Favorite rant by a preceptor:

"So I get all these patients who are "recovered" alcoholics and they walk into my office just reeking of booze. Hell I could smell them in the waiting room. And they got those alcoholic faces with the red nose and all y'know? And they want me to write them a letter so that they can get their driver's license back. And I ask them, 'Do I look stupid to you? No really, do I? Because I was under the impression that they let me into medical school because I was pretty smart. And you gotta think I'm stupid or something if you think I'm going to write you that letter when you've obviously been drinking'. And they all go 'Oh no Doc! I'm sober I swear!' So I send them down to get their blood levels tested and they all come back like twice the legal limit and when I tell them this, they look all surprised and tell me that they don't know how it happened, maybe it was the mouthwash that they used before they came to my office. And then they ask me if I can write them that letter and I go 'No of course not you frickin' idiot! You think I want you going out there and killing one of my kids? Get the f!&* out of my office!' "

Comments:

• Are we allowed to swear at patients?
• Well I suppose you're allowed, but is that really conducive to a good therapeutic relationship?
• Will I feel differently about this 20 years from now when I'm all jaded and cynical and have kids of my own that drunk drivers can mow down?
• I think I'll have a lot to learn when I get out into the 'real' world. For now, I'm happy with FIFE-ing it.

I spent 11 hours in school today, 8 of those hours were spent in a windowless room. Of that 8, 4 were spent listening to the intricacies of your digestive tract, 2 were spent learning to stab myself so I could test my blood glucose levels and voluntarily put myself on a diabetic diet during an exam week so I don't even get the pleasure of late-night munchies whilst I cram GI into my already overloaded brain, and the last 2 were spent learning about how ornery I would become, how my marriage could dissolve and how I might develop a substance abuse problem
because of the profession that I spent 8 hours of my day training for.

Of the remaining 3 hours, 1 was spent eating and the last 2 were spent with a dead person (whom I see more often than I see my boyfriend). Then to take a break from it all, I decided to take a swim in the pool at my apartment complex. Normally the pool is pretty darn empty, in fact most days I get it all to myself. Once or twice I've had the pleasure of sharing the pool with an aquacise lesson in which various women (mostly older or middle-aged) bounce up and down in the water in time with music.

But today, I got to share it with two little lovebirds who not only flirted, but frolicked, pranced, kissed, hugged, smooched, touched, giggled, and splashed each other. When I first entered the pool, they looked a little bit guilty but since it was fairly obvious what they were doing I guess they must have decided there was no point trying to conceal it. After a little while, they started to look at me a little resentfully. Never mind the fact that a pool might actually be for swimming, they paid their rent and darn it, they're going to use it as an extension of their boudoir if they choose to. Yeah come to think of it, I totally agree. I'd much rather grope another person in public, leaning against tile and cement and lounging in a sea of other people's skin cells than return to the comfort of my home. Yeah in fact that whole 'lack of common decency' thing is so totally blown out of proportion, like, whatEVER... So from this moment on they decided to outright fondle each other in front of myself and another unwitting voyeur whose only desire had been to front crawl his way to a slimmer him.

And to my two exhibitionists: Bravo!!! You just managed the rather daunting task of adding yet another type of bodily secretion to the cesspool that is every public swimming pool.

So here's a little game I found while blog surfing.

The Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

And mine is... But I can't help it, coffee is just so good.

I think that speaks volumes...

My new favorite medical word is: Borborygmy!

Also known as tummy rumblings.

Yesterday at ER shadowing signup:

First Year Girl #1: Ooh ER Shadowing!
First Year Girl #2: Oh yeah, we should totally sign up for that.
*Sharon rolls eyes at the overwhelming ditziness. Dez smirks but tries hard to keep a straight face and maintain professionalism*

FYG #1: Do you have your planner, what day should we sign up for?
FYG #2: How about this weekend?
FYG #1: Yeah, but not on the Friday because everyone will be out partying. Not Saturday either because there'll probably be parties then too.
*Dez shoots Sharon a look of incredulous disbelief*

FYG #2: Well how about Sunday? There shouldn't be any parties then...
*Exit FYG #1 and #2. Both Dez and Sharon have to cover their faces with their hands to stifle the urge to laugh as that would attract the attention of the remaining first years*

Mental Note: Must tell admissions rep to increase stringency of admissions criteria.

A relationship is only as good as the price you pay for it.

How strange, friendship (and relationships in general) are supposed to be free. But over the last few weeks I've come to realize that a relationship is only as good as what you put into it. I think of those friendships that have cost me very little, those people I know who are friends of convenience. We enjoy each other's company, we listen to each other talk, but at the end of the day our relationship continues to be rather shallow. It strikes me that the relationships that we truly value are those that we have had to fight for - those which have cost us tears and arguments and frustration but which we still continue to hold onto because the fact that we were willing to fight for them in the first place instead of running away, gives them value.

Lastly it makes me think of those relationships that I ran away from, the ones I deemed unworthy of fighting for. It makes me wonder why I was willing to fight so hard for some and was content to let others slip away from me. Or worse, I purposely sent them away. Doesn't it say more about me and the type of person and friend that I am than it ever will about them?

I have Internet again! It never fails to amaze me how I've become a complete hostage to cyberspace. A day without it is alright, two days without it and I start keeping an eye out for free computers, a few more days and I start feeling a bit isolated. About 10 days went by without me having regular Internet access and I was almost catatonic. Calling friends to see if I could come bum off their Internet, staying late at school after an 8 hr. day so I could become reaccquainted with the world. It felt so ostracizing...and that is so pathetic...

Edmonton has been busy, busy, busy. I have started eating, breathing and sleeping in the anatomy lab. I spent 3.5 hours today staring at loop after loop of intestine, hacking through connective tissue at a painfully slow pace in hopes of elucidating the wonders of the human body. In the past week or so I have manage to slice open my glove on a shard of bone, slice open my glove on the tip of dissecting scissors, and dissect completely through what I thought was the inferior vena cava (which turned out to be the hepatic portal vein) and almost had a heart attack in the process because that's what our dissector told us specifically NOT to do. I don't think I would have made it out of that anatomy group alive if it had turned out to be the IVC afterall. I figure that by the end of this year my anatomy group will either be the best of friends or we won't be able to stand the sight of each other we spend THAT much time with each other. Mike is the probe, I'm forceps, Sharon's scissors and John's the reader and scissors #2. Like a well-oiled machine we are...

It has been many, many days since the last blog. I apologize =)

I'm in the process of slowly settling back into life in Edmonton. I still have no TV and no Internet (and probably won't for a while, darn Telus and their labor problems) so the only thing I have to keep me occupied is studying! Gosh darn it... Studying by choice is incredibly fulfilling, studying out of boredom is just pathetic.

Life in Edmonton has been surprisingly good. Lots of "how was your summer?" and catching up, partying and sushi nights, fireworks and my 3 fantastic friends who cleansed my apartment of fruitflies for me because I'm scared of bugs. Granted, I was standing in the background with a bottle of Windex just in case one got away, but they are highly talented bug hunters among other things. I have thought all along that I didn't really have a "home" in Edmonton, a group of people to whom I belonged the same way that Kingston was. But in the midst of the vacuum and the Windex and the screaming, I realized that I have one and that I had really missed it over the summer. I realized that because it was different from what Kingston had been and therefore what my own picture of belonging was, I hadn't even known it was there. But I am here now in it, and I have been so unaware of how much I have.