Reflections on Internal Medicine II

I’ve already shared with you one of my funner days spent in Internal Medicine–find out more about the things I realized/learned whilst on my last 3rd-year rotation!

Reflections on Internal Medicine II

1. It’s a whole ‘nother dynamic working with another student.
   Throughout the first week, I had a lot of trouble with this because I would constantly be interrupted or talked over whenever I tried to present a patient to our preceptor, and could only really ever get a word in if I adopted the same habit of constantly interrupting her. (I’m attributing this to the fact that she probably has to do this to a lot at home and it’s become a habit, because otherwise, she’d never get a word in to her significant other.) By nature, I am more passive in that respect, and I really dislike interrupting other people because I feel that it’s pretty rude. Both of us wanted to do well on the rotation, and this was the field she wanted to go into, so I wanted her to look good, but not at the expense of me looking completely stupid either, so the balancing was a little difficult.
2. You learn to adapt quickly.
   Since she was a friend of mine and I wanted to avoid the whole, “Hey, could you please stop interrupting me?” conversation, I suggested that that we see patients together (so we could potentially catch anything the the other might have missed), but that we designate which ones we’d present so that we’d both get a chance to speak, and wouldn’t be talking over one another. (It worked wonders!)
3. There are some days/weeks where cases will just continually wear you down.
   A whole case of Monday’s, as one of my preceptors put it. My second week in IM was filled with wildly depressing and tragic cases, from a suicide to patients that we really couldn’t do much for. When I got home that Friday evening, it was pouring rain and there was a note left on my door stating that I’d be evicted if I didn’t pay my rent in 3 days. (Back in April, I’d already paid through the end of June.) It was not a good week, but thankfully, life gets better.
4. Trust your own judgment on others.
   This was a weird one, but all throughout this year, I’d been told repeatedly by fellow classmates that a certain preceptor was a major pain to work with because he was “extremely condescending and didn’t care about his patients.” Not sure if he was just in a good mood all throughout the time he was working with us, but he was super super nice, took the time to explain and teach us all sorts of different topics, and was always really considerate.

A great piece of advice found on the second floor of our hospital. :P

Memorable Cases

• One of my patients was thoroughly convinced that I was related to Jackie Chan. She very bashfully made me promise not to tell him that she thought he was very cute and funny. Since I don’t like to lie, I promised her I wouldn’t tell him. :O
• A patient around my age who was an international relations major + could speak 4 languages, and used to play the saxophone + drums and run marathons…but he got into a huge car accident several years ago and has really poor motor control now. :[ He’s working on writing a book though!! :]
• A suicide :[
• An alcoholic with severe hepatic encephalopathy who ended up passing away :[
• A patient with pressure ulcers everywhere (ears to toes) who refused any and all treatment

Notable Quotes/Conversations

• “Alright ladies, fly the coop!”
• “How are you doing today?”
  “Oh, you know me, just paining away.”
• “Why are your legs all tied up?”
  (mumbling) “It’s because I’m into the kinky stuff.”
  “Mr. ______!!!”
  “Just jokin’!!! The physical therapist put that band on me so I could do some exercises while I was sitting here.”
• “Are you two sisters?”
• “There goes Hansel & Gretel!”
  (But we’re both female!)
  “…Gretel and Gretel!”
• “This might sound weird to you, but can you tell us where you are right now?”
  “Yes. Palm Beach, Florida.”
  :/…
  “Just kidding. I’m at the hospital in Ashland, Kentucky, but I wish I was in Florida!”
• “With this, I’m putting all my trust in you, okay? …I’m going to give you my car keys and if you wouldn’t mind to get my glasses, I’d really appreciate it.”
  (I know nothing about cars, but the cost of his probably equated to 1-2 years of tuition.)
  “So um, we couldn’t resist taking your car for a joy ride. Don’t mind the side mirror–I think duct tape will fix it! Duct tape fixes everything!” :]
• “I wish you the best of luck in all that you do, I can tell you’re going to become great doctors!”

Resources

• UpToDate
• Medscape

Read about my other rotations here!