Pop goes the weasle

Karie had a baby. Tell your wives. 12/12/07. We made it to the hospital at 3:00 am the baby was out at 3:30 am. No time for the epidural. It was a girl. Amelia. She was in the NICU for the first few hours for an irregular heart beat. But now all is well. Have a Merry Christmas. I get a week off for Christmas, and then go q2 the next week. It is so worth it though. I plan on a lot of skiing.

Our Christmas Card

Hello,

Merry Christmas from Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh, PA to be exact. Dave was forced to get a job so here we are. We have been here since June and are having a great time. The girls were excited to start a new adventure. Actually, adventure is a good word to describe our year, and we will just leave it at that.
Elisha is getting the house put together and doing a fantastic job. She is busy being the Mom to our three girls and a cheerleader for me. She is also busy with her calling at church.
Josie started two new things this year. 4th grade and the saxophone. We get concerts all the time, we are so lucky. She is growing up even though we tell her stop. Great at being a big sister and working on her Faith in God award.
Savannah started 1st grade. Also great at being a big sister and loves school. After her first day she came home and said, “It was the best day of her life”. She gets to ride the bus. You cannot ask for anything more.
Kate is now two almost three and still controls our lives. She helps out in Nursery, so the other kids will stop crying, she says it really hurts her ears. If they do not stop crying she will stare at them for a minute and then ask them, “what’s your problem?” We anticipate a degree in Psychology.
We love and miss you all. If you are east of the Mississippi please stop by. We hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Love,

Dave, Elisha, Josie, Savannah, & Kate
That’s right; I am surrounded by beautiful women.

Intubation vacation, as I like to call it

After 2 gruelling months of trauma, it's nice to have a change of pace. I call it my intubation vacation, b/c all I have to do is show up in the OR just after the bolus of Diprivan has been given, insert a Mac 3 blade, then watch myself pass the ETT past the vocal cords. At that point, I thank the anesthesiologist and nurse anesthetist, grab a sticker, and walk to the next room. It's a pretty nice rotation--no charting, no assigned call, no rounding, just looking for 80 intubations. I'll echo your comment to me, Caywood, I can see why all you anesthesiologists have chosen your specialty. That being said, I think I would miss the variety offered in the ED, so I'm still glad to be where I am.

Trauma for me was being alone in the hospital with 48 patients on the floor and 13 admissions overnight. My highest admission night was 17. Of course, by sheer numbers, if you have 48 patients on the floor and 13 new ones coming in, you're bound to get a few (okay, a LOT of) floor calls.

Oh, yeah, and since my schedule's a little lighter this month, I signed up for 7 paid/"moonlighting" call shifts--just in time for Christmas. Nothing like working a 26-hour shift and making as much as you did in the past 2 weeks.

my 2 cents about ER

after completing my ER month i can see how you could want to do emergency medicine ken. so far it was the best month of my intern year. i worked 18 12-hour shifts and was actually home enough for maggie to get sick of me. once i had three days off then worked two night shifts but it was really slow and got sent home before 02:00 both nights and then had 3 more days off, so i actually had 8 days off in a row. now i know how you feel every week andersen. it wasn't nearly as great as anesthesia will be, but i have to say you picked a pretty good specialty ken. this was much better than my month at maricopa. what probably made it so great was nobody really cared how hard i worked so i would carry about 1-3 patients at a time and would go the whole 12 hour shift only seeing about 6 patients total and tried to avoid as much as possible the rectal bleeding or a woman with abdominal pain. off the topic, but have any of you surgery guys realized yet that surgery is not a lifestyle specialty and decided to switch to anesthesia.

Cardinals...no wonder everyone moved from Phoenix

I'm ticked, just tivoed my may through another disaster after a long 24 hour call. Jason your 49ers had the benefit of a massive implosion by the huddy Cardinals. How do you miss a 32 yard field goal in overtime and then a minute later fumble in your own end zone to lose the game. Because you are the Cardinals.

Weber is back :)

Hey guys,

It has been very fulfilling to hear of all your horror stories and fun adventures. I heard about some of your plots to get my pager number from Ken Bassett and then page me continously. Nice try. Anyhow, I'm currently doing ER, fixing the drunks of Toledo, and it has been fun passing patient's off to Ken who is on Trauma.

Dave, I just took step 3 Comlex today!! Not a terrible test. And yes Anderson, I did pull out my old path/pharm/micro notes- hey they were helpful in medical school...helpful in residency:)
For the most part, step 3 was just like step 2. 8 hours, 8 blocks, 50 questions each. I took a week off and studied for a total of 2 weeks using Crush and USMLEWORLD. That was plenty of time. Good to have it overwith. Happy Holidays

Somewhere in Detroit, a lady is missing a leg.

And I'm the one who has it.

Well, I took it anyway. Doing an AKA is fun, keeping the specimen as a trophy is sort of creepy. Forgive me, but I just capped 26 days straight of work with a 37 hour shift.

We started residency interviews this week. Lots of eager, bright eyed 4th years. They can't get here fast enough for me. Almost 39% done with internship.

big career move

i just got a call from the 49ers head of personel scott mccloughin and he has offered me the starting quarterback spot. he figured, and i agreed, that i could probably throw passes about as off target as alex smith but for a whole lot less money. look me up in a few years when you all need your loans repaid, i've got money to burn now!

Hey guys,

just thought I'd let everybody know I'm still alive. I have had a similar intern year that everyone has. I was on call my first night of residency, and I finished the 30 hours with the boasting that I neither wet my pants or cried. Although by the end of my first week I was only able to keep my pants dry bragging rights. I am now doing a 2nd year cardiology rotation, and I love being able to spend 3 half days at my family medicine clinic. I have been keeping busy with other things too: I tiled my entryway, I spend all my free time with my wife and kids of course, I am counselor in the EQ, and I faithfully follow the cougars march to repeat MWC champions. Go Cougs!

Austin

p.s. I was shown this funny youtube thing I don't know if I can put the link in but if the link doesn't work then you can look up Regan ER on youtube, and watch Brian Regan Emergency Room parts 1 and 2 and the doctor clip, and any others. I thought they were really funny, my wife and I watched all the clips for one of our date nights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9m2FLHlEwA

Glad I'm out of the AZ housing market...

I checked zillow.com to see what my old house might be worth in AZ nowadays. It's dropped almost $20,000 in 6 months.

Buy low sell high, I guess.

Dr. Rumblestrip

I talked to John the other day he told me of your brilliant plan to drop out of residency, don't do it its to risky. Although skys-the limit on the upside.

Good Luck

Step 3??

Anyone taken step 3 yet? If not what do yall hear on difficulty or study time required for normal people or slightly below normal? This is serious, $600.00 serious so lets go to work on getting some good info.

winter wonder land

While the subject of weather has come up. This was a couple of weeks ago. It has been in the 70's the last few days though, perfect. I'm still in shorts and t-shirts. Ski resorts are starting to open and I can't wait. The moon boots are Karie's I don't own any of my own.

On Call Halloween Night

I had probably the single busiest call night of my short internship last night. I went to the OR 3 times after 5 pm, managed a huge degloving leg laceration
in the ER, and had it out with a PACU nurse. The call pager went off more than 40 times between 5pm and 11pm (this does not count the Rapid Response pager and my personal pager).

And the beauty of it all is that I'm all call Friday and Sunday too. Q2 rocks.

Supposed to get cold tonight in Detroit

It will get into the mid 20s tonight, with frost. And I don't yet own a windshield scraper.

Is it hot in Phoenix? Man, I'm going to miss those Arizona winters.

