Nice guys die first.

gator16 — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:54:24 +0000

I read somewhere before intern year started that “they can always hurt you more, but they cannot stop the clock.” That is kind of how I am looking at this year. I just plan to take whatever is dished on me, and keep my head down. That clock will just keep ticking ticking ticking. So far, I haven’t directly killed anyone yet. Several of my patients have died, but for most of them there was nothing that could be done. Each of them had a terminal cancer. One poor guy, a farmer, came in because he was just so short of breath for the last two weeks. Of course he was short of breath, his entire abdomen was filled with fluid because his liver was invaded with tumor. It looked like the tumor had spread from his from his skin, to his lungs, and then to his liver. He started out with a pea-sized knot at the top of his neck that grew and grew until it was the size of a golf ball. He never had it checked out by anyone. He said he couldn’t take the time off of the farm to get looked at. Two days later he was gone. So so sad. I just don’t understand how he thought that knot was going to shrink on it’s own. I cannot get around that.

It seems like the good guys are always the ones that get the shitty diagnosis. Nice guys get lung cancer, with mets to every imaginable place. The jerks who complain about the quality of hospital food checkout two days later with antibiotics for whatever infection they have. It just doesn’t seem fair sometimes. I mean, I’m not wishing a terminal diagnosis on anyone, but it just sees like the nice guys get the worst news.

Random medical humor… I’m talking to one of my patients while he is in dialysis, and I am explaining that he needs to have a biopsy of some of the masses that we found on his spleen. The spleen really likes to bleed on its own, so I go over the need for interventional radiology to get the biopsy. I’m telling him how he is going to have another CT scan, and they are going to zero in on the exact location of the mass, then slowly insert a needle into the middle of it to get a sample. He says he gets the general idea and I ask if he has any questions. So he asks me if I have ever seen one, and I say that I have and add, “It’s actually really really cool to watch, as long as it’s not happening to you.” I really hadn’t realized what I had said until the dialysis nurse doubled over laughing. It was pretty funny, but um yeah you might have had to have been there. Good story.

Here I Go Again on My Own

gator16 — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 02:33:54 +0000

I used to think the only people who created blogs did so because they possessed some sort of exhibitionist streak. They wanted to be seen, wanted to be watched. I thought it was self-serving and gratuitous. Now, I’m bored at 10 oclock on a Wednesday night, and I’m writing a blog. Maybe the people I thought were so self-centered really had nothing better to do than right. Either way, here am I, now I write.

This blog really will not have any sort of agenda, I guess I will write about the things that interest me like: Florida Gator sports, medicine, business, politics, food, gambling, and obscene humor. I really don’t think anyone will read this besides myself and really I am ok with that.

About me, I graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in Microbiology and Cell Sciences then moved north to go to medical school. Now, I am a first-year resident in Medicine at a program in the Midwest. After I finish this year, I am supposed to move south as I have matched in Anesthesiology in another program further south. I say that I am supposed to finish a residency in anesthesiology, but really more and more I am thinking about heading to business school. I recently took the GMAT and scored a 710, which I hear is a decent score.

So hear’s the rub, I am the first person in my family to have gone to medical school, the third to finish college. I feel the pressure from my family to continue in medicine, because basically it sounds so much better to say, “My son, the doctor” than it does to say “I have a son, he’s a banker.” Maybe that is just my perception. Who knows. Again, I’m glad I’m the only one reading this, because wow it just isn’t that interesting. I mean, here I am whining, that I cannot decide whether to become an anesthesiologist and make $275k/year for the rest of my life or get an MBA from a good school to work in investment banking giving me a chance at even more lucrative payoffs. Boo hoo. I don’t expect sympathy.

So, that’s the start, if anyone ever sees this, check back sometime to hear some stories about the horrors of intern year, more on my decision to leave medicine, and much more interesting things like the start of college football season, how Franky Muniz killed Dale Earnhardt, and why Jeff Garcia has no friends.

Intern A's Weblog

Nice guys die first.

Here I Go Again on My Own