I'M BACK (FOR NOW!)

My name is Crystalle, and I have returned from my journey away from the face of the planet to proclaim that I have not abandoned the blog.

I’ve just taken a temporary leave-of-absence for who-knows how long.

After spending the last week and weekend of February at the hospital for a Family Medicine rotation, Day 1 of March swept me away into a Surgery rotation. The mornings are early, the days are sometimes long, and I have to work two weekends out of the month (I’ve already attended two surgeries this morning), but I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Weird, huh?

Well, you might not think this unless you knew a little background. You see, as I’ve mentioned before, “Core” – the term used to describe the month of surgery, the month of Ob/Gyn, and the two months of Internal Medicine at our teaching hospital – has quite a reputation as a morale buster. Stories about long, twelve-plus hour work days on your feet, stretches of up to nineteen days straight without a day off circulate (thankfully, I’ve only worked twelve!), heightened by the rumors of easily agitated, curt attending physicians who “pimp” (a very formal medical term, I assure you) about the minute details of medical topics.

I will attest to the suckiness of the early mornings, and the nice callus that is forming on my left big toe is a testament to hours and hours of weight-bearing activity (and maybe even a statement of poor posture/gait/footwear choice, but this detracts from the emphasis of my point so it gets parenthesized).

Though I’ve answered more than a few questions with “I don’t know” – three words that have easily become my BFF over the past weeks– I’ve not been pimped too much.

And while I’ve been talked-to quite sternly in the operating room over the handling of a laparoscopic camera (who knew that to move the light upwards in the field-of-view, the apparatus on the scope moves downward and vice-versa??!), I do not take it personal because – quite frankly -- I feel that I am doing the best that I can with the knowledge-base that I have.

It doesn’t hurt that my attending physician is a female surgeon with a fierce gumption that I perceive to be acquired from working in a highly-discriminative, male-dominated field. Though I can sometimes see tendencies during procedures (mostly pertaining to equipment malfunctioning) that make me believe the few stories I’ve heard about operating room outbursts, I haven’t witnessed anything crazy. I respect her and totally love her in a thank-you-for-being-personable-and-not-as-scary-as-I-anticipated way.

I have to say that I love being at the hospital, mostly because there is no substitute for being in the environment and learning the technicalities and goings-on associated with being there on a day-to-day basis. I am learning something new every day, which is refreshing and very gratifying, and it keeps things interesting. I highly enjoy being around and interacting with people (though I cannot say that the nurses are always the most friendly, but I’m secretly and passively-aggressively starting a black list), and it is so nice to see some of my classmates, even if in casual passing.

On a final note, I most particularly enjoy the proximity of the hospital to our house. After being away for several rotations, I have realized that I highly value being able to come home to Jerm and the doggies after a long day.

After all, warm hugs and puppy kisses are definitely a morale booster.