18 Weeks

Man, is New York *great*!

OK, the rotation has turned out a bit disappointing, more on that later. But all the bargains you can find – and people literally chasing you down the street to give you a better deal! Just the other day I saw some great designer bags for something like 90% off the store price – and the guy said he could afford to sell it so cheaply because he didn’t have any expenses. I mean, how expensive could the trashbag he was carrying stuff around in cost? I even managed to get a great deal on a watch; I had to really negotiate with the guy. I was cautious at first, until he reassured me it was genuine and that Rolex is really spelled ‘Ro!ex’ like the ones he had. He seemed nice, and he was selling it out of a classy leather briefcase on a corner in Times Square. But can anyone tell me:

Is my wrist supposed to be turning green?

Anyway, things have picked up a little on the patient front. I have had a range of patients in the ICU over the past month; most have made it, some haven’t. Many of the stories from the patients about why they came into hospital started out with ‘Well, I had been drinking with my friends for a few days…’ (Ya know, now that I think about it, I have a bunch of stories from my second year at Ohio State that start the same way. But I digress.): a couple of guys who were guests of the State of New York and were handcuffed to the hospital bed; a guy who came into the emergency room with a complaint of ‘it hurts’ – and could give us no other information; a guy who fell off a ladder and fractured his leg trying to break into *his* house; a guy who was playing ‘young boy games’ and jumped out of a second-story window on a dare (he broke *both* legs), and a guy who was sitting out front of his apartment building when - and I am not making this up – an air conditioner fell on his head.

I just realized that all the patients in this ward with dumb injuries were guys…

But my time here in Harlem is up (a couple of pix are up of me in Harlem Hospital at the blog: www.dowunderdoc.blogspot.com ) and while the folks I work with are great and I have managed to learn a few things, I am glad to be done. Next up, I head to Ohio on Sunday for 4 weeks of emergency medicine followed by 4 weeks of orthopedic surgery, both at the Cleveland Clinic. After that, it’s 6 weeks of radiology in Richmond, VA; I finish that November 4, and if all goes well, that’s the end of my clinical rotations with 4 weeks of vacation from November 4 until December 4. For those playing along with the home version, I am *18* weeks from being a doctor.

Hey! I saw that cold chill run up your spine!

And with that, it’s the weekend. Time to finish packing and get on a plane outta here. I’ll spend the weekend in DC packing for Cleveland and getting ready to deal with emergency medicine and my family (no, the two are not related). Not to mention showing off my new ‘Guccy’ bag…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan