Rotation 4: Internal Medicine

Oh IM. Both a blessing and a curse. Universally known to be one of the more intense rotations, both in terms of hours, caseload, complexity, you name it. I worked incredibly hard during these 8 weeks, and learned an incredible amount. And I think I came very far, even achieving one of my goals which was to present (mostly) from memory during rounds. Win!

I really really liked the intellectual challenges and the way I was pushed during this rotation. I totally believe in tough love. But did I love the rotation? I'm not so sure. It was my last rotation before the holidays and I was thinking I might have been burned out (was literally counting down to vacation, like I had a countdown on my whiteboard which I updated on the daily !!), but then again I wasn't waking up every morning excited like I had been on some other rotations (cough, Peds, cough). You could say we had an "I love you but I'm not in love with you" type of relationship.

The most striking moment for me was that I lost my very first patient on this rotation. Sure, patients had died before, but they hadn't been patients I had been *directly* caring for. This was hard. I started taking care of her as soon as she was admitted. Seeing her getting weaker and weaker as the days went by was hard in itself, especially when she kept conveying how uncomfortable it was. We had many conversations with the family, and it was hard seeing how everyone was in a different place regarding accepting her condition. I was so impressed by how my senior resident led those meetings. Death and dying is definitely something I struggle with. I hope I can be even moderately as good as he was handling those discussions. And just like that, by the end of the week she was gone. I was actually watching the monitor as it flatlined. Her family surrounded her and everyone was crying. That was so hard for me to see too. I had to excuse myself to the bathroom and cry in there for some time. It was an experience and I hope I'm stronger for it.

This beauty had case discussion with us students every Wednesday morning. MD stands for Medical Dog-tor. Ha!

Appropriate. Also it was Halloween.

Finagled a 36-hour trip home for Thanksgiving to see all these kiddos! Promptly got sick for 2 weeks afterwards. So worth it.

Running into classmates in the cafeteria. Yes, there is a pizza slice in there. Somewhere.

After my IM shelf, I was blessed with Winter Break. Like 2 whole weeks off?!? With the prospect that I had maybe only 2 more weekends to work during the 3rd year because I so smartly front-loaded my schedule? It's like Christmas morning! Literally.

Med school friend A and I drove down home (well, he drove. I annoyed him). We talked. We sang 90s songs. We stopped by Merced to check out the Hmong New Year Festival. Cool stuff.

Hmong Festival food. If only I could remember the names of these.

Annual Christmas brunch with the high school BFFs.

OMG it snowed in LA! JK.

Peace out, IM. It was real.

Break time!

Because we at UCD believe wellness is the key to success, we were blessed with 1 week off after the end of our second rotation. Yaya! I got to go home after a 4 month absence from the city of Angels (the longest I've ever been away). Mostly I did nothing. And by nothing I mean eat too much and hang out with people I hadn't seen in a while. Perfect way to recharge for the rotation ahead.

Got to see my ragamuffins!

First stop: Sprinkles ice cream sundae aka ice cream in between a cupcake. I have to admit, this may have been too much for me.  

Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup. Perfection! I had never tried this before and it was simply amazing.

Had to treat myself while in the motherland.

On to Psychiatry!

The home life

There's nothing like going home for the holidays.

Made sure to stop by my alma mater!

First time making sweet potato pie!

Cousin's wedding. What's that fluorescent stuff? ;)

Pretty chocolates.

J's birthday party venue.

Annual Christmas cookie party with high school friends.

Banana pudding!

But now I'm back

Well, it's been a while. I feel like I've been less inclined to write and more likely to amass pictures that I want to post. This will probably ring even more true as boards study time inches closer and closer. We are already on Block 4 aka Pathophysiology aka the last block of pre-clinicals! Block 3 was all neuro and psych and totally up my alley. And as the new class started, it really sunk in that we are not the babies of the school anymore. Eek!

Orientation week party for the new kids on the block.

