first solo SP patient and first interview of med school applicant

Alright, first I have to vent. The school is arguably sort of in the middle of nowhere. There's no place close by to get coffee, food, drinks (alcoholic and otherwise) nearby. So late at night, when we're hungry or thirsty, our only option is delivery (very limited) and the water fountain, which tastes like dirty lake water on a bad day mixed with sewer run off after a category 4 hurricane. So when the year started, apparently they had some dispute with Pepsi, resulting in empty drinks machines lining the hallways. Well those were finally recently gotten rid off and now we have empty space where there once were drinks vending machines. Now they're saying they have coke providing new drinks machines on Wednesday, but Wednesday rolls around and still no machines. If that's not bad enough, there's a lack of food and coffee late at night. It blows, but other than that, things are cool. I heart complaining.

I had a couple of firsts today. The solo patient interview was great. It was nerve racking at first, I was really nervous when they told us to stand outside the door of the exam room and wait for a bell to tell us to go in. But then I calmed down when it all started. I had to do all those things I mentioned below and I had to do it in a way that wasn't rushed, that was empathic to the patient and cover all of the points within a set amount of time. So I did all of it, although it wasn't the smoothest. The patient didn't say a lot so that threw me off, I think we were all expecting them to give us a whole bunch of complaints and a really complex medical, family and social histories. But it wasn't and it was great. They tell you to make it like a conversation and you would think that would be easy, but it's not. There's so much you have to keep track of, the patient's story, the bits of info you need to get, the time you're spending to get it, being nice to the patient and attending to their needs. Just takes practice to get real good at it I think. We get a video and feedback tomorrow. This one wasn't graded and only we get to review the video. Next one is in October which we will get small group feedback.

So this week, my school started interviewing med school applicants for the 2014 class and we as students get a chance to sign up and interview them. Each applicant gets a faculty interviewer and student interviewer. In addition, we get a free lunch so there's a ton of people lining up to do this thing. I wanted to do it but I came to late to sign up and spots were all filled for this week. My friend had to drop out of her interview appointment to study so I took her place. I interviewed this guy and he seemed interesting. As you can imagine, the cream of the crop usually gets 1st cracks at interviews during the 1st week, so these guys are the "hot shot" applicants. I don't know their stats but he seemed like a real smart guy, a real contender, a strong applicant. Of course, I'm sitting there selling the PIL program the whole time cuz I think we are the bomb and very few schools have a program like ours. It's based on a Harvard or Stanford program or was it Yale, one of those. So I'm sitting there thinking if these hot shots come here for PIL, their hotness will rub off on the school and it will gain more fame and thus more $$$$ to get us high tech stuff like vending machines with drinks in them! Anyway, I've got 3 interviews lined up with more Hot Shots next week. More Hot Shots = More $$$ = Vending Machines w/ cold Drinks!

Anyway, had a good day today. Ended the day with some homemade mac and cheese with a couple of friends and Grey's Anatomy, which sucked by the way and I don't even really watch that show. Can't wait for the weekend for some R&R and some studying.

disclaimer: in case any faculty from my school reads this, I take seriously every interview and cherish the opportunity to welcome new blood to our school's already diverse and talented crowd of young minds. But I was serious about the vending machines...need them....now!

first solo standardized patient session today

I'm having my first solo standardized patient interview today. I'm supposed to get the chief complaint, history of present illness (HPI), past medical history, family history, social history, and a review of systems. In that order, roughly. I'm pretty nervous about it, but I should be ok, I've been interviewing patients sort of at the clinic all year so I should be ok. It's the first time we're wearing our white coats as well. I'll post again later today about the experience as well as the geriatric mentoring session we had last Friday.

updates

Sorry for the radio silence the past weeks. So I had my first mid block exam on Monday and Tuesday. It was in Gross Anatomy and Microanatomy. I did really well in the multiple choice sections. I'm waiting for grades for the essay sections and the written portions of the practical to be graded. The grading goes Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, High Satisfactory, Honors. I've done nothing much other than study lately. We've gone out regularly with friends or had BBQ's or house parties every weekend and have been generally having fun through all the stress.

I went to chinatown clinic last night and we had this little girl come in with her mom who was there for a checkup. The kid was Indonesian and she was asking me about medicine as a profession. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up (she was 8) and she said a doctor, but she thought she could only be a nurse instead. So I told her that she could be whatever the heck she wanted to be. I told her there were plenty of women docs and that the medical student who was caring for her mom was going to be a doctor and that there was a woman doctor who went to an Indonesian medical school working at the clinic. She was totally surprised, I guess she thought only guys became docs and girls became nurses. So I introduced her to the girl med students and the indonesian woman doc and she had a good time. That was memorable. Her mom said that she liked taking care of and helping people, sounds like she's a good fit for the profession.

I'm going to a home for seniors tomorrow to interview/have a chat with them. It's not a medical interview, it's just practice talking to people and connecting with them. Personally, this is the part I really like, it's why I go to the Chinatown clinic every week.

A little about med school life. So I spend most of the day from 9 AM to 10PM at school and I usually pack a lunch because the food sucks there and it's expensive. But some days there are after school activities such as interest groups for medical specialties. It's there to get students acquainted with the fields of the medical profession they're interested in. They get people to come in and talk about that particular field (plastic surgery, internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics etc). But the best part is they give you free food. It's not usually the healthiest selections though, more often than not it's pizza. But hey it's free and they say that on any given day in a hospital, there is a free lunch to be had.

I haven't ridden my bike in a while and I feel like a lazy bum. I need to get out there. I'm planning to move soon to a cheaper place. I'll be paying half of what I'm paying and I'll be closer to school/my riding spots. So we'll see how that goes.

Sorry for lack of pics lately. I'll try to fix that...