of sleep. I got two admissions again, this time a man with a cellulitis (skin infection) in his left leg, and a really complicated patient that has a 3rd clot in his left leg and shingles all over his body because he had a lung transplant a few years ago and is on medicine to suppress his immune system. Things were a little busier overall for our team, so I was up more of the night and pretty tired the next day. It is nice to have that post call afternoon to recuperate before having to go back in the next day.
Then, on top of normal call coming every 4th night, we have “short call” that occurs the day after our post call day (so call day, post-call day, short-call day, and pre-call day). On short call we start taking admissions in the morning and can get up to 4 as a team. Most mornings we are already busy with seeing how the patients did overnight, writing progress notes, filling orders, calling consults, and rounding as a team to talk about our patients, so to add admissions on top of that makes those days pretty busy as well. I guess I never realized how much paperwork goes on in the background behind patient care.
Wednesday night I had my first Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) meeting. AOA is the medical school honor society – only 32 of the 200 people in our class were invited to join. Dr. Kolesari shared with us how he ended up as a family practice doctor and the director of the anatomy program at the medical school. Then we were introduced to the different programs that AOA members typically take part in, including helping to prepare the 2nd years for the Step 1 test; helping with testing the 2nd years for their physical exam test; helping with the Make a Wish foundation; serving at free clinics; and more. It looks like one of the goals of AOA is to find ways to serve the medical college community and our community at large.
I had Thursday off, which was such a nice break after the busy week. I helped Steph to take the boys to their last art class. They made tropical trees, “grass” (plastic) skirts, and other decorations for a luau that we had Saturday night at the Nielsen’s house. The luau was really fun, except for the mosquitoes that bit all of us in about 20 places each. Camden looks the worst with pink spots all over his face. There was a fishing pond and a treasure hunt for the kids, and dinner and desserts. Then we came back to our place for games last night.
Thursday afternoon and Friday all day Steph participated in getting several ultrasounds of Isaac, to help with training residents and some nurses on how to conduct ultrasounds. She got to keep several of the ultrasound pictures, got food, and even will get paid $100 for participating. I also made about $70 this week from selling old text books. Oh, speaking of money, we got our residency interviewing and relocation loan this week, so we now will have money to help pay for applications, interviews, and then moving next summer.
On Tuesday I looked over my application for residency programs one last time and then hit the submit button. I ended up applying to 100 dermatology programs and 6 transitional year programs. The ball is now out of our court and we will wait to hear for interview invitations. Keep us in your prayers so that we can get in somewhere. :)
Today I had to go into the hospital to round on my patients, so I finally got over to the church about 1:00pm for the last 20 minutes of choir practice. Mainly I went to help Steph with getting the boys back home. The Kearls invited us for dinner tonight, so that should be pretty fun. And I have tomorrow off, so that will be very relaxing. I am looking forward to when this month is over so that I can have my weekends back and more time to spend with the family.
Showing posts with label Applications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Applications. Show all posts
09 September 2007
02 September 2007
Starting the Sub-I
In August Michael had an outpatient medicine rotation that had a very nice schedule. He got off early several afternoons a week and didn’t have to go in too early in the mornings. This means that it has been a really nice week for me – most mornings I get to ‘sleep in’ until around 7:30am and when I get up, Michael has already changed and fed the boys. Michael’s medicine sub-I started yesterday, and he is going to have a much tougher schedule for the month of September. This is one of Michael’s two sub-internship months this school year, which means that he takes on the responsibility of a 1st-year resident, which is a lot more than the normal responsibilities of a 4th-year medical student. Anyways, this month Michael will be working on weekends and be at the hospital overnight every 4th night. I think we may both be pretty tired by the time this month is over – at least the rotations he has scheduled for October and November are both supposed to have a much lighter schedule.