Dave's Great Adventure!

http://www.myabcadventure.com/index.htm?movieid=C391D732-E1A0-483C-B2BB-FBFC55E28CBA

What can I say I am on medicine this month and have lots of free time!

Sacagawea

''72 Miami Dolphins or Lewis and Clark?

Most of you know that I have a brother in law who is a third year at Midwestern. He called last night because several of his classmates have heard that a group of students rv'd to Conshohocken and they are trying to get a group together. He was calling to let me know and figure out the logistics. I gave him Master Messner's website (as straight a shooter as you'll ever find). I am torn a little bit though. What do you think, should we be like the '72 Dolphins and their perfect record and hope that nobody emulates, or like Lewis and Clark, the trailblazers for others to follow?
Either way, The Legend Grows.

This one is for Jeremy!

GO ROCKIES!!!!!!

What my life in the hospital revolves around...

Two things:

1. The List
2. Unit clerks

The First and Great Commandment of Internship: keep the list updated. Common things told to any intern at my hospital:

"Take this person off the list."
"Have you printed me a new list?"
"Add this patient to the list."
"Why did you put this on the list?"
"Ummm... I lost my list." (medical student)
"It's time to run the list."

As for unit clerks, never underestimate the power they hold over your daily routine. They control all facets of your life. They control what (if any) orders get carried out.They control when you get to the OR. It's up to them to call you about new consults, which happens usually at shift change. (I can count on my pager blowing up at 5pm and midnight, every night).

Because of this power, they dictate when (or if) I'll get to eat, if I get any sleep on call, if I'll even get out of the hospital on time. Think you're safe when you're at home? Ummm, no. They'll call or page you whenever they need something, because when they need something, it's always urgent. And if you don't jump when they snap their fingers, you will get "written up". Beware the wrath of the unit clerk.

Dave/Shane/Jason "This ones for you"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuZl9tRqjoQ


Check out this link


Kevin

The saddest thing I have ever seen.

Today, I saw the sadest event I have witnessed in my medical career. I am on surgery and was carring one of the trauma pagers. I get a page that comes across saying 16 year old male, hanging. So I go down and as we are getting ready I find out it is one of our ER attendings sons I just finished my ER month and know him well.

So the ER attending was home today and he goes into the garage for some reason and finds his 16 year old son hanging, he grabs something and cuts him down, the paramedics arrive and he opens his sons chest in the field and is doing cardiac massage. The son comes by lifeflight and the attending roles in with the son, flew with him and he has his scrubs on covered in blood. His hands up to his elbows. He gives a quick story of what happened then turns and looks right at me does'nt say a word but I have never seen someones face hurt so bad. To tell you the truth my stomach still hurts. Not because of what the son looked like buy how bad his Dad was hurting.

All of the seniors are throwing lines in getting him ready to go to the OR. He was bleeding everywhere but supposedly still had a pulse. Rushed him to the OR don't think he is going to make it. Thing is the Attending seems like a good guy, by all acounts that could have been anyone of us. I kept thinking what if that was me. I am sure he had no idea. Hang onto those kids guys, its a crazy world.

Just committed my first patient to the nuthouse

I had clinic this morning and had a well child check no-show, so they put in a lady that thought she was pregnant. Ok, I thought, this will be a real no-brainer. Instead, I got a psychotic, delusional, manic lady who was off her meds. She was absolutely convinced she was 3 weeks pregnant, despite any evidence to the contrary. When I first came into the room she said in a strong English accent, "My, aren't you a tall drink of water." Didn't know what to say to that. She then proceeded to speak a mile a minute and tell me about how the oil fields in the Middle East release toxins into the air and that they have been getting into her brain. That ain't the only thing wrong with her brain. Oh, she also broke into Yiddish and Hebrew complete with the throat-clearing and all. Needless to say, two hours later I had her on a 72 hour hold and unhappily on her way to the ED to get admitted to the psych ward.

"BackRight"

Just Finished 108 hr week

From monday Sept 24 to monday Oct. 1 have been in the hospital for 108 hours. I am on General Surgery if have not already firgured that one out. Mon. through Thur. 12 hour days then Friday to Saturday I have a 30 hr call. Come home Saturday sleep and back on Sunday to Monday for the last 30 hrs.

So lets hear it boys who tops that one. Make sure and include the documentation. Oh and this morning as we are rounding with a new attending and I am trying to keep my eyes open I get my @$$ reamed for some other interns poor H&P. This was quite possibly the worst H&P and as I am presenting the patient because that guy got off service today and started something new there is no information. All I knew was that he did not crap for 4 days had abdominal pain and I ordered everything but the kitchen sink up his rectum. But did he go you ask and the answer is YES.

7 months left!

25% Done with Internship

Absolutely flew by. I did General Surgery, IM, and ICU.

The next leg looks pretty sweet: General Surgery, ER, and Family Practice.

At this point, I can't believe how clueless I was just three months ago. I know I have a ton to learn, but I finally feel like I'm getting into the groove a little bit. It helps that I'm going to a service that I already know (General Surgery). It's hard to maximize the rotation when you spend the 1st week just getting oriented and learning how to get things done.

As for my hospital situation, it's about the same. On the bright side, things are moving along on other fronts. I'll have official news in a few months.

Congrats and best wishes to everyone having babies. Ever thought of trying to mix a girl in there Andersen? If you and the Healey's keep going, you could have 7 Brides for 7 Brothers.

(Did I just reference a crappy musical? I'll turn in my man card on the way out the door.)

For Dinner Tonight

We're having Zatarains red beans and rice with sausage. Hat tip to Rhett, emeritus president of the Tremendous Twelve.

Had an interesting roomate last night.

Our call rooms are being renovated right now, so we've been sleeping in patient rooms on a patient floor. Good times had by all.

So last night I was on call, and I went into the room to get a few winks at 2am. I open the door, and there's some guy snoring in the bed next to mine in the Surgery room. He smells like vomit, and snores like a bear (but he was too short to be Jason Caywood). Turns out it was a medicine intern that went to Octoberfest, got really wasted, puked all over himself in somebody's car. His friends dropped him off at the hospital, but he didn't think it was a good idea to drive home. So he bunked with me last night.

When I went to get my stuff at 7am after call signout, he was still in there, now awake, and still drunk. It was pretty funny.

Just a little moaning

Well, no more moonlighting for me for awhile. I'm about to start a couple months of trauma--a couple months of real work like the rest of you have been doing. Last night's trauma resident had 16 new patients besides the several floor calls. His pager wasn't working, and I swear every 5 minutes I heard him paged overhead. I don't mind the consults/new patients, but I'm kind of stuck in the whole ER mindset and would rather not deal with patients after fixing the initial problem--not a huge fan of rounding, dealing with floor crises, etc. Nothing like being in the middle of one intubation in the ER and hearing your name called stat to the floor for "code blue" for a crashing floor patient. Or there's the middle-of-the-night calls for crazy nakeds needing Haldol or suddenly-unresponsives needing intubated and transferred to ICU (the problem with that one was that we transferred to the neurosurgery ICU, and the neurosurgery intensivist was, well, me--no seniors, attending a million miles away and not answering his phone. I wonder if that's why most places don't let first years moonlight? Luckily, the patient ended up doing all right after a 9-day intubated stay in the ICU.).

