ellsieNY's Xanga

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 03:55:32 GMT

YES! NO MORE PERSONAL STATEMENTS!! all submitted and outta my hands! wheeeeeee

new addition to the family

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:52:05 GMT

meet our new doggy Dino! he's part dachshund, part dinosaur.
he likes his frog toy that the bf bought. im not good at picking out toys...he kept yelling at me that i was picking out ones that resembled Bebop...hah oops. well...so far they have not eaten eachother....

Friday, September 19, 2008

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:50:56 GMT

got my very first interview offer yesterday...sweet! very happy! its only one school so far but i already want to throw up thinking about the timing issues, travel logistical nightmares, and all the money we will have to be pouring into this process. i guess what can we do...let the insanity begin!

what should i do for 3 weeks?

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:56:39 GMT

my 4th year schedule is the whackness right now. was pretty happy with it as it was but had to do some major overhauls with my electives and i now have 3 random weeks in the middle of october free. what should i do with all that time??? here are some options so far:

wilderness medicine and emergency preparedness elective - first we spend some time in hospital/ER/lectures and then 2 weeks in the adirondacks! (this is also the most expensive option which is sucky considering my brokeness, it also leaves me very little time to get camping gear..)
complementary and alternative medicine elective - a number of nyc schools offer this but i feel like it could be hit or miss, i really want to get something useful out of it
medical practicum elective - learning to deal with administrative stuff in practicing medicine like insurance, billing, staffing, all that crap that needs to be dealt with
medical spanish immersion elective - throwing you into the pits
ekg elective - this is the only course on this list at my own school, so its easy to set up and no fee. kinda boring but will definitely be useful

i cant decide!! i want to do all of them! everywhere i look there are some awesome sounding electives. but i only have 3 weeks. help! any votes or other suggestions??

Friday, September 05, 2008

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:57:21 GMT

so i'm doing my family medicine rotation at a private practice in the city this month and its one of those hoitytoity places which also has like a spa attached. ive got to say that my preceptor has a fantastic business-bordering-on-scam going on. ok maybe that is too extreme to say. but some aspects of it is like so sketchy that its almost impressive (in a bad way). he sees like a gazillion patients, never turns away walk-ins..and saves a ton on overhead costs by not hiring any nurses or billing ppl or whatever. its just an office manager and him and a part-time scheduling person. he does everything else himself (this is why it really helps to be business savvy) BUT NOT ONLY THAT he has medical students around. this month there are FIVE of us. our presence more than doubled the number of people in the practice. not only that, it is NOT a huge office...there are only 2 exam rooms. we literally bump into eachother in the hallways and in the rooms, at any given point i am shoulder to shoulder with someone or turning in circles trying to get around. its ridiculous. he has 3 out-of-state students and 2 from my school...i am pretty sure that our schools dont know he is doublebooking. we do a lot of his administrative work. how sweet is that? he gets paid from two schools to be a preceptor AND gets to save on hiring actual admin and nursing staff to do a lot of the things we end up doing. i sometimes feel like i am working in a really fancy sweatshop. on the other hand his patients totally love him and he is quite hilarious.
and today i saw him seal the deal to provide medical services for an ADULT FILM INDUSTRY group. you know how porn stars are required to be tested every few months in order to be hired? hes made a deal so that he gets referred all these patients from an adult entertainment group. he says they are exactly the clientele theyre looking for cuz they need the botox and spa treatments offered and then they can also get the std tests in the same office. plus they have tons of cash to make cash payments. so he totally targetted them. i was like this is sooo twisted...yet somehow really really shrewd.
sigh. i just want to work somewhere and be inspired. i feel like most of my clerkship experiences have buried a lot of my original idealism.
and i am totally stuck on my personal statement. it prolly says a lot that it was ten times easier for me to write a statement on one specialty versus still havng a blank page after 2 weeks thinking about the other specialty. maybe this is my decision-maker..

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:06:32 GMT

so im back in nyc and went out tonight, it was great to reconnect with maryland friends as well as medschool friends. a classmate of mine asked me for an update on what i have decided to go into after telling me that the rumor was that i was going into...surgery!? this came as a shock to me. sometimes, as gina so greatly put it, when i am DRUNK i think i can go into surgery. but i dont think i ever seriously considered it, esp not enough to tell anyone else. i just know myself too well and know i'd be too sleep-deprived and therefore unbearably miserable. something a friend told me recently really resounds in my mind and heart...she basically said i will really have to feel reallyreally good about what i go in to the hospital to do every day, working x number of hours in excess, in order to bear leaving my family, to leave my (future) children in the care of someone else. and that just spoke to me so much. cuz i know when the time comes there will be very little in this world that i will want to do instead of take care of my family when i do have one, god-willing. and maybe it IS just the funk i am in right now but im just so exhausted. things that seemed so shiny and new last year, the intense and exciting aspects of certain specialties just dont seem worth it anymore..i just want to be balanced and to be able to have a normal life outside the hospital. but im also dying to be inspired. iunno. theres still a lot to figure out but right now...im pretty delirious.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:48:13 GMT

ohhhhhmygod i cant take any more of these have-your-note-done-by-5:30am-and-stay-til-10:30pm days!!! im eating dinner right now..a sad little hotpocket...despite the fact that i need to be asleep as of 1 hour ago so i can wake up at 4am and repeat the cycle. my legs are soooo tired. been standing in the OR since 7am today and am experiencing the type of tiredness that surpasses all tiredness you feel in life where you are using all of your might to fight it off while your body knows perfectly well that it is waaaaay past its limits. my body completely hates me right now. this sort of tired is so painful, its basically my worst misery, the feeling i hate most in life. SO WHY AM I PICKING A SPECIALTY THAT MAKES ME FEEL THIS WAY!! honestly i dont know right now and its slowly filling me with doubt. gah. what else do i have left then? okay konking out

a day of firsts

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 05:53:17 GMT

1) my first earthquake...while at work waiting for my case to start in the OR, felt the hospital wobbling like it was on a bowl of jelly..turned out to be a quake measuring 5.8 on the richter scale with the epicenter in a neighboring town. i was glad to be told that this doesnt happen all the time..