This last week was nice. On Monday I met Amy Schneider de Cortez (a friend from Michael’s school) and her kids at the Children’s Museum downtown. We had a lot of fun playing there, and it was good to see Amy again since we haven’t gotten together in a while. Then on Tuesday morning we got to go over to Jandee Anderson’s house and let the boys play with her son, Isaac. We found out that Isaac is going to be in Kolby’s swim class at the YMCA starting in a couple weeks, so that will be really nice. Later on that afternoon, Marcela Maas got out their baby pool and the boys went and swam with Sofia and with Mikey and Landon Kam. Then I went to the annual get-to-know-you RS BBQ, which was a lot of fun, even though it was very warm and humid out that night. I got to talk to some old friends and met several new sisters in the ward too.
On Wednesday I took the boys to the playgroup at Hoyt Park. The boys had a lot of fun and Camden enjoyed crawling all around the playground – trying to eat as much sand as he could before I stopped him, and climbing up on the playground equipment and playing on the slide. He is getting so old, playing with the big kids. On Wednesday night Kolby had his last swimming lesson of the summer session. On the last lesson of each session they always learn about water safety and bring a canoe into the pool and let the kids paddle it around, which is really fun for the kids. Kolby has improved so much with his swimming over the last few months. Michael took him to his lesson, and then afterwards he surprised him and took him to McDonalds. They each ordered something from the dollar menu, and Michael said that Kolby came and sat in the front seat of the car while they shared their food and talked about how things were going lately. Michael said that it was a really fun experience to have some one-on-one time with Kolby and to just talk to him about stuff. And Kolby talked about it for the entire day afterwards. That was pretty cute. So, the next night after Michael took Eli to his last swimming lesson, he took Eli and did the same activity. Michael said that he didn’t think Eli really caught on that it was a special thing that they got to do an activity just by themselves, but he said that Eli enjoyed getting the food from McDonalds, at least.
We went on Thursday morning for the toddler art class, and it was my turn to teach the lesson. I took these pictures of dinosaur skeletons, and the kids glued different shapes of pasta noodles on to make their own dinosaur skeletons. The other kids in the group ended up with pictures that somewhat resembled dinosaurs, and Kolby and Eli each finished with a piece of paper covered in a 3-inch thick pile of glue and noodles. It was pretty cute, though. That afternoon I also had a doctor’s appointment. I now have two more appointments scheduled in September, and then an appointment scheduled every week in October until the baby is due. Luverda Martin, my midwife, said that everything looks like it’s right on track with the baby. On Friday Michael went to school in the morning to work on his research, and then in the afternoon we took the boys to Nash Park, where someone had told me that they had a playground that was good for smaller kids because the guardrails went all the way down on all the sides of the equipment. Camden loved it – it wasn’t a very large playground, but once he found out that he could climb up the steps and go down the slide all by himself, he did that over and over again. Then we came home and had a bunch of friends over for a game night. We invited several new families in the ward that we hadn’t met before, and several old friends, and had a really fun time getting to know everyone.
On Saturday Michael started his sub-I. He said that it was pretty difficult because they don’t have orientation until tomorrow, so he didn’t know a lot of things that he was supposed to be doing, but that will get better after the first little while. I went to a baby shower for Jill Austin while Michael was at the hospital, and it was kind of a battle to take all the boys with me – they gave me a rough time, but I survived. Then, after the boys got up from their naps, we went over and cleaned the church building as a family. Afterwards we took the kids to Dennys – we love their “kids eat free” deal on Saturdays! We rented a movie for a date after we put the boys down to bed. We got one that Michael’s mom recommended to us called The Ultimate Gift. I stayed up and watched the whole thing last night, and Michael fell asleep on the couch about half way through the movie, as has become his habit lately (he is now catching up on the end of the movie while I am writing this and the boys are all napping). Anyways, it was a good movie – nice to find ones that are rated PG and you don’t have to worry about them having bad language or content. Well, today has been a good day too. It was one of Michael’s four days that he gets off this month (his only Sunday off). Church went well. We had a lesson about finances and making sacrifices for the right causes for Sunday school and the lesson in Relief Society was about the law of chastity and how to teach our children about modesty and how to avoid things that are inappropriate. And tonight we were invited to the Lundgren’s house for an early dinner, so that should be a lot of fun too.