Quickly, in other news, last Tuesday I placed an IO at the tibial plateau, did a DPL, performed a pericardiocentesis, did a needle decompression thoracotomy, placed a chest tube, did an open thoracotomy with heart massage, inserted a foley catheter into a hole in the heart and inflated the foley balloon and applied pressure to stop the blood flow from the hole in the heart, did a cricothyroidotomy, and did a lateral canthotomy. Unfortunately, after all of that, the anesthetized pig did not survive. I think it was the high-dose potassium chloride injection that threw the heart into v-fib that finally did the old gal in. We have pig labs every 2 weeks to practice these procedures (only a couple residents at a time). We have to do like 9 during our 3 years here. It was actually very helpful.

When it's good to do family practice

Sounds like everyone one is doing well. We moved into Caywoods old ward after several houses fell through. Jason, seems pretty good but there are a few crazies, every ward has them I guess. I am doing OB at Joes right now. Wish I spoke Spanish. I have been keeping my eyes open for Shane but that dude is never at work, the IM program seems pretty easy over there. I have been going to elders quorum for the first time in three years and realized why I liked young mens a lot better. Lesson today was on sabbath day. The usual arguments over paying for gas at the pump and using vending machines etc. Some guy went on and on about how if doctors work on Sunday they should pay everything they earned that day to tithing. It is a good thing we only make 8 bucks an hour, in the end though it is going to be costly for some of you. Glad I'm FP, no Sunday work for me.

Guess who I saw

So today I was at work and I saw Cameron Kessler, Most of you may know him. He is a year a head of us. Played basketball, hung out with the cheating flagfootball team. Anyway, I didn't get a chance to talk to him much. But, he was in San Diego doing IM with the Navy and I guess there were "family things" and that program sucked, so he asked to be transferred here to Colorado. And they let him. That is about all I know right now. I hope those of you in San Diego are doing OK.
Trent

Baby Austin is here!!!!

Hey All,

I just found the link to the blog and thought I would write a little. Leslie had Austin on the 17th of Aug and all went well. He has been doing good but eats all the time. I have not been getting home very early so I don't get to see him much. I just got off G surgery with an attending with very similar characteristics to that of Dr. Goldberg in my 3rd year. I am very glad to be done with him and his staff. Anyway, now I am on a vascular surgery rotation that is awsome. I have been able to do so much in the CV Lab. I am no longer worried about getting vascular access.

I will put pictures of Austin here when I get them down loaded to this computer.

By for now,

Kevin

Went to Kirtland

Hey, we went to Kirtland, OH today. It was a pretty cool. The visitor's center was nice but I was disappointed to see how The Community of Christ Church does not care for the temple very well. Either way it was a good time with the family after not seeing them too much last month.

Time to pull a Trent

Our list had 8 people on it Friday night, and we've gotten it down to one by this afternoon. Our attendings are not on ER call tonight, so we won't get an admit unless one of their clinic patients shows up in the ER. Our last patient on the list is in the inpatient rehab, and is going home in the morning.

I maybe, just might, be able to pull a trent Shelton tomorrow and have a clean slate list. Wish me luck.

In other news, we went fishing tonight for FHE. It was fun, but we didn't catch anything. The 8 year old girl next to us on the pier caught one though. Nothing beats getting shown up by a small child.

You want some of this?

This is Maggie. Someone wanted a copy of this when it was taken. I don't remember who it was. If you want me to email it to you, let me know. If you changed your mind then, oh well.

Maggie

So much animosity!!

Ah, yes, the infamous 450 lb Mr. Rectal Bleed himself coming to the ED. He's a cousin of Harry Bunn, isn't he, Caywood? We in the ED know him well and can smell him a mile away. Yes, Dave, it's something that takes some fine tuning to get, but once you've got it, you quickly learn how to pass him off to some poor unsuspecting intern. Suddenly Sue Damonas in the next room needs her arm wound re-examined. Of course, Ralph Salot and Ben Dover are other favorites to pass off.

Sorry no one's having an absolute blast in the ED. I guess I can't say for sure how awesome the ED is here in Toledo (I don't actually get a month there until next February), but lots of interns are considering applying to the program after their month in the ED. We've got a PM&R guy thinking about changing over, and I believe there's an anesthesiologist--gasp--also thinking of switching. Me? I'm looking forward to a month of delivering babies. Gotta catch 12. That's it. 12 an' I'm out. Residency requirements. Sounds like we haven't been very busy lately, so I hope I can get them all early.

DO Scam!!

So my wife has talking to her old boss this afternoon and catching him up on the latest news of our family including where I will be doing residency. When she told him I was going to mayo he repeatedly asked if I had taken "the test all DO's have to take to get into a MD residency." My wife, knowing there was no such test, nicely tried to explain to this man that he was an idiot and to stop with his ignorance. This guy then went on for about a half hour or so about how he is 100% positive I have to take a test that will "prove to them that I am up to par with MD's" and that"I really know what it takes to be a doctor". He then went on to explain to her that until I take that test, eventhough I am already matched, I will not be able to start residency there. He pleaded with my wife that I look into this and "find out how it really works", so I don't mess up my residency spot there. If any of you have any ideas where I can go and take this test to prove I really am a real doctor please let me know ASAP!!!! I also am leaving this post to help all of you other fake doctors that have matched into a MD program know how it really works. I am so glad my wife ran into him today!!!! I knew I couldn't trust ERAS.

Rectal Bleeding

I hate rectal bleeding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am currently doing my ER month and when the pt. list with presenting problem comes up on the computer and it says RECTAL BLEEDING it is a race to be as busy as possible so you do not have to see that patient. The other senior ER residents are scary good at this. By the time I see it on the screen, it is like a ghost town and I am the lone rectal bleeding checker. Of course the patient is a 450 lb black man with an amputed left leg, due to his uncontrolled diabetes.
When you go into to question the guy and ask if he has hemorroids he does not know what that means and wants to know what kind of surgery it requires to fix. At this point I want to tell him we will remove his rectum so he can never return with the symptom of rectal bleeding and that he will have a colostomy bag which will catch all of his crap for the rest of his life and he will be required to change it himself. How do you like that because how you are feeling right now is about the same way I am with the knowledge that I have to check your RECTUM.
Anesthesia HERE I COME!!!!!!!

Glover is out got to go check a few RECTUMS.

at war with the VA nurses

i don't know how many of you have VA hospitals at your program or what your va nurses are like but here they suck. the nurses on my floor will be so glad when this month is over because every day i have to get after them for not following my orders and for why none of the lab work i ordered is drawn yet or why the EKG's i ordered at 5 in the morning are not done yet. since everything is on computers including orders i always send the nurses condescending text orders with the order sets that i fill out to let them know i have ordered something and that they will have to stop checking their email and actually follow my orders and get it done by the time i have indicated it to be done by. only two more months during this year then i will be done with the va forever. i'm looking forward to the next 9 months when i will be at the university hospital where the nurses are pretty good. at the conclusion of this rant against va nurses i want to include for your pleasure that i had a patient named harry bunn. what parent in their right mind names a child that.

whoops

um, this was supposed to go to the girls blog. Sorry, don't know how that happened...at least there wasn't anything to "girly."

not much

Well, I am not one with great wisdom or words to comfort, but all I can say is that I feel for both you two, Rachel and Ann Marie. I have actually had a pretty good week but felt a little guilty as I keep looking at the clock and counting down the minutes til I can put the kids to bed. Terrible I know. Trent is on-call tomorrow night but if that doesn't stink already, the on-call guy tonight called and said he is out of town and trent has to cover him. Whatever!!!! Well, I'm ready for winter to hit, not just for the heat but I could deliver right now. Ann marie, what are you having anyway? Also, can everyone post their addresses/contact info? :) Karie

