Well, just like every other year, Daylight Savings got me all messed up this morning. It never seems to fail; I always know it’s coming up and I try to prepare myself for it but once the day finally arrives, I usually find myself mentally discombobulated as I begin to process the fact that I’ve lost a crucial hour of my day. Although I’ll be alright and will adjust accordingly, that hour would have been real nice as I continue to prepare for my Surgery shelf exam this Friday. But at least there will be more daylight throughout the day, which pretty much means to me that Spring is coming very, very soon! I’ve been over winter since like New Years lol.

Because my shelf exam is this Friday and I’ve already lost an hour of productivity, I’m not going to make this entry a long one. But then again as you know, I can sometimes get carried away in my thoughts…so we’ll see how this post pans out.

Throughout this rotation, I’ve had to do much more self-teaching than I usually do (that’s really saying a lot) due to the fact that I didn’t get the opportunity to rotate through a lot of the other services that Surgery has to offer (I only rotated through Surgical Oncology, Ophthalmology and Anesthesia). That’s just how the scheduling worked; it would be almost impossible to fit in the many sub-specialties of this specialty in an eight-week period, much less have a meaningful experience while trying to do so. We did have student conferences where each student gave a presentation on a topic, which was helpful in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the Surgery specialty. Even with the fact that I relied heavily on self-directed learning throughout these past seven weeks, I actually feel like I’m in a good place with my studies right now. There will be very little, if any, ophthalmology or anesthesia on the exam (you literally spent the last four weeks on these services…way to go Christel) but on the flip side I was allowed more time to study the material that I’ll actually see on the exam, thanks to the forgiving hours of these services. So by taking full advantage of that, I’ve been able to stick to the study schedule that I had prepared for myself. That being said though, I still need this final week to finish up my studying because I’m definitely not 100% ready for the test yet. 😅

I just finished up my first week of Anesthesiology, and it has turned out to be a pretty great experience so far. I’ve been able to learn some really cool things about this field of medicine, and have been able to engage in some exciting procedures. On my very first day of this service, I bag-valve-masked nine patients in one morning! Don’t worry, they weren’t dying or anything…they were getting Electroconvulsive Therapy, which are very quick 20-minute procedures. I felt like I had become a pro at bag-valve-masking by the end of the morning. Throughout the week, I got the opportunity to watch and learn how anesthesiologists administer medications in the operating room, watch the placement of a central venous catheter, watch multiple nerve blocks, assist in placing a brachial nerve block, watch multiple tonsillectomies, interview patients as they came to clinic for their pre-operative workup, attend informative student lectures, and attempt to place a peripheral IV catheter in a patient. In addition, I also learned how to find my own brachial plexus via ultrasound and practiced my intubation skills in a simulation lab!

This is what happens when you try to stage a cool med student action shot around your classmates 😂

Guess who can ultrasound himself successfully? THIS GUY 😏

And to top it all off, just about every anesthesiologist I’ve worked with so far has been fun to be around! I’m glad to have been given the opportunity to rotate through this specialty, and even though I most likely won’t be tested on anything I learned this past week or will learn this upcoming week, I do realize the importance of understanding this material. Plus, when else am I going to be able to do some of these cool procedures? Okay okay I admit, I’ll be able to do some more of them during the Anesthesiology Acting Internship I signed up to participate in during my fourth year.

Speaking of fourth year, as of last night I’ve actually officially scheduled all of my blocks for it!

That being said though, my current schedule is far from being set in stone because we’re actually allowed to change it up as we go through the year. Pretty crazy huh? There’s a good chance that I’ll be making some big changes to some parts of my schedule, especially if I end up being blessed with the opportunity to participate in some funded away rotations at other institutions (I’m working on these applications as we speak, which is another reason why I’ve been so busy as of late. As a matter of fact, why am I still typing out this post??) But on the other hand, there are some blocks scheduled that are definitely not going to change, such as my first four blocks (Step 2 Study Period, Pediatric Chronic Illness – Summer Camp, NICU and Peds Heme/Onc Acting Internship). I’m also definitely doing my Anesthesiology Acting Internship later on in the year, and will be participating in a Radiology elective near the end of next year as well. And I’ve scheduled my two flex blocks (free blocks to do whatever you need to do outside of school) for the residency interview season (Fall-Winter 2018) and the very end of my fourth year. Now that I have a good idea of what my schedule is looking like so far, I’m even more excited to finish up third year and get to my final year of med school!

Alright I ended up typing out more than I had planned, per usual. But once I get in sync with my free-flowing thoughts and get the caffiene flowing through my veins, it’s hard for me to stop typing lol. On the bright side though, it didn’t take that long for me to type this all out!

I hope that you have an awesome week! Best of luck to you as you begin to fill out your March Madness brackets! And to all of you on spring break, I absolutely envy you. Have fun though!

“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn

– Black Man, M.