Oh, and I just wanted to thank all of you who helped give suggestions for Michael’s personal statement and resume for his residency applications. He was going to submit his final application yesterday, but is still waiting to hear back from his advisor who had some suggestions for him – but he has decided to submit his application on Tuesday whether he has heard back from the advisor or not. I think it is a really hard thing to write about yourself, but Michael did a really good job of it, and with all the suggestions and corrections that he got from family and friends, I think that he ended up with a really good personal statement. So, once everything is submitted, we will just be waiting to get invitations for interviews, which will mostly be in December and January, so keep us in your prayers (because the more interviews he gets, the better chance he has of getting matched with a residency program). Thanks!
This last week was nice. On Monday I met Amy Schneider de Cortez (a friend from Michael’s school) and her kids at the Children’s Museum downtown. We had a lot of fun playing there, and it was good to see Amy again since we haven’t gotten together in a while. Then on Tuesday morning we got to go over to Jandee Anderson’s house and let the boys play with her son, Isaac. We found out that Isaac is going to be in Kolby’s swim class at the YMCA starting in a couple weeks, so that will be really nice. Later on that afternoon, Marcela Maas got out their baby pool and the boys went and swam with Sofia and with Mikey and Landon Kam. Then I went to the annual get-to-know-you RS BBQ, which was a lot of fun, even though it was very warm and humid out that night. I got to talk to some old friends and met several new sisters in the ward too.
On Wednesday I took the boys to the playgroup at Hoyt Park. The boys had a lot of fun and Camden enjoyed crawling all around the playground – trying to eat as much sand as he could before I stopped him, and climbing up on the playground equipment and playing on the slide. He is getting so old, playing with the big kids. On Wednesday night Kolby had his last swimming lesson of the summer session. On the last lesson of each session they always learn about water safety and bring a canoe into the pool and let the kids paddle it around, which is really fun for the kids. Kolby has improved so much with his swimming over the last few months. Michael took him to his lesson, and then afterwards he surprised him and took him to McDonalds. They each ordered something from the dollar menu, and Michael said that Kolby came and sat in the front seat of the car while they shared their food and talked about how things were going lately. Michael said that it was a really fun experience to have some one-on-one time with Kolby and to just talk to him about stuff. And Kolby talked about it for the entire day afterwards. That was pretty cute. So, the next night after Michael took Eli to his last swimming lesson, he took Eli and did the same activity. Michael said that he didn’t think Eli really caught on that it was a special thing that they got to do an activity just by themselves, but he said that Eli enjoyed getting the food from McDonalds, at least.
We went on Thursday morning for the toddler art class, and it was my turn to teach the lesson. I took these pictures of dinosaur skeletons, and the kids glued different shapes of pasta noodles on to make their own dinosaur skeletons. The other kids in the group ended up with pictures that somewhat resembled dinosaurs, and Kolby and Eli each finished with a piece of paper covered in a 3-inch thick pile of glue and noodles. It was pretty cute, though. That afternoon I also had a doctor’s appointment. I now have two more appointments scheduled in September, and then an appointment scheduled every week in October until the baby is due. Luverda Martin, my midwife, said that everything looks like it’s right on track with the baby. On Friday Michael went to school in the morning to work on his research, and then in the afternoon we took the boys to Nash Park, where someone had told me that they had a playground that was good for smaller kids because the guardrails went all the way down on all the sides of the equipment. Camden loved it – it wasn’t a very large playground, but once he found out that he could climb up the steps and go down the slide all by himself, he did that over and over again. Then we came home and had a bunch of friends over for a game night. We invited several new families in the ward that we hadn’t met before, and several old friends, and had a really fun time getting to know everyone.