Ups and Downs

So, after bragging what a great life I have, I got slammed in the face. Friday I went to work at my usual 7:00 a.m.--watched a couple autopsies performed, starting chatting with a dude on toxicology, got paged. I was on "jeapordy call," a privilege 1st years have of picking up shifts when someone calls in sick. I ended up going in to the ED and working until 12:00. Then I had to get up at 3:30 to round on all of the 5 pages of neurosurgery patients before the attending got there at 6:00, then spent the day discharging patients from the neurosurgery list (the doctor didn't round on more than a couple of HIS pts, left the decision up to me if the rest were ready to go home. Me, a first year, no experience in neurosurgery, deciding when people whose brain/spinal cord were just operated on could go home. Scary). The rest of the day and night was filled with more consults like depressed skull fractures in kids, newly found spinal tumors, head bleeds, etc. I got to sleep at about 2:30 a.m. only to get awakened 15 minutes later for another consult--T7-T11 Fx with fragments in the canal. Didn't get any more sleep that night. Unlike others, I had every excuse to NOT go to church, except that I had to teach the lesson in Elder's Quorum. So, that was basically a 52 hour shift with a 4 hour break (11:30 p.m. to 3:30 a.m.) and 20 minutes of sleep. The problem is that most people who hear this story don't have any sympathy for me when they hear I was getting about $1400 for Saturday's woes and long hours.

In other news, the weekend passed, I went to work for about an hour Monday morning, then I went to the zoo with the kids for a couple hours, then back in to work. Yesterday, grand rounds day, we had "EMS day," where we spent the time using "jaws of life" to rip the doors and roofs off a couple cars. Then we used the fire hoses to put out a couple mini-fires, then transferred patients from an ambulance to a helicopter with its rotors spinning (preparation for Life Flight next year), and a couple such things. Then the Toledo SWAT team came out and showed off their stuff and let us shoot a few of their guns--the rubber bullets, gas balls, foam bullets, etc.

Don't worry, it's not always this glorious. I have OB next, then trauma for 2 months. Trauma is one of those you-won't-get-any-sleep-at-all and definitely pushing 80+ hours a week kind of rotations. The dude on trauma the other night had at least 15 pts come in over night, often 3 or 4 at a time.

96.5 hours

so now I am pissed. I can't believe you are making 8k, Ken! I am definitely jealous, but at the same time happy for you. I just got off a 28 hour shift to cap off a 96.5hour week. I could feel the rage building inside me the last few calls from nurses asking for tylenol for a "fever" of 100.1! My typical day starts at 4:30-5:00 am and ends at around 6:00pm, but I had a couple late nights and just finished weekend call. But I have to admit, I really enjoy cuttin' and sewin'. (not as much cutting yet, only with the bovie, but lots of sewing.) At least next week won't be as bad hours wise. Not many people speak a foreign language around here either, Jason...one of my senior attendings goes to mexico alot and wants me to teach him spanish. our first lesson was the other day in the doctor's lounge...I asked how he was doing and he said "estoy muy caliente" translated as "I'm really horny" (he was trying to say he was really hot) remember kids...the word for "I'm hot" is "Tengo calor." (unless you just got off a 96.5h week...gotta go)
Rhett

Ortho Boys Reunited in Columbus

Kevin and I had a conference in Columbus this week. It was cool to get together and talk. Every month we have a conference for all of the ortho residents in Ohio so we'll be hanging out a bit. Kevin looked a bit tired after finishing Gen Surg cases at 2 AM the night before. But with the presentation about personality typing even I was snoring. Hopefully it will be better next time.

Kevin wanted to see our house so we went by and checked it out after the conference. They have most of the plumbing in and they are starting on the electrical. It's moving along. Pretty soon we'll have sheet rock gonig in. Then no more of this two bedroom apartment!

Signing out.

Shyler

Greatest call night ever

I did not discharge all the patients on my service(Gooooo Trent!), but I still had a night for the ages.

My last page was at 9:30 pm, someone need colchicine because "the gout is comin' on". After that page: nothing. I went to bed at 11:00pm, woke up at 3:00am to make sure the pager was working (paged myself). Went back to sleep, woke up fresh as a daisy at 7:00am.

The only downside: since I slept so much, I don't have an excuse to skip church.

ForePay

By the time you finish reading this, some of you may wish you had done emergency here with me instead of your chosen specialties. We have Grand Rounds 1 time a week (Tuesday, for 6 hours). Last week was a particularly gruelling day of . . . golf. Anytime there's a 5th Tuesday in a month, the residency program pays for a fun activity such as golf, paint ball, etc, and that's the lecture series for the week. We got 18 holes, golf clubs, carts, etc, all covered. I hate to admit, it was my first time ever golfing, so you can guess how well I did, but by the end of the day, I actually hit a ball further than 20 yards.

Right now I'm on call for neurosurgery and neurology. Let me show you a picture of how things are going (taken with my new laptop that my program purchased for me):




Granted, last week was a little busier by this time--3 headbleeds (Subarachnoid, subdural, hemorrhagic midbrain), one T8-transsecting gunshot wound, and 2 stroke pts, but I still can't complain too much, especially after hearing some of your stories. So far, knock on wood, nothing today, though I am expecting a Cauda Equina in a few. Oh, yeah, did I mention that this is MOONLIGHTING for me? I'll make somewhere around $600 tonight--my second night of call ever--and hopefully I'll get to sleep for most of it. This Saturday is Shelly's birthday, but she gave me the go-ahead to pick up an extra moonlighting shift and then use some of that money for an even better gift. The Saturday shift, 24 hours, will bring in somehwere around $1400. Not too bad, eh? All told, I should bring in around $8000 this month. Oh, yeah, and my regular schedule is ultrasound for the month. I go in for a couple hours, do a few ultrasounds, then go home for lunch with the kids. After that, sometimes I go back in, sometimes I take the rest of the day off.

Well, that's about it. And "ForePay" (NOT ForePLay--I know you had to read it twice!), fore is for golf, pay is for moonlighting, but I'm sure you've all figured that out by now.

DID IT!

0 pt's for 8 hours. booya grandma.
Trent

banking with drew

is everybody else that used drew for their mortgage getting their statements on a postcard instead of the more traditional paper statement with an envelope to return their payment in? and as an aside i just realized today that i have never had a pt while here in georgia nor seen any other resident with a pt that did not speak english. i love georgia.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

July flew by, and I ended up having a good time on General Surgery. Now I'm on Internal Medicine. The attendings are really nice, but rounding for 5 hours... I could do without that. We have some crazy medical students too. One of them takes notes on whatever the interns say. Here I am, a glorified student, and some 3rd year transcribes my every word. Very amusing.

In other news, my program director resigned (or was actually fired, depending on who you talk to). We'll have more news that we can share in the coming months.

Records

So I'm going for a new record, it has never been done before by an intern. I'm on call this weekend and I am trying to get all my pt's discharged from my service. I'm down to two left and I'm trying to pawn them off to medicine. If I can do this I will be put in the intern hall of fame. GOOOOOOOOO Trent

This is what I feel like when I dictate.

