i am an ms4, now hear me roar!

Published on 1 week, 1 day ago in medical school. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Behold! I have returned at long last and I am an MS4! Yes, I thought I would never make it. And I’m sure many of you thought I wouldn’t either. But here I am, 1000x more weary and none the wiser after having gone through the many levels of hell that was MS3. I think I may have a touch of PTSD, but that’s nothing a little Prozac won’t fix!

Oh the stories I have to tell!

But we’ll start small. Let’s just go with worst experience of MS3. Two words: Internal Medicine. I have never been actively suicidal in my life, but I swear I was during this rotation. The hours suck. The busy-work sucks. The fact that you’re just a peon chasing after coat-tails sucks. But what really killed me was the constant humiliation. A typical day of rounds went something like this:

Dr. Know-it-all: MS3s, go listen to this patient’s heart.
[MS3s proceed to listen to patient's heart]
Dr. Know-it-all: What did you hear?
Fellow MS3: I heard a murmur.
Dr. Know-it-all: Wrong! What about you?
Me: Er…um…A holosystolic murmur.
Dr. Know-it-all: Wrong! It went whoosh-whoosh, not whoooosh-whoooosh or swoosh-swoosh. Therefore, it was a crescendo-decrescendo murmur. And that’s aortic stenosis! [self-satisfactory grin]

And as if that wasn’t bad enough…being humiliated by the attending on a daily basis, we got a good share of it from our senior resident as well.

R2: What drugs reduce mortality in CHF?
Me: Um… (yes, I should have known this, but I didn’t at the time)
R2: Dig…
Me: Oh, digoxin? (which I totally thought it wasn’t because I vaguely remembered reading that somewhere)
R2: NO! I tricked you! I was testing you and you were wrong!
Me [to self]: WTF! [to R2]: Oh, okay. Sorry I didn’t know. I will go read up on it now.

My last example happened on a call night at around 11pm, when the R2 demanded that us MS3s give her a presentation on heart failure. Her comment was, “Because I’m sick of all this passive learning!” WTF! We would learn if we actually had the time to! And 11pm on a call night is NOT the time to be making MS3s give presentations! She then proceeded to put my poor fellow MS3 on the spot throughout her entire presentation. Luckily for me, I was a much better bullshitter than she. The semi-photographic memory also helped.

And those are just a few of the lowlights from my time on Internal Medicine. More stories to come now that I am an MS4 and have a semblance of a life again!

med school sucks

Published on 5 months, 4 weeks ago in medical school. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

And that is why I’ve been gone for I-can’t-even-remember-how-long. I’m always thinking to myself throughout pretty much everyday of my third year so far: “Wow! I should really blog about this!” But by the time I get home and eat dinner, it’s time to go to sleep to start the whole crappy routine all over again.

Oh the stories I have to tell!

Third year is sucking the life out of me. My brain works so hard everyday that when I finally get to stop, all I want to do is sit around and not think. I was at the airport one day waiting to board a plane and was staring at my brightly-printed Tokidoki bag when my husband asked me, “Uh, what are you doing?” “Staring at my bag,” I replied. He thought I was crazy. But I just need to turn my brain off sometimes! It’s perpetually on and running, running, running everyday all day long. “Today sucks. I can’t believe I’m here. Oh wait. Don’t look bored. Look interested. You love this! Oh crap. Where should I stand? Did I say that right? Well, that was a stupid thing to say! Am I being empathetic enough? But I don’t know how to do what you’re telling me to do! Gotta pretend like I do anyway! Nod yes. Crap I hope they don’t figure out I don’t understand what the hell they’re talking about. Please don’t yell at me. Please don’t yell at me. Fuck my life.” Even when I get home, it doesn’t stop. “What do I have to do tonight so I don’t look like an idiot tomorrow? Crap, I really gotta study. Crap rounds are at 6?!” You’re lucky I’m even writing a post!

So I’ve done surgery. I’m on pediatrics now. I know I’m not going to be a surgeon. I actually like kids a lot more than I ever thought I would. But it’s early. We’ll see. And now I must shut down my brain. Stories from surgery hell next time I post.

it’s just a job

Published on 10 months, 1 week ago in medical school. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

That’s what I’m trying to tell myself so that I’ll stop having anxiety attacks about it. It’s just third year. Everyone else goes through it and survives. And yet I can’t help but be unreasonably nervous about it. I guess too many years of being told I’m an unempathetic robot can do that to a person.

But it’s not just that. I kind of liked being a bum for the past six months or so. Staying up till 2am and waking up at noon was nice. Too nice. I think I’m addicted. I feel like my life is going to end. I’ve been sulking about it for awhile.

But I finally realized that it’s just like having a job (a really crappy one, but still…). Truthfully, I’ve never had a real 8-5 kind of job before. Sure, there was lab, but that doesn’t count at all. I’ve never had to actually do work for eight hours a day. I’ve never not been free to eat lunch whenever I want or take vacations whenever I feel like it. I never had to accept that the weekend is my only respite.  But now here I am having to do that. And more. After having been spoiled for so long. Not only do I have to accept that weekends will be my only time off, I have to accept that most of the time, I won’t even have weekends. That I won’t be home some nights.

