Ahhh.......Sabbath!!!

Sooooooooooooooooooooooo lovely to finally have a Sabbath rest day after about 5 or 6 weeks without one. Prior to my current rotation I was on inpatient wards and had only one weekend day off, which was a Sunday, the rest were week days. So, it is really nice now especially to have a Sabbath off, but really great to have both weekend days off back to back as well.

Currently I am on cardiothoracic surgery rotation which is both amusing/annoying and fun. The amusing/annoying part is that I get pimped all day long by the cardiothoracic surgeons. I mean, I really feel like a medical student again being questioned about anatomy during surgery, which I have not reviewed since first year of medical student. Lets just say that while I did get a few questions right, by and large the experience did not reinforce that idea that I should be graduating from my program soon. I try to console myself though, that most of the doctors currently in practice would also not correctly answer these questions. Example "what is heparin obtained from"? (answer: salmon sperm). Now how again is this relevant to my practice of medicine?
Anyway, the good part is that the surgeons, aside from the incessant pimping, are really very nice. I can't say I've met any nicer surgeons... true gentlemen.
The great part is that they are pretty good about trying to arrange procedures for me to do, which is the whole reason I took this rotation: Swan Ganz catheters (monitors intracardiac pressures), central lines (IV access for agents that support blood pressure, and good for other great meds and fluids), intubations (breathing tube for life support machine during surgery), and anything else they can find. Still, the ansthesiologists are always the rate limiting part of the equation since they sometimes do not want a resident coming to practice with them and will not let you do it even if the surgeon trys to encourage them thus.
The highlight so far occured yesterday when I got to place a chest tube for someone who had a pneumothorax. That was really cool.

Today it is beautiful and sunny outside and I got to go to church which was very refreshing. We are going to eat lunch soon and then go walk somewhere to soak up a little sunshine before the rains really start. The fall leaves here have been very beatiful and are now turning a bit dim, telling me they are all about to fall off the trees for the winter.

I am looking forward to going home for Thanksgiving weekend since I will not be off for Christmas this year. I will be on the wards on Christmas which I have not had to do for the first two years.

I really miss everyone!!! I am so excited for darling Sunny and Tim being back together again! Soon I will come hang out with everyone.

Have a blessed Sabbath!