Except I am not wearing shorts.

punk

hey andersen,

you got somethin' to say to me, say it to my face.

peanut lover jason

Bad times (sort of) at Baptist High

So things have been great at Baptist the last six weeks with the extended orientation and the river trips and bowling etc. I guess to offset the good times we recently found out that our program just signed an agreement with another surgeon to take interns during our two surgical months. Luckily I am not one of them. Any guesses who? Adam (your favorite buddy)? Rhymes with Ronny Derrano. We tried banding together to get it changed but they are going to leave it as is until they know of any definite problems. Nicole rotates with him next month so we'll see how it goes.

our future is looking bright

the vice chair of the anesthesia department is in our ward and invited us and the family of another lds guy who is a CA-1 for lunch today. the guy has a huge beautiful house. he and his wife give us the grand tour of their huge house. in one of the rooms he has this big terrarium that is hooked up by computers to some weather station in borneo and the terrarium mimics the exact weather conditions of borneo down to even the moon cycle. he had some other expensive hobbies but i was most impressed by his terrarium thingy. i figure if this guy has the money and time to have crap like that then the future must be pretty bright for us once we all finish residency. i can't wait to get my own terrarium. i'll have two, one that mimics the weather of utah and the other mimics the weather of arizona, so that oct-march i can look at my terrarium and be greatful i don't live in utah and june-aug be glad i don't live in arizona.

"Ricki Bobbi"

I thought I would tell you all an amusing story. There is a unit secretary with the first name of Ricki and I have now dubbed her Ricki Bobbi. Let me describe Ricki Bobbi she is a 55 y/o caucasion woman weighing 186 lbs and is 4'10" inches tall. She wears the exact same navy blue skirt everymorning has a lower lip that protrudes just like a chimpanzee. Her hair style borders very close to the female mullet but not as long as the classic mullet. Apparently she has worked here since the civil war and knows more about medicine than Osler.
This tale starts out with my search for a chart, a task I loathe in the morning. After several minutes I find my chart and it is opened up on a desk with a medicine team standing around it like they just finished with chart. So I go over and ask one of my fellow interns if they are done wiht the chart and he responds they are not using it. So I pick up the chart and take it to a quiet corner of the floor and begin my Pulmonary note for the day. About 3 minutes into the note I discover a large disturbance on the floor and I can make out that Ricki Bobbi is upset her lip is out quite further than normal, she is red in the face, and she is wobbling around as quick as possible looking for something. 30 seconds later I see Ricki Bobbi and she is coming straight at me, it takes her only 5 seconds to wobble over and stops 12 inches from me. I respond hello Ricki, where she yells "who's chart do you have?" Mr. So and So I respond, she then says you have stolen that from me what are you thinking. Apparently she had pulled an order sheet off and went to the fax machine to send it off. I told her I had aske the medicine team if they were done and thought they were using the chart. Apparently she did not listen to me because she asked if I thought it was OK to steal things. I said, Ricki if you were using the chart I'm sorry, let me just get my note out and you can have it. After getting my note out Ricki Bobbi snatched the chart and started away when all of sudden she turned around and asked my name, Dr. Glover I told her, I thought she was going to spit in my face. She turns around to leave for the second time without a word then five steps later she spins back around. There is a rule of no eating or drinking in Pt. care areas and one of the nurses had a big Pepsi they were drinking and it was next to me. She shouted IS THAT YOUR PEPSI. I responded Ricki Bobbi that is not my Pepsi, she was beside herself. OK I did not really call her Ricki Bobbi but I was thinking it. I wanted to ask her if she had a son with the name "Walker" or "Texas Ranger".
But Ricki Bobbi spent the next several hours relating this episode to several other of Ricki Bobbi's cohorts because they could visibly detect how unsettled she was, where she responded that she had a something stolen by a new intern.
So Rob the other intern on my team and I have started to give nicknames to some people after I told him of Tarmack, Fake Tarmack, Terminator, and Blackwidow to list a few. So we have Ricki Bobbi and Captian Obvious. Captain Obvious is another intern that is a DO doing radiology at the Cleveland Clinic or just the Clinic as he calls it. Captain Obvious is another story for another day. But come on guys lets hear those nicknames. See ya. My month for Night Float has started and I am on CVICU so I need to go give 15 milimoles of phos????

For the Phoenix Suns fans amongst us

Enjoy this article on how your team got screwed:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070722

It's too bad, I would have enjoyed the Jazz beating the Suns instead of getting obliterated by the Spurs.

My first operation

Took a lady with previously debrided labial abscess to the OR to debride the huge extension into her abdomen. The attending let me do the whole case. I got to cut out a piece of tissue 4 cm X 40 cm with the Bovie. Tied off 5 bleeders, and got covered in nasty stuff. I guess I'll never wear those shoes ever again.

Spent all night resuscitating a 92 yo guy with mesenteric ischemia, who spent all of the last month intubated being septic with C. diff. (Our hospital has a lot of C diff., I've seen more in three weeks than in 2 years of med student rotations). He has the worst past medical history I've ever seen, he has had EVERYTHING but a stroke on the ER's PMHx checklist. The family and him wanted everything done. I'm not sure if he went to the OR (there was some thought that he might actually have only had intermittent mesenteric ischemia, long story). I guess I'll find out in the morning.

Just finished a 94 hour week. I'm thru Day 7 of a 12 day stretch without a day off. I guess it's good to be busy, right Jason? Andersen and the boys at Club D wouldn't know what we're talking about. It's good though, I'm learning a lot and I'm involved with a lot of stuff. Way better than being a student standing in the back of the room while my attending blabs on and on.

the light at the end of the tunnel

this last week we had a new attending that actually figured out that i wasn't the only person who could be pimped on rounds, and low and behold, when other people were being pimped other than me i found out i wasn't as dumb as i thought i was. starting tomorrow i'm on call every other day for a week then post call on friday next week and then i get the whole weekend off then just mon and tue and i'm finished with SICU. maybe i'm a little premature but i'm seeing the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. i can't run too fast towards it though since i know the only thing waiting for me is CCU. your secrets out andersen, you wife leaked how easy you've got it on the ladies blog. we should all start calling you in the middle of the night with dumb question so you don't feel left out. hope all is going well with the rest of y'all.

going off the grid

i just wanted to say one last good bye to you all before i go off the grid. we are selling our house and going to buy a trailer and i'll pick up odd jobs here and there for money and we will live like vagabons traveling the u.s.a. this is what i feel like doing every morning after rounds. i cannot wait to get this rotation overwith. with three more months of icu medicine ahead of me plus 4 months of medicine still to do plus still two more weeks of this hell, i'm beginning to think the this year is going to suck bad. i too, damon, am enjoying my first day off today. well i guess today i'm post call so tomorrow is my first real day off. i can't wait to go to bed tonight knowing i don't have to wake up the next morning dreading morning rounds. the last two days are the first days of this rotation that i wasn't completly raked over the coals during rounds and i have to say those were the first times i actually enjoyed this rotation. i hear though that the anesthesia attendings are much kinder in the operating room than they are in the icu so that gives me hope. then i'll get to sit back and laugh at the surgery resident getting yelled at by his attending while he holds retractors for a 5 hour case. those days can't come soon enough. oh well i just had to vent a little. hope you all are as miserable as me. misery loves company!

Finally a day off

Sleeping in until 8am feels pretty good.

I got a really cool case the other night. A guy decided it would be a good idea to kick in a plate glass window. Of course, the window won, and took a big chunk of his calf with it. He completely severed the gastrocnemius, and about 50% of the soleus. Somehow, he managed to avoid any major tendon or arterial damage. I was on solo call the night (backed up by a senior resident who was at home). I got down to the ER, Dopplered his pulses, called my attending, scheduled the emergent case, and operated (assisted of course) on him postcall. I actually felt like a real doctor for once.

