It's my last call at the VA, and fortunately, I don't have too many patients. Unfortunately, the patients I do have are about to crump. Fortunately though, I have plenty of time to stare at the cardiac monitor watching blood pressures drop and heart rates rise, and I thought I'd take this opportunity to do a little blogging about what I like and dislike about medicine.
I do not like dying patients. I do not like patients with 5000 tubes sticking out of them and I especially do not like that slightly panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach I get when things start spiraling out of my control.
I am really not cut out for inpatient medicine. Fortunately, there are plenty of doctors who are well suited for this acute medicine thing. I just do not get that "rush" that's described to me by people who become excited at 20 things happening at once.
Can someone please explain this rush to me? Because all I get is nauseous, not at all a pleasant feeling.
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6 comments:
That's why you went into what you went into. I remember some really really good advice: don't think about what "organ system" you want to work with - think about what medical environment you liked. If you liked the operating room, whether it was eyes or kidneys or guts, be a surgeon. If you liked inpatient, think of something inpatient/internal. I remember I liked clinics, always, even in things like GYN that I didn't like so much. It's good advice.
That said, I liked some of the trauma cases. But not the codes/ICU/internal med stuff. In trauma, sometimes you do something small (ie chest tube) and watch right in front of you as something stabilizes, which is nice.
I love that rush. That's why I'm an anesthesiology resident - we take care of some very sick patients in the ORs who will try and die on you if you're not thinking ahead while the surgeons hack away, bleeding them damn near to death. I love traumas that come in a 3 in the morning, knowing nothing and having to think of a million things while managing the dying patient who has just lost 5L out of their chest (real case, btw). It amps me up, it's awesome.
I get bored with, and honestly detest, clinics. The noncompliant patients, the vague complaints, the endless paperwork. I like running to codes, intubating, starting lines while compressions are ongoing, yelling out orders, overriding others who aren't "getting there" quick enough. It's fun for me. It validates my sense of what *I* think a physician should be able to do (but doesn't mean that's what every physician should do). But you ask me how to actually manage gout, hypertension that's refractory to basic management, diabetes, etc and I gloss over. Staging cancer? Nope. IV meds for me and almost instantaneous results? Love it.
the question is, though, what is worse, OB or inpatient medicine?? :)
It's all personality - some people are the 'planner' type, that like looking after details, in a calm orderly manner. Some people love instant feedback, and need to be moving about all the time, bored with sticking to one thing for too long.
you havent blogged in long time
pls update your blog, beautiful lady
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