My Favorite Chief Complaint Ever
August 24, 2007
Patient presents involuntairly with a complaint of “I hate my mom! She always does this shit!”
It was in the chart. Awesome.
Lessons from My First 6 Weeks as a Third Year
August 3, 2007
Its all about confidence. If you’re incompetent, be confident in your incompetence, and damn well learn. And learn fast.
Be nice to everyone, all the time. Smile at everyone. Ask the janitors how their day is going…and stick around to make sure you hear the answer. If someone is snippy with you, be kind to them back. People are just people, and they’re probably having a bad day. Its not personal, and a little bit of kindness goes a hell of a long way.
Talk to patients. Take a minute and leave the table open for them to just talk to you. Take a half hour when things are slow on call and ask an old woman to tell you about her kids. Listen to their stories. They’ll love telling them, and you’ll learn about life. Everybody wins.
Remember people, and remember their names.
Peanut butter and jelly sammiches are the lunch of champions.
There is no amount of caffeine that will keep me awake in morning report after a night on call.
“I don’t know” is a really exhausting thing to say….because it usually leads to them saying “well why don’t you look it up?”
Never have surgery. Ever.
The human female genital tract is capable of things that human tissue shouldn’t be able to do.
Babies look like aliens for the first 2 minutes.
The bladder blade is tiring to hold.
Treat everyone at your level and below like an equal.
Realize why the people above you are there, and the work its taken them to get there. Respect that. Treat them like you respect that. Learn from them. Get chewed out, and realize its because they think what you didn’t know is really important. Take it all in stride, and keep learning.
Done, and done.
I sat in my desk chair and listen to Brahms for 2 hours today. I miss myself.