The OR staff don't like us much, they requested a meeting with our program director this week. They wanted him to give the nurses a list of which residents could do what in the OR, so the could "supervise the residents in the OR". No joke. We did get in trouble because some of us haven't been wearing our ID into the OR. Anyways, after the meeting a new Surgery PGY-2 they just hired told one of the circulators that they all had the reputation of being a bunch of female dogs. That was really helpful. I learned the hard way at Maryvale: don't pick fights with the nurses.

you know you've had a great night of call when...

you leave with 4 more days than you started with. for some reason the three interns on the SICU service only had 6 days of overnight call the whole month and we had three full weekends off during the month, which was nice because otherwise the post call day when you leave after rounds (leave between 10 am - 11 am) is the only time you have off. well the attending on call on saturday heard the senior resident complaining about it and so he added 4 more days of call to all the interns schedules so now i'm q 3 call this month. i have a stretch later in the month now where i am call every other day for a week with only my post call day in between call days. the one good thing about working hard is maggie mowed the law yesterday. it was looking horrible because i hadn't mowed it in two and a half weeks. i can only imagine what my neigbors thought to see my wife mowing my lawn. oh well, i never talk to them anyways. yesterday i was on call and i had no senior resident in house with me. i was up all night with an admission to the SICU and the other patients trying to tank their blood pressures. i'm doing all this crap for these patients blood pressure with only minimal response but there still doing reasonably well, but i'm sure i wasn't doing an optimal job, and of course when the senior resident comes in in the morning he gets mad at me for trying to kill his patiens (those where his words). i'm thinking what do you expect from an intern. during rounds with the attending he just makes fun of everything i did for the patients during the night. oh well, now i'm home and he's on call. funny story...one of the other interns this month was on call with a senior resident and he was sleeping when the resident get paged. she came and woke him up and says there's a lot of stuff going on on the floor if you want to come help. he must not of wanted to help because he just stayed a sleep for the rest of the night. i wish i had the balls to do something like that.

First Night of Call and First Code

Last night was my first call night since being a resident and I had to cover the medicine service and the peds service. We only had two kids on peds, and there was nothing to do for them, so I spent the night taking care of medicine patients.

We had a guy in CVCU who was bleeding out of his bumhole and was in diastolic HF; his Hgb had dropped a couple of points throughout the day, he'd been scoped, and all they could see were lots of clots and lots of blood. He was hemodynamically stable, but that didn't stop the phone calls. I was told by our attending to consult surgery early on in the evening so they could be involved - but the surgeon was a dink and didn't want to be involved, so whatever.

Anyway, after rounding on the bum bleeder, they called a code blue and I was the first non-nurse to get there. We had a 26 year old girl in respiratory arrest who had just had a seizure. I got to kind of tell people what to do at first and it was cool. I spent a good part of the night getting her transferred to the ICU and consulting the E-intensivist (they have cameras in our ICU for night coverage, where some intensivist in Arizona watches our patients and monitors their vitals).
Had to admit a crazy lady with a rash to the medicine floor and a bunch of other lame stuff for the rest of the night.

All in all I got 40 minutes of sleep all night, not in a row, and by morning I had a headache from no sleep, but it was pretty good. I feel like in my first week of residency I have already learned a lot, and I am really liking it. Hope all the good vibes continue.

- Adam

My first call is in the books

Just got home from my first overnight call. Ann and the kids are gone, and I'm still running on Diet Mt. Dew, so I thought I'd post a little.

All in all, it wasn't that bad. I had two sickies to watch out for last night. On one of them, the guy had DKA that made his belly seem acute, so our service was following him. The guy had a private attending, so the nurse decided that we could handle all his issues since we're in house. It took several pages and conversations to convince her that insulin pumps, regular Accuchecks, and bothering to call the Medicine attending are good ideas when your sugar is 440.

I sort of feel like a third year again. The computer system is pretty hard to navigate, the phones are weird, and it takes twice as long to do basic scutwork as it used to. I only got one hour of sleep last night, but I wasted probably 2-3 hours by being inefficient.

Got my first emergency surgery last night too. A guy going septic after a perfed ulcer got him peritonitis and an ex-lap. Free stay in the Step Down unit included.

All in all, a pretty busy week. I'm also on call Sunday thru Monday @ 6am, so I'll be close to 90 hours this week (and I was off July 4th too). I scrubbed around 12 cases, and have rounded on a lot of patients. It's a lot harder being responsible for 25 patients as an intern, than 3 as a student. But I'm getting a little better at it already. I like doing consults a lot, because they have been good learning experiences so far.

Jason, I get a whole month of Cardiothoracic surgery in December. I's going to be brutal.

my first kill

well not really, his family was withdrawing his care and he died the night i was on call, but my name is on his death certificate. i'm on SICU right now and the SICU is combined with the CTICU so we round with both the ICU attending (an anesthesiologist) and we round on the CT patients with the CT surgeons. I have one of the CT patients and every day that we round i get torn to shreds by the cardiothoracic guys. on the other patients whenever the attending wants to pimp us interns on something he says who should i ask and then always asks me the question. i think he does this because he thinks it's hilarious what the CT guys do and wants to carry it on during his rounds. needless to say i look forward every morning to rounds. the night i was on call i didn't call the attending once and only called the senior resident once to let him know the guy died and the next morning during rounds both the attending and the senior resident are both talking about how horrible call is because you don't get any sleep. i don't know what they were doing all night but it wasn't taking care of the icu patients. i'll have to wait till the end of the week before i know for sure but i'm on my way to 90+ hours this week. only 11 months 3 weeks and 3 days till intern year is over.
-jason

Independence Celebration

Hey,

Just thought I would post a few pictures we took while watching fireworks here in Columbus. We watched these fireworks at Beulah Park with one of the ortho residents' family. This is the home of thoroughbred horse racing in Ohio. It was a pretty cool park. In a couple of weeks there having CountryFest 2007 at this park. One of the performers is Andy Griggs. What?! Yeah, I think Andersen either couldn't take his 40 hours a week doing radiology or he's just prepping for Kentucky. Check it out, it looks just like him! http://www.beulahpark.com/

Anyway here's the pics:The girls couldn't take the noise.

I thought this was kind of cool. I accidentally moved the camera while I took the picture.

Shyler

Great View

We have a good intern class, 12 guys. I clipped about 80 hours last week this will probably be the same. I'm on Neuro surgery right now. Though I have to do cross cover call for general which is the killer. Tonight though I'm expecting a show, my call room over looks the Rockies stadium and they are suppose to have a fireworks show. I better not get any calls "Dr. can the patient use chapstick". Which is what I got the other night. I can see myself transforming into the bitter intern already and it is only my second week. Had to tell a family today that there Dad probably wasn't going to wake up from a subdural hematoma. That was kind of crazy.
Trent

Anesthesiologists mocked me today

They asked me what year I was.

"Intern."

"Only what... 1500 more days to go?... ."

The thing is, I remember being out 8 days on my mission, and it felt like I'd been out forever. So maybe it will be like my mission, where the days are long, but the years fly by.

Today actually was pretty good. I scrubbed 2 cases in the OR, and got to do 90% of a sharp excisional debridement of the nastiest sacral ulcer I've ever seen. WE have a good team, and the hospital is pretty nice. So I guess it could be worse: I could have 1500 more days in a hellhole. That's what I'll keep telling myself...

Can't get away from vaginas

My first day on the OB service was cake...got there at 7am (one hour late, med ed told me 7, but they start at 6) No problem though, they were cool. Finished surgeries at about three, hung out for a couple hours, and went home at five. I can't agree more about the importance of a good nipple exam. Just remember, when doing a breast exam, apply light, medium, and DARK pressure...just remember not to say that if your patient happens to be black like my first one was. Good 'ol AZCOM simulated patients...those poor people.
Rhett

First day on peds

My first day on peds wasn't too bad. I got to the hospital about 6:45, received night report from the on-call resident and it turned out I only had two patients to round on - a peritonsillar abscess and a pneumonia. Dictated one heck of a rough discharge summary on the peritonsillar kid, kept the pneumonia for one more day. Read for about 90 minutes, did chest x-ray rounds with the medicine team and went home about 2:30 PM. Not too bad. All that will change though when I have peds again in November and they're full to the gills. I'd better enjoy it while it lasts.

