a perfect day on the grass

I don't know if I want to be a leader
-Joe the Plumber

Update.

Well, I finished my last clinical rotation of medical school with little fanfare. I was done on a wednesday and everyone else was still working, so I think I may have vacuumed the apartment or something.

I completed an Advanced Cardiac Life Saving (ACLS) course soon thereafter as it is a requirement of our (and most) residency programs. This is the time when you learn how and when to shock people who are dead. It's actually weird that it's not part of medical school curriculum. It was kind of fun though, and made me feel much more able to participate in code situations. It was an enjoyable course, mostly because it is taught by nurses who in general tend to have a different method of teaching/learning than is used in medical school. I won't go into the detail of the differences I've perceived, but most notably, nurses actually explain what you are supposed to do, let you practice and then examine you gently. In medical school, this was not always the case.

I like describing my time in medical school in the past tense. That's nice.

We ended up taking off to Christina lake after our ACLS course was done. My mom and dad came out for the day. Despite multiple boat, bbq and plumbing issues, we had a great visit and they treated me to an early birthday dinner. We were then joined by Trish, Cortney and Steph and hung out few days. The weather was cold and grey, so it was a time for fires and hot drinks, puzzles and boardgames.

During our time at the cabin, I developped a mild upper respiratory tract infection, thought by some to perhaps be the Swine Flu. Courtney did have a real flu-like illness while we were at the lake, but we are all okay, I think. Because of this, my birthday was pretty low-key, but I was treated very well and got some sweet gifts and nice birthday messages.

We write our MCCQE exams tomorrow which is kind of a wrap-up exam for everything we have learned in medical school. It is a standardized exam adminstered by an independant body and is kind of like a stamp of approval to go out and become a (supervised) doctor. It's almost impossible to study for, and almost everyone passes, but it's a long (8 hour) exam. I'm looking forward to that being checked off my list.

Then it's just the fun of wedding planning to keep us busy as all of our friends go surfing in Nicaragua

uptight secretary working for large bureaucracy

The very first step to success in any occupation is to become interested in it
-William Osler

I realized today that I'm graduating soon. As much as I try to pay attention, I'm guilty of cruising around on autopilot most of the time. So tonight, while in the process of compiling the necessary paperwork to write my MCCQE Step 1 Qualifying Exam and cursing all the busy work of getting my application together to write the exam, I thought about how I'm pretty close to finishing my time as a student. I know the busy work and the applications won't end when I get my degree, and that being a resident still counts as being a learner (and thank goodness for that), but I'm ready to move on.

It's a relatively common for doctors to have a fair amount of self-pity. I remember when I was getting wheeled into the OR for my ACL repair while I was still a medical school hopeful, the anaesthesiologist quiped about my interest in medicine (which my father had let him know about), asking me if I was sure there wasn't still time to switch to dentistry, or something where I wouldn't have to work as hard and could make a decent living. I have to admit that I've been guilty of the same sort of comments. My old housemate Trevor, who is my age, is currently in the application process for medical school. I'm confident he would make a great doctor, but find myself sarcastically warning him off the medical path. As he told me how an experience ski patrolling made him really excited about the possibility of one day being an ER physician, I started asking him if he'd thought about being a paramedic.

Because I'm prone to this sort of behaviour anyhow, and the culture I'm a part of reinfroces it, I have to snap myself out of my aforementioned auto-pilot-like-state and think about where I am. So the exam application made me do that tonight, and now flipping from self-pity to self-aggrandizing, I'm still pretty stoked about medicine. I still like seeing patients, I still feel like I'm doing something worthwhile and I'm excited about the next stage of my training.

There's lots ahead of me still before I graduate, including a cross-country interview tour, a 2-day OSCE and the MCCQE, thrown in with 3 more clinical electives, but they'll be out of the way soon enough, and I'll be moving somewhere on July 1st to start the next part.