Here I am boohooing about it when my peers (those who did not go to med school) have been living like this since they graduated from college. How silly of me! And yet I can’t help it. My life will likely never be the same again. But at least I managed to delay real life for this long. That’s what I’m telling myself. How long until I listen?

better late than never?

Published on 10 months, 3 weeks ago in married life and medical school. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Tada! She’s alive! Ugh. I’m so bad. If I can’t blog when I have all the time in the world, what’s going to happen when I’m back on the wards and have no time at all? Well, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll have more to write about since everyday will be a new adventure. Yay.

What have I been up to? Absolutely nothing. Seriously. Nothing at all. Which sucks because when I decided to lengthen my break from school, it was so that I could do some clinical review work to make myself feel more confident when I return. Well, the powers-that-be made it sound so awesome…like they were going to totally hook it up…but when the time came, all I got was nothing. Don’t they know how hard it was for me even to ask for help in the first place? Why must they make me fight for it every step of the way? Well, I didn’t fight hard enough because *gasp* I thought they were actually going to keep the lofty promises they made me, so I ended up doing shit during my time off. What a waste of my time! I’m not getting any younger here!

Well, I’m not that dumb. I didn’t sit on my ass and twiddle my thumbs while I waited. I got cracking on studying. Big time. I’ve lost count of how many books I’ve read, but I’ve read at least one book for each rotation, plus Bates, plus Step 2 Secrets, plus others in the time I had off. I don’t know if I retained much. I probably still can’t tell you the difference between croup, bronchiolitis, and epiglottitis, but at least I can make some wrong guesses that don’t sound completely stupid. I got ambitious and tried to set up Step 2 at the last minute, but without having done third year first, I wasn’t going to be able to study enough to do well enough for my standards in less than 60 days, so I gave up on that. If only I’d come up with that idea say 6 months ago? That would definitely have been enough time. But silly me, I was still waiting on my miracle from the administration. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Me.

I’m not whining. I don’t care anymore. I’m just trying to finish it all up now. No more breaks. No matter how scared or overwhelmed I feel. It’s time to just plow through. I’ve got more Chanels to buy, dammit and I can’t afford them with my stipend money! Just a word of caution to other MD/PhDs out there: don’t expect any help returning to your clinical years. Actually, you should expect sabotage. They will do everything in their power to make it harder for you than for everyone else. I guess it’s punishment for being such overachievers. So if you want anything from them, demand it and don’t stop until you get it. There is no being meek or being afraid of seeming too demanding. If you don’t get in their faces, you just get totally and utterly screwed. Like me. Don’t be like me. You deserve better.

twitter and site maintenance

Published on 11 months, 3 weeks ago in medical school. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I’ve been meaning to post, but I’ve been quite busy lately. In the meantime, I’ve finally joined Twitter, so you can find me there as mylifemypace. I’ll be posting shorter updates there when I don’t have time to write a full post. Feel free to find me there and ask me any questions you might have. I’ll try to answer in 140 characters or less. :P

In other news, the site appears funky right now because I’m upgrading my blogging software and it messed things up. I’m working on fixing it, so please forgive the strange appearance until I get everything worked out. I’ll be back soon with some new material.

i’m no princess nor do i want to be one

Published on 1 year ago in married life and sand people. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I’ve always believed in being self-sufficient. Sure, my parents were super-overprotective when I was young. I was never allowed to go out with my friends or school dances, even the prom. My parents pretty much took care of everything for me. My mom picked out my clothes for me until I was in seventh grade, something that is unheard of today when we have kids wearing one outfit when they walk out of the house only to change into something sluttier and cake their faces with horrid makeup the instant they get to school. But even so, I never thought I was a princess nor did I want to be treated as such.

Maybe it’s because I lost my mom when I was so young and had no choice but to take care of myself (though I suppose I could have been like others I know who just became serial monogamists because they always needed someone to take care of them instead of learning how to be independent). Or maybe it’s because my dad used to always fill up my mom’s gas tank for her…until one day he didn’t and she had to try to get gas herself and didn’t know how and felt absolutely humiliated. I have never wanted to be dependent on another person for anything. To that end, I made it my mission back in college to learn how to take care of my car on my own–I learned how to change my own tire, I learned how to change my own oil, and I Iearned how to drive stickshift so that I would never be limited in what I could drive. I’m handy around the house and I mow my own lawn and trim my own bushes. I’m not afraid to get dirty. I fight my own battles.

Even now that I’m married, I still do plenty of the dirty work. I don’t do much with cars because otherwise, what would my husband be good for? But I still mow the lawn and trim the bushes if he doesn’t have time. I’m not afraid to take out the trash. I do the laundry. And I cook. When we bring home groceries, I’m not a princess who prances inside leaving my husband to bring everything in just because he’s a foot taller than me and way stronger. I insist on helping. Even with heavy things I’m pretty incapable of lifting, like 52″ lcd tvs, bathtubs, and furniture, I still have to help. I just can’t help it. If I am capable, why not help?