2) my first voluntary termination of pregnancy...this was the case i went into after the earthquake..scrubbed in on ultrasound guided dilation and evacuation of an 18wk fetus who had a fetal abnormality incompatible with life (poor baby had no head)...going thru the fetal parts sent shivers down my spine...little arms and legs with perfect beautiful fingers and toes, a tiny broken ribcage, a miniature kidney, a loooooong thin string that turned out to be unwound intestines, and a little eyeball...the parts hinted at a fetus that would've fit easily in the palm of my hand. its so sad thinking of what mightve been.

the world is just awesome

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:00:09 GMT

i love this commercial. i cant stop watching it. even tho i must study. must. study. must. this video and my squeaky fat guinea pig just make it so hard to study! but so easy to smile!

is it possible to hate people you don't know?

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:05:51 GMT

so i didn't handle that very well. i just stormed upstairs to knock on my upstairs neighbors' door. i've never met them before but i'm guessing they moved in about a month ago when their arrival was heralded by massive stomping over my head that didn't stop until 4:30am on a thursday due to what i assume to be a housewarming party. since then ive been able to trace their footsteps across their apt daily and nightly as they seem to have concrete bricks for feet. i havent been able to figure out what else they do that causes occassional increased stomping reminiscent of galloping horses or what i imagine living under madison square garden during basketball season sounds like. our previous upstairs neighbors were never this loud, i dont think in all my years of living in nyc apartments ive ever heard things this loudly. ive been tempted many times to go knock on their door or leave a note to kindly remind them how thin our floors/ceilings are but honestly im scared to be that confrontational and even tho im annoyed to no end i end up trying to wait it out rather than go up there in the evenings. in the wee hours of the morning i;m much less tolerant but honestly i am just so desperate to get my last few minutes of sleep in i just cant get out of bed. but tonight just totally set things off. i heard loud drunk girls coming up the stairs and entering the apt, so for the first time ive been able to associate a specific group of ppl to the start of the stomping. they stomp around and i continue lying in bed, with my security blanket over my head...drifting in and out. then crash! crashcrash! crash!! it sounds like they are smashing things into the floor, everything shakes and the first crash actually startled me from the precious sleep. i lay there listening to it as it continued and just finally got so fed up. i got up and walked up the stairs. note as i walk out of my apt i can hear the girls in their apt above me. even as i go up the stairs and knock on the door i can hear the girls, screaming, stomping, laughing. for a second i felt bad. i was being a total partypooper. here they were just doing normal young adult things on a weekend night, was i just being bitter jealous and cranky? well i admit i was/am cranky...do you not know how much sleep means to me by now!? anyways i was already at the door so i thought i could at least let them know so i could have peace of mind. i rang the door bell. inside i hear the girls scream and then shush eachother. then i hear them come up to the door. the whole time they are whispering and i could hear everything: was that the doorbell? omg! there's an asian!! look! etcetc. they dont open the door. they try to be real quiet. but i can still hear them whispering. i can hear them creeping around. i can even hear them fiddle with the peephole to look outside so for that i stand right in view of it and put on my most serious (biotch) face. and i am getting really mad that they arent answering their door. i talk thru the door that i am still waiting for them to open the door and that i can hear them talking. seriously psycho stuff but cmon i didn't know what else to say! cuz i could hear everything! i even heard someone breathing at one point when she got closer to the door! that is how un-soundproof things are. it was kind of ridiculous and almost laughable but i was too mad at the moment. i felt pretty pissed that they expected me to think no one was home after all that stomping and crashing. i repeated myself and then i just stood there and waited. it felt like eternity. and finally i heard someone slowly open the door. before me stood this really young looking blonde girl. like she looked like some kid in college. i felt so bad. i was like great...i am totally the crazy cranky old neighbor. i thought about the friends episode with that old guy downstairs from the friends' apt whacking the ceiling with the broomstick. that should be me. hmm i shouldve tried that first....anyways everything came out all jumbled. or at least i felt so jumbled. cuz i was so mad. and then i felt so guilty. so what i said to them was all jumbled too. i told them i knew they prolly had no idea but that i could hear them stomping and jumping or whatever and at 3am it was too much. i also told then i was sorry for knocking on their door repeatedly but i could hear them inside the whole time. cept i took multiple sentences to say all that, with repeats too. hah. anyways the girl was really apologetic but im pretty cynical these days so i dont know for sure if she genuine esp after overhearing all of them thru the door as i stood outside waiting for them to answer. so i dont know. theyre still stomping but i think its at their normal baseline level, without anymore smashing and crashing. which i guess i will just have to tolerate. anyways ive spoken my mind...so even if this continues there is nothing more to do. sigh. i am such a grouch. now they know my face and can hate me. for me it was easier hating them without knowing their faces.