On Saturday Michael started his sub-I. He said that it was pretty difficult because they don’t have orientation until tomorrow, so he didn’t know a lot of things that he was supposed to be doing, but that will get better after the first little while. I went to a baby shower for Jill Austin while Michael was at the hospital, and it was kind of a battle to take all the boys with me – they gave me a rough time, but I survived. Then, after the boys got up from their naps, we went over and cleaned the church building as a family. Afterwards we took the kids to Dennys – we love their “kids eat free” deal on Saturdays! We rented a movie for a date after we put the boys down to bed. We got one that Michael’s mom recommended to us called The Ultimate Gift. I stayed up and watched the whole thing last night, and Michael fell asleep on the couch about half way through the movie, as has become his habit lately (he is now catching up on the end of the movie while I am writing this and the boys are all napping). Anyways, it was a good movie – nice to find ones that are rated PG and you don’t have to worry about them having bad language or content. Well, today has been a good day too. It was one of Michael’s four days that he gets off this month (his only Sunday off). Church went well. We had a lesson about finances and making sacrifices for the right causes for Sunday school and the lesson in Relief Society was about the law of chastity and how to teach our children about modesty and how to avoid things that are inappropriate. And tonight we were invited to the Lundgren’s house for an early dinner, so that should be a lot of fun too.
Oh, and I just wanted to thank all of you who helped give suggestions for Michael’s personal statement and resume for his residency applications. He was going to submit his final application yesterday, but is still waiting to hear back from his advisor who had some suggestions for him – but he has decided to submit his application on Tuesday whether he has heard back from the advisor or not. I think it is a really hard thing to write about yourself, but Michael did a really good job of it, and with all the suggestions and corrections that he got from family and friends, I think that he ended up with a really good personal statement. So, once everything is submitted, we will just be waiting to get invitations for interviews, which will mostly be in December and January, so keep us in your prayers (because the more interviews he gets, the better chance he has of getting matched with a residency program). Thanks!
26 August 2007
We Are So Blessed
So the weather outside is beautiful today. We had rain basically all week, so it is so nice to see the sun again. Today at church we learned about the light of Christ, how it is an innate gift that we are all born with, that the Holy Ghost uses it to touch our hearts and lead us to do right. In Sunday school we talked about the journeys of Paul into Macedonia and how he was always willing to open his mouth to share the gospel, and how we can try to be better friends to our neighbors and those we meet. Then in priesthood the lesson was on the living Christ and forgiveness, and how they relate together – it is only through Jesus Christ and His atonement that we can be forgiven and be made clean. If we want to be like Him, then we need to learn to forgive others. It was a great morning.
Earlier this week we had one of Steph’s family history professors from BYU, brother Minert, and his wife, over for some dessert as they were passing through Wisconsin. It was fun to see them and catch up on the projects he is in charge of at BYU and sharing what we have been up to since we saw them last a few years ago. I think it is so neat to have a college professor that gets to know their students so well and wants to visit them when they are in the area.
Kolby continues to improve at swimming lessons. Steph said that this week he only had the foam float belt around his waist and he was able to swim the width of the pool with basically no help. Eli is also one of the top in his class – he loves the water.
Yesterday I was in charge of a big activity over at the church building. We share the building with another congregation, so we split the grounds in half outside, and we are each in charge of weeding our half, so that is what we did yesterday morning. Like I said, it had been raining all week, so I was worried that we would be rained out and no one would show up. I said a prayer that the weather would be nice and that people would show up, and my prayer was answered – the weather was wonderful and we had about 30 adults (50 people with children) come, and we got everything done in about two hours. Now it looks great (at least our half of the grounds). :)
I took Kolby, Eli, and Camden with me so that Steph could have some time to work on Christmas presents for our parents and siblings – yep, that is right – Steph wanted to get them done early so that they could be done before she has the baby in October. When she puts her mind to something, nothing can stop her.