Well, apparently what I think is normal for me is not how other girls women behave. There are women out there who think that their significant others exist only to be their servants/slaves. It makes me sick when I see these poor men so castrated by their women. It makes me hope that these women are giving them damn good reason to give up their manhood so. I’ve seen guys cook for their girlfriends while she does not ever lift a finger for him, even when he is sick. I’ve seen guys loaded down with 15 bags of their girlfriends’ stuff while the girl prances into the house with not a care in the world. I’ve seen guys who escort their girlfriends to places like the bathroom and wait for them to come out. I’ve seen guys who drive their girlfriends (who are damn well capable of driving themselves and have the means to do so) to school even though it significantly disrupts their schedules to do so just because these girls want to look like princesses being chauffeured around by their awesome boyfriends slaves. I would go on, but I think I just vomited a little in my mouth. And I think you get the idea.

Is this really what it means to be in a relationship? If that’s the case, then why do men bother? If I were a guy, I would rather just hire myself some love when I feel the urge. Nothing could possibly be worth the level of humiliation these guys suffer. Nothing. And yet I see it all the time now. Hello, men!? Here’s your wakeup call! You do NOT have to be treated like slaves! In fact, if you are being treated like a slave, then your girlfriend doesn’t love you and is just using you as a slave. Love does not equal servitude. You deserve better. And there is better for you out there. Ditch your ball-and-chain and put yourself out there and find someone who who deserves you! Please! Someone’s got to teach these women that there is no such thing as being a princess in this modern world! It starts with you!

insomnia

Published on 1 year ago in married life. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I can’t sleep. As I lay here typing this post on my iPhone, my husband and both of my dogs are snoring happily away. I’ve always been somewhat of an insomniac, but it had been getting better…one hour to fall asleep instead of two or three. But now here I am two hours out and no amount of reading is making me sleepy. And, of course, the more I think about falling asleep, the harder it is. Perhaps I fool myself. I’ve been staying up until 2-3 am every night for the past six months. Maybe that’s why it has been easier for me to fall asleep…because it’s damn late when I finally hit the sack. Tonight we went to bed at 11. I guess all I have to do is wait for it to be 2 to fall asleep. It’s just that it’s no fun when everyone else is sleeping.

i think my sister-in-law is an alcoholic

Published on 1 year ago in married life and sand people. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

So my husband and I vacationed awhile ago in the vicinity of Sister-in-law and was promised that she would make the 1.5-hour drive to eat lunch with us before we departed. Well, she decided to not show her face that morning at 8am as promised, which I could have cared less about if I wasn’t anxious to get started on our 8-hour drive back home that very same day. Not only did she not show up, but she also did not even bother calling to let us know nor did she (or Miniman) answer repeated phone calls that were made to them.

When we finally contact them, we find out that they have not even left yet and they have the audacity to try to get us to change our plans to work around the fact that they couldn’t get their horny lazy asses out of bed. My husband is far too nice about the whole thing (as usual), so I just grabbed the phone from him and proceeded to chew Sister-in-law out, about how she’s such a hypocrite for not respecting her elders (us) when she continually tries to make it seem like we don’t respect our elders enough (not true), about how she thinks that the world revolves around her, and how we’re supposed to follow her schedule even if it’s extremely inconvenient for us to do so. Suffice it to say, I made her cry, which is no big accomplishment because she cries at the drop of a hat. Well, my silly husband still wanted to meet up for lunch even after all of this drama, so we wait for them to show up. When they finally do, we meet at a restaurant, where we walk in to find Sister-in-law wearing sunglasses. Inside. Who the hell does that besides Hollywood celebrities? Seriously. Who does she think she is? When probed about her reasons for being so pretentious, she continually claims that her eyes are sensitive to light because she stayed out too long in the sun the other day. What kind of bullshit excuse is that?

Not only that, but she’s ordered a glass of wine to go with her lunch. Who the hell drinks wine at lunch with their family when no one else is drinking? And at a pizza place? It’s not like we were having $100-steaks or something. Bad enough she ordered one glass, she ended up ordering another. Maybe one is to be snobby to go with the shades inside thing. But two at lunch? That’s alcoholic territory. It really wouldn’t surprise me if she’s turned into an alcoholic. She’s a super narcissist with an extremely fragile ego underneath it all who’s with a short guy who might be a pedophile just because she’s desperate to get married. I’ve seen less narcissistic people become alcoholics.

Funny thing is…I mentioned my theory to my husband because no matter how much I can’t stand her, I don’t want to see his family go through the pain of dealing with an alcoholic family member and he summararily dismissed it. I hate how I get nowhere with them. They are the kings of deny, deny, deny. If we pretend there’s nothing wrong, then maybe everything will be okay even though everything is not. Well, when this all eventually blows up, he can’t say that I didn’t try to help.