News from the Bone Guy in Buckeye-land

My day started at 6AM and ended about 6:30PM. So I started at the Children's Hospital in Columbus and I had to do some computer training to get up to speed. There are three different programs alone for this place!


I reduced my first both bone forearm fracture and molded the cast! The patient was a five year old that fell off the monkey bars. The attending gave his approval of my casting technique and the post reduction film didn't look half bad. I was pretty happy with that. Here's the fracture:

Okay, that was Fido's both bone fore-leg fracture...you know the HIPPA thing...but, the one I did looked pretty similar. You can call me OVS V (osteopathic vetrinary student, year 5!) now.

That was only the beginning. We saw a septic hip, supracondylar fracture and more.

I've learned a few things: Don't let kids play on monkey bars, trampolines, ride bikes...or bulls!



Bone guy is out!

Day 1 down, only 1700+ left to go

So my first day is in the books. Pretty standard, arrived at 6 AM and rounded for 2 hours. Hit the OR for a couple of lap chole's. Had to go to breast clinic for 4 hours in the afternoon. (Shyler and Jason will be pleased to know that I got plenty of nipple exams in.)

Tomorrow looks like more of the same.

Ethical Question

Let me know what you think. I rented some books on CD from the library that I wanted to listen too, but my only mobile device to listen to said book is on my ipod. So can I put the book on my ipod listen to the book then erase the book when finished?? Just one of those questions that I wonder about. Shane sorry to hear about the 97 hours thing. I am on Pulmonary this month and the other intern on the service with me is going to U of Pitt for radiology and we have not worked 40 hours yet!

97 hours!!

So I did the math on my first week on wards and it = 97 hours. Took my first call 3 nights ago and worked 36 hours- did not even see the inside of my call room and sat down once for a 5 minute dinner at 3 in the morning. The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that I have only 355 days left before I can start passing gas while surfing the internet. Instead of the never ending pages of cross cover, I will only have to deal with surgeons interrupting my reading on ESPN.com to change from trendelenberg to reverse trendelenberg!

I wish I were like many of you and out of Arizona where it is expected to be 120 this wed and thur. Atleast I don't have to worry about poison ivy in our back yard. Shyler- glad to hear your in buckeye country. Get us some tickets for a game in the shoe this year and I will be on the first plane out of Phoenix. Hope all is good with everyone!!

Not too bad after all

Just a quick report on the first day--started at about 5:30 this morning, and by noon I was wondering, "is this it?" I'm working in the observation unit (the ER substitute for a month of internal medicine). I saw my 5 patients, handed out Percocet and Oxycontin like they were candy (abusing my new power!!), ate a few of the patients' salads and sandwiches before they had a chance to see them (then told the patients they were NPO--I love this doctor stuff!!), then came home around 2. Maybe the rest of the month will go as smoothly (though they promise me that 5 patients in the Observation unit is the lowest they've ever had and that I should expect more like 35, which is capacity). Here's hoping it stays less than 15, at least.

Ken

First Night

Hey I thought I should chime in.... this is Andersen not AnnMarie I never got a blog invite. I guess Damon is still upset about me not hugging him at the grad. banquet.

I got to say I am lovin my year so far. I am half way done with my first of two months of in house call q6. Tonight is my first night of night call, they told me not te expect any admitts, im bored and need some one to play ping pong or billards with me. Last week I dictated my first ICU admitt I took me 3 hours and than another half hour to correct mistakes the day after before I signed it. Hopefully I'll get faster.

My first pt. was an elderly lady with abd. pain, I am proud to report that I got the "right" hole this time when I did the rectal exam!

P.S. Rhett I laughed, when I read about the corn hole stuff, when Shane and I were in Kentucky last year we noticed every one was throwing bing bags at these holes. We finally found out that it was Corn Hole. It was unbelievable how much people play that game when they are tail-gaiting.

Checking In & Blogger Trouble@#&^$(%!

Hey is anyone having trouble getting on this blogger? I have been trying to log in for the last week and finally I got on today. I had to do it in a round of about way, nonetheless, here I am.

We are here in Columbus, OH. We have been here since June 15th. We moved into an apartment while we're waiting for our house to finish. Emery calls it the Hotel and Addie calls it the Hell-i-tel. She is not far off. We are surrounded by smoke sucking tenents on all four sides so when we walk through our walkway to get to our apt it reeks. Other than that it will be fine for now. Our house has the foundation and footings poured and they are working on the plumbing now.

I just finished my orientation yesterday. Pretty long and boring...reminded my of ICM and Dr. Shulm... I think things are going to get pretty busy/crazy next week. I start out doing pediatric orthopedics at Columbus Children's Hospital. Bring on the both bone forearm fractures! Does anyone know how to cast? My first few are going to be interesting, I'm sure.

Anyway, Shane I am in Buckeye Heaven. Drop in anytime.

See Ya,

DeMillville

To Damon:

Hi! Can you please send an invitation to participate to James' new email address? He's got his own account now. The address is jamesmathews77@gmail.com. Thanks Damon.

Women's Blog and other sundry questions

I, for one, think a women's blog is a great idea. Now I won't feel that bad about cussing on this one. However, their blog picture is sort of creepy, although I can't put my finger on why:



A quick update on my new residency. Things are actually looking pretty good. The hospital is way nicer than I had been told (think Good Sam without the established residencies, trauma, or bums). I'll get lots of OR time, with only a few senior residents in the program (because most of them bailed). It should still be pretty family friendly, with intern call being Q5, daily schedule being about 6am-6pm. The hospital is building us 8 new call rooms, a resident lounge with plasma TV, and a new Med Ed building. There are still a lot of rough spots that need to be worked on, but they've done a really good job for basically starting a brand new surgery residency in 2 months.

I'll be on General Surgery, with IM in August and ICU in September. I'm not on call till next Thursday. I'll be sure to post stories and pictures.

Cornhole

For those non-believers, I will refer you to the following website: http://www.playcornhole.org/

They sure do know how to have fun around here. Actually, our realtor told us about this when we came to buy a house, and the ward bulletin also announced an adult cornhole tournament...you guys have to visit this place! There is also a Big Butter Jesus just off the interstate about 20 miles south of us...these people have their hearts in the right place! (see the following site if you don't believe me about the big butter Jesus)

http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D_-ksuOaI61g

Hope one or all of you can someday visit...we'll go cornholing.

Rhett

Koth's are here

Dave,

Thanks for checking on us. Our move was uneventful but, it did take a little longer than expected with all the bathroom breaks along the way. We are staying with my program director in his mother-in-law suite. Our accomidations are very good except for the temp. Anyone who has visited our house knows that 80 degrees is much too hot for us. We are making the best of it though.

We are right in the middle of orientation week and it feels good but sometimes I feel like I am an OMS V. I will have to let you guys know more when I get to the floors. Just a quick note I will write more when we get real internet.

Kevin

Cornholin' in Ohio

The Great Cornholio...I need TP for my bunghole

So I was invited to my first cornhole party today...not sure how the wife will react, but sounds like fun to me. I guess that is the great past time in the midwest...you toss bean bags (or in this case, corn bags) through some sort of hole in a big piece of wood...you know, like at the carnival.