This week I think some more prayers were answered as we got some really good news. I received a letter saying that I was chosen to be a part of Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA), the medical school honor society. This could not have come at a better time, since I am planning on submitting my residency application next weekend, and AOA is looked highly on in dermatology, so it should help us out a lot to be able to add that to the resume.
It amazes me when I stop to think how blessed me and my family are and that we have a loving Heavenly Father who is always watching out for us and helping us when needed. I have a wonderful wife and three beautiful children; I am pursuing a career that I love and things seem to be working just when needed to help us get there; and we have the gospel to bless our lives.
Keep us in your prayers as we get ready to submit the residency applications – then the ball will be out of our court and we will have to wait for programs to invite us to interview. Thanks.
Earlier this week we had one of Steph’s family history professors from BYU, brother Minert, and his wife, over for some dessert as they were passing through Wisconsin. It was fun to see them and catch up on the projects he is in charge of at BYU and sharing what we have been up to since we saw them last a few years ago. I think it is so neat to have a college professor that gets to know their students so well and wants to visit them when they are in the area.
Kolby continues to improve at swimming lessons. Steph said that this week he only had the foam float belt around his waist and he was able to swim the width of the pool with basically no help. Eli is also one of the top in his class – he loves the water.
Yesterday I was in charge of a big activity over at the church building. We share the building with another congregation, so we split the grounds in half outside, and we are each in charge of weeding our half, so that is what we did yesterday morning. Like I said, it had been raining all week, so I was worried that we would be rained out and no one would show up. I said a prayer that the weather would be nice and that people would show up, and my prayer was answered – the weather was wonderful and we had about 30 adults (50 people with children) come, and we got everything done in about two hours. Now it looks great (at least our half of the grounds). :)
I took Kolby, Eli, and Camden with me so that Steph could have some time to work on Christmas presents for our parents and siblings – yep, that is right – Steph wanted to get them done early so that they could be done before she has the baby in October. When she puts her mind to something, nothing can stop her.
This week I think some more prayers were answered as we got some really good news. I received a letter saying that I was chosen to be a part of Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA), the medical school honor society. This could not have come at a better time, since I am planning on submitting my residency application next weekend, and AOA is looked highly on in dermatology, so it should help us out a lot to be able to add that to the resume.
It amazes me when I stop to think how blessed me and my family are and that we have a loving Heavenly Father who is always watching out for us and helping us when needed. I have a wonderful wife and three beautiful children; I am pursuing a career that I love and things seem to be working just when needed to help us get there; and we have the gospel to bless our lives.
Keep us in your prayers as we get ready to submit the residency applications – then the ball will be out of our court and we will have to wait for programs to invite us to interview. Thanks.
08 August 2007
Final Yearbook Page
Well, as I mentioned before, I spent a while making a personal yearbook page for Michael's yearbook. The other day Michael looked through some photos with me, and we decided to change a couple of the little photos on the border. So, I was just waiting until we went to pick up Michael's portrait from the studio, so I could scan that and add it to the yearbook page and be all done with it. I picked up his portrait last night, which turned out great! So, this morning I scanned the portrait and went to add it to the yearbook page, and to my great frustration the yearbook page was not saved on my computer. All the photos I had used on it were right there, in the folder titled "Yearbook," right on my desktop – but no yearbook page. I don't know how it could have accidentally gotten deleted, especially since we were just looking at it a few days ago. So, after totally starting over from scratch, I have taken all morning to re-make the yearbook page. I am pretty tired of it by now, after making it twice -- but at least I didn't have to go through and decide a second time on which photos to use for the page, because I guess that really took the most time when I made the original page. Anyways, here is how it turned out:
And here is Michael’s portrait that will be used not only for the yearbook, but also sent along with his applications for all of his residency programs that he will be applying to in the upcoming months. Isn’t he so handsome?
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