Med school is really hard.

Like really hard. Like so much so that your MS3 friends will bring you treats from their vacation.

In other news, my good friend L from like preschool (seriously) is getting married!!! I'm a little bummed that I won't be able to attend the wedding. It's on the East Coast and it would be nearly impossible with my class schedule. :(

BUT, I was able to attend the bridal shower, which was so much fun! And here are the cupcakes to prove it.

September Break Fun:

Chicken katsu.

Restaurant by my house that I did not know existed. 

Brunch with the fam.

Shakshuka for the win. 

And hot cocoa. Of course. 

I like to eat.

On to MS2

Today is the first day of summer - the season, I mean. It's also the penultimate day of our "summer" break. These last six weeks have just flown by. I guess that was partly my fault since I split up my break. I did a two week "mini" psych clerkship where I followed around psychiatrists on the consult service in the mornings and outpatient clinics in the afternoons. Since I was going to be around, I figured I might as well be at clinic as much as I could as well. This meant the timing of things would be a little tricky. I ended up going home for 2 weeks after finals, then coming back up for a couple of weeks, and going home again for another 2 weeks.

I did learn a lot doing the summer program, though. My attending wanted to make me feel like I was part of the team so she had me do an oral presentation on the neurocircuitry of OCD and also present a paper for journal club. It was pretty cool being challenged at the level of an MS3. It makes me less nervous about the transition to third year. Anyway, psychiatry is definitely a tough field to go into. It's not necessarily physically demanding, but very much so mentally and emotionally. I really really liked being on the consult service though. It's a nice mix of medicine and psychiatry since these patients are usually brought in for a medical condition and need to be evaluated for an underlying psych issue or develop something throughout the course of their inpatient stay.

The rest of break was a mix of being sick right after finals, hanging out with friends, and eating a lot as usual.

Life lesson learned: I like inpatient much much more than outpatient - at least for psych.
Movies seen: 3 (X-Men, The Fault in Our Stars, 22 Jump Street)
Books read: 6
Binge-watched: alllllll of Sherlock and Game of Thrones season 4

The Fault in Our Stars was amazing. Amazing. Amazing. It's such a charming story and I bawled all throughout the book and movie. I'm a sap for YA lit. I tore through the Maze Runner series during the break. The movie comes out in September. Cannot wait. In the meantime, it's 12 weeks of Brain and Behavior and as many World Cup matches we can watch on the huge screens in our lecture halls.

Wet burrito at CaCao.

Traditional post-finals Porto's outing  with med school friend A. So happy!

Mmmmm cappuccino mousse.

Baked my brother brownies and a cake made with turmeric as soon as I got home. What a spoiled brat.

My brother's all-time favorite food. My grandmother made this for him even though it's blazing hot. It's yogurt-mint stew with meat/wheat balls and chicken.

Move night with high school friends. Those on the left are roasted strawberry-balsamic reduction-greek yogurt popsicles. The ones on the left are margarita mix-greek yogurt popsicles. 

I decided to chop off my hair for new beginnings. Wish me luck with Year 2!

Things I did over Winter break

Movies seen: 4
Books read: 4
Number of times went out with friends: too many to count

What a relaxing, glorious 16 days this has been. This was the first break that was truly a vacation - nothing to study, no presentations coming up, no clinic since I went back home for two weeks, no waking up with alarms. I cannot believe I go back tomorrow. I wish I had a timeturner. It's going to be back to the grind starting Monday, with more difficult classes (I presume), more responsibilities at clinic, and who knows what else.

Movies seen:
Catching Fire (again!), Frozen, The Desolation of Smaug, and 12 Years a Slave

Other fun stuff:

Annual Cooking Baking Pahtay. This was from last year because we ate all the cookies this year before I remembered to take a picture, ha!

Traditional BJs date with college friend R who is also in med school. Yeah, we go for the pizookies. :)

Three future docs