Thanks for voting folks!!! The first post of the Women's Health Corner is scheduled for tomorrow!! :)

What was I thinking?

After scheduling the rest of my rotations at the end of last year, I still had two weeks left that I had to fill and I decided to go back to the general,vascular and thoracic surgeon that I did my Core Surgery rotation for 3 months with last summer. I knew that I would learn a lot from him, get brushed up on my knowledge of medicine as well as surgical technique, and that coming back as a 4th year doing an elective, he would let me do even more than he'd already let me do as a 3rd yr.

As my cardiology rotation was winding down these last few weeks, I started to think back to the looooong days, the ~40 mile commute, the heavy patient load and the sheer exhaustion and then thought to myself What was I thinking??!! , and my classmates and friends asked me the same thing. I could've easily picked a laid back elective that would have cushy hours and light responsibilities, but that just would not have been my M.O. I knew I needed to keep my mind sharp since residency is just around the corner.

So, now at 9pm I sit at my desk after only just getting home. My feet hurt, I am hungry and tired, and I have to wake up at 4am and do it again. But you know what? I had an awesome day! I was first assist on about 5 cases, including a Laparascopic Cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal using laparascopes), and even a C-section when an OB/Gyn asked our surgeon for an assist.

Coming back basically as a colleague as opposed to a student was awesome. I got hugs from everyone at the hospital who I'd worked with before; from the nurses, scrub techs, secretaries, even my surgeon who is a wonderful guy. He boasted about me to the other docs all day. I even amazed myself at how much I remembered and just did automatically, so I cannot complain- especially since I only have to be sleep deprived in medical school for 2 more weeks.

My Birthday Boy

Today is Randy's birthday!!! He wasn't and still isn't too thrilled to be turning 30 but I'm sure that he'll get over it soon enough. :) No parties, no fuss, and shamefully he is making me breakfast right now. (I know, I'm spoiled)

Randy is a very hard person to shop for. He does not ask for much and the things that he likes are usually quite expensive (go figure) so I was happy when I was able to get him this extra fancy, gaming friendly keyboard that he'd been talking about getting for weeks and weeks.

I'm glad he liked it :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!!!!

IT'S HERE!!! :)

I received some awesome emails this week from Laine Strutton, my Women's Corner contributor, that was full of thought provoking information, that helped spurn me on to finish preparing my first post. So, since I already have that done, and I have an interesting topic from her ready to go, plus topics for discussion, I figure I should go ahead and schedule the posts' releases, and put up my button since I go back to 14hr days of Surgery on Monday (for only 2 weeks and then I AM DONE WITH MEDICAL SCHOOL!!! )
So, feel free to button up and check out my new blog!! :)

Thanks again to all my friends and family who supported and encouraged me as I embarked on this project!!!

Kudos to My Honey

Today, Randy had an incredibly awesome review at work. In only little over a year, he has grown, shone, reguvinated and revitalized his position and has been receiving the recognition for it.
I am very proud of you honey. Our kids are gonna have a very cool, sweet, ambitious and talented dad to look up to!!
I love you!!!

UPCOMING ATTRACTIONS!!!!

In about a week, this image will be on my blog sidebar as a button, so that you can be linked directly to Dr. D's Women's Health Corner. I am so very excited about this and still can't believe that I am taking on such a task at a point when my life is about to get even more hectic than before, but the thought came into my mind some weeks ago that I should use this wonderful forum as a way to do my good in this world and it just kept nagging me until I decided to go for it. What has surprised me is the overwhelmingly positive and excited responses I have gotten from many of my family and friends when they hear that this is something that I want to do.

I declared to my family at the age of 3 that I was going to be a doctor, and was thereafter dubbed "Dr. D" by my favorite aunt (Auntie Michelle) and then others, so I thought that it would be fitting to name the women's health corner accordingly.

Upcoming topics include but are not limited to:

₪ Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome

₪Menopause

₪Women and Heart Health

₪Domestic Violence

₪Post Partum Depression

with international issues affecting women such as:

₪ Female Genital Cutting

₪ Breast ironing in Cameroon

My dear friend Laine Strutton will be contributing the international aspects of women's rights and women's health to the blog.

I encourage you to spread the word, and to please email me at doctordkm@yahoo.com if there is any topic that you would like explained/discussed. Also, please let others know that they can still vote. The poll does not close until the 31st of this month.
All of the topics in the Women's Health Corner will be open for discussion

Pet Peeve

Today, one of my pet peeves that usually gets under my skin, really got under my skin. Doctors who write illegibly in charts!!! I mean, what is the point of writing in the chart when no one else can understand it? This is not their personal diary for crying out loud!!

I and one of the nurses digressed for at least 15 mins at the nurses station griping about this and she stressed that the new generation of doctors have to shrug off the old way of doing things and make the system better.

Which brings me to my other peeve. Bogus consults!!! Now I know that no current doctors are reading this, but I say this to my fellow soon-to be M.D's: If you do Family Med or Internal Med residency and you don't feel comfortable managing a sick patient who happens to have Hypertension or a little chest discomfort, then please reconsider if you learned anything in residency at all, and also, be ashamed of yourself. I don't care what specialty you are, please do not call a cardiology consult for something that you should be able to manage yourself. It is your patient, so take care of them. Think about how much money the patients and the government are being charged everytime a consult is called.

Do you know how many times we get a consult when the cardiologist can't even tell me why he was called cause he doesn't know??? ARGGHHH!!!!

Whew, now that I got that off of my chest I can go on with the rest of my day.