Recently in Medicine Category

People are impressed by big numbers. How much money do you make? How much did your car cost? How many women have you slept with? The list goes on.

How about... how much alcohol do you drink?

I was looking at post secret today, and noticed this postcard:

I often read post secret because I think people are fascinating. It's a little glimpse into their lives. This one particularly struck a cord with me, though.

My first week of the surgery clerkship was orientation. They gave us an intro to the trauma room and the OR, told us how to scrub, the basics of note-writing, etc. The second to last day, we had a suture lab; they taught us how to put in stitches and tie knots. They used pigs feet. Now, I've done this before. Usually, it's the kind of pigs feet that come from a butcher in Chinatown - they're thick-skinned and still hoofed, but they've been cleaned up; they're ready to put in a soup. This time, though, the pigs feet smelled startlingly like barn. They were still hairy, and still had some grit between their little piggy toes. I wondered where they got them. Some sort of medical supply company, where they get the rats? But would they sell us just the feet? I think I got my answer today.

Do you ever worry that you've done something really bad, without meaning to? Caused some awful thing, but purely by accident? I'm getting a lot of that recently.

I'm a medical student. I'm working on the pediatric inpatient floor at an urban hospital right now. I've been there two and a half weeks. I see all kinds of interesting stuff: cellulitis, staph scalded skin syndrome, little babies with fevers, pneumonia.

Not surprisingly, I'm also sick. I woke up yesterday having trouble breathing. I started off with a bit of a cough. By this morning, I was coughing up icky nastiness... at the hospital. On call. Seeing kiddos. One of the patients admitted today was a little boy with a history of kidney problems. He was having stomach pain, and when you pushed on his belly, it was firm and knobby, and he groaned. The x-ray showed that he was all full of poop, all the way up his left colon, across, and down his right colon... you're not supposed to have solid poo that far into your gut. So we ordered him some enemas and some laxatives, and waited to see what happened.