On Call
I hope you guys still remember me as I haven’t written in a while, but don’t worry folks, I’m back! The last time I submitted my blog I was about to take my USMLE Step 1 exam, so I’m through with all that now and I got a good score as well. I’ve had my internal medicine rotation too, which was certainly one of the toughest, both in terms of calls and the amount of studying that you need to put in. You come in feeling prepared and confident about something, having read up on it in great detail the night before, but then the very next day you realize that you still know practically nothing! Overall I found internal medicine a good field to practice, but it requires a lot of patience.
Internal medicine has one thing to really talk about - the long-term commitment to patient care. Almost 80-90% of the patients (who then become in-patients on the ward) are bound to be suffering from a chronic illness. It may be a CVA, CKD or for that matter, hypertension or diabetes. They all are guaranteed to become your long-term patients. Internal medicine is in essence a science of patient management, rather than a cure; it’s an effort to improve the quality of life when a cure is not possible. At the same time you also face a good deal of disappointment. After applying all your knowledge and activating all the hibernating neurons in your cortex, you arrive at a diagnosis and feel great, but then the patient asks, ‘Doctor, is it curable? Will I get rid of it?’ Most of the time you end up just having to explain that they have a chronic condition that can’t be cured, but that we’ll do our best to make their life easier.
Off Duty
I had a great time off call as I was busy searching for an elective rotation abroad. My efforts finally proved fruitful as I managed to get a neurology rotation at Southwestern, Dallas, which will be starting in January 2006. Finding a suitable rotation, planning it and then actually doing it seems like a big headache and it truly is, but I know it will be worth it.
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