Today in Orientation

Today in orientation we got to listen to a bunch of people giving us useful information . My personal favorite was learning how to use this:



So that we could do this:



It was like ICM all over again. And yes, the above lecture took one hour.

this may all be for real afterall

today in orientation i got my DEA number, institutional license, and dictation number. i'm beginning to think this whole residency thingy is going to happen for real here soon. i keep waiting for when i fly back to arizona to have barbeque fest with all you guys. maybe we can invite the wives to this one. has my first day in the SICU gets closer i think more and more of my gastric mucosa is being erode away.

this may be for real afterall

today in orientation i got my institutional license and my DEA number and my dictation number. i am beginning to think that this whole residency thingy is for real afterall. i keep waiting for when we fly back to arizona and get to have barbeque fest with all you guys again. as my first day of SICU gets closer i think more and more of my gastric mucosa is being eroded away.

Picture Testing

I was just practicing putting pictures on this thing. My brother and I had a two week beard growing content. I think I won.

I especially liked the Pornstar look.
This is a picture of the 50 Mile canoe trip down the Colorado with the scouts, right after graduation.

Me and the boys doing a little home improvement on the house.

Just because the Brizzee's won't write, here is Dave and Amy jumping into the waterfall.
I'm not mentioning any names....., butt I don't think it is to hard to recognize that sexy caboose.

Bringin' the Holy to Toledo

So, once we (and the Webers) moved into the ward, the RS, EQ, and primary doubled in size. Actually, it's not a huge ward, but it's pretty good. We have several residents and medical students in the ward, so transition will be good for Shelly and the kids. Orientation is going okay--PALS, ACLS, Neonatal Resuscitation, ATLS, and learning 3 computer systems. Keeping busy with that. Here's a little about the move.

It was a long drive (and for Shelly and the 3 kids, a long flight), but we made it to Ohio. My parents and I took 3 days to drive our cars out. Shelly took the 3 kids on a 6:00 a.m. flight out of Phoenix to Detroit--the kids loved getting up at 3:30. Shelly said that everything that could have gone wrong, did, but that it still wasn't that bad. The girls both spilled their drinks everywhere, Caden puked, no one took naps, and our new portable DVD player (purchased just for this trip) was a flop. The kids weren't even interested in it. Having said that, the 4-hour direct flight sure beat a 30+ hour drive across country with screaming kids, especially since the tickets were $49.

We were excited for our first home. Just hours before signing, the previous owners told us that "out of nowhere" they started getting some water leaks from a newly-repaired roof and the new tub that they had put in was leaking, causing water stains on the ceiling. I looked at the damage, which wasn't that extensive, so we decided to go ahead and get the home and hold their money in escrow until the problems were fixed. On the day of the signing, our loan dude showed up with a completely different loan than the one he had told us about, the rate was up at 6.75% instead of 6.125% he told us it would be. Between the water damage and the loan issues, we almost dropped out of the deal, but the loan dude promised he would pay the difference until he could refinance for us--no charges this time. We walked into our new home, it reaked of dog, so we have the unexpected expense of new carpet, not to mention the scare that our roof looked like it was collapsing after our first rain storm (it was the lighting, we hope. Sometimes it still looks a little bowed). Meanwhile, the Webers are paying $619/mo for their 3 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment. That may have been a good option.

We have done some painting etc. to make the home more our style. Shelly's been cleaning nonstop, trying to get the house at least presentable. Amazing how dog hair can turn up everywhere, even a few weeks after taking out the carpet and dusting/vacuuming like crazy. Caden always has 3 or 4 dog hairs around his mouth (no idea where he's finding them).

The good news of it all is that we ended up not having to pay for our move at all. We got a $1000 stipend to move, and it covered everything, pretty much. ABF worked great for the Webers and us. Of course, it's still not as good as the military move, but we're not complaining. Here are a few pics.

KSKJC

Checking in for the Koth's

I am just checking in for the Koth family. I am happy to report that they have made it safely to Sandusky, OH. Unfortunately their new digs while their house is being built does not come with internet access. So officer Koth has gone out and bought him a new PDA phone top of the line so he can have internet access. The problem is that in the two days it takes him to type out a message on the key pad the subject has changed on the blog and he has to start all over again. So lets try to stay on subject for at least 48 hours before changing and no pictures because the PDA has some problems with that. Officer Koth has also been to the construction sight and it has been reported that he has issued several citations for disorderly conduct, slow and slothful work, and littering on his property.

I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows Mr. Koth is still alive and well in OH as is his family. Leslie and Kevin will be having another officer koth in a few more weeks!! So Kevin if this comes across the PDA try to check in and let everyone know what's up in Sandusky and when the bar-b-que is!!

Phoenix Baptist Intern Blog

Nicole and Brent created this blog of our intern class--there's already some great pictures, stories, and an ongoing quote list that Jeremy (Rumblestrip/Jeremy the Junkie) is putting together.

http://baptistresidency2010.blogspot.com/

If it's not broken, don't fix it!

We're enjoying our same house, ward, and many of the same friends. We're finally settling back into life after the graduation and vacation bliss. Before graduation, we went to Cabo, Mexico for a week and then after graduation went up to Utah and Idaho for a couple of weeks. And, even though it's 115 degrees here, we couldn't be happier to be home.

Rock Arch at Lover's Beach in Cabo

Dinosaur Park in Ogden

On Temple Square

Hey, Adam, did you ever figure out who this guy was?

Can anyone else's intern class match this one?

The Grigg Moving Story

I don't know if Andersen has gotten the email about this blog so I guess I throw something up to represent. Right after graduation we took off for Spokane. It took us 3 days to get there. The first night we made it to Mesquite, NV. And of course since we were going through Provo we had to stop at BYU. Here we are with the "Y" in the background.

The second night we stayed in Rexburg, ID and visited with my brother John who is going to school there at BYU-Idaho. We got up bright and early Sunday morning to go to his singles ward with him. We provided quite the entertainment since our boys were the only kids in the whole room. Hope we didn't embarrass him too much. Here we are standing in front of the new Rexburg Temple. It should open up sometime this summer.

This is a picture of one of Campbell's many sleeping positions in the van. I don't know how he does it.

They have quite the set up back there.

We made it into Spokane Sunday evening and started unpacking Monday morning. Spokane was having a bit of a heat wave with temperatures up over 90. That made moving a little uncomfortable and our new house didn't have any fans or A/C. It was a long day but we finally got everything in. Here's the house we're renting.

That wednesday we left for Andersen's family reunion in New Mexico. We finally got back this Monday, but Andersen has been in classes all day so the unpacking is going slow.

Homeless but not hurting

Well we finished day one of residency yesterday and it was a barn burner 8:00-11:30am. Time for a nap. So far so good. Jill and I are finally getting settled into our new.............. room at my brother's house in Mesa. Somehow our first house fell through and our house sold before we had our new one lined up so we moved into Uncle Bob's mini storage. I thought briefly about just staying at the storage unit but since none of us are meth users (Austin knows what I'm talking about) we opted for moving in with family. We hope to close in a few weeks.

-Jeremy

Taking a Critical Care class

I'm taking a big critical care class as part of orientation. It's a course taught by the Socoety of Critical Care Medicine, and it's way more in depth than anything we ever did at the school. I would have gotten a lot more out of my ICU rotation if I had taken this beforehand. It's nice actually learning something about vent modes and stuff. On the downside, I have to pass a 50 question test tomorrow. Anyone got a study sheet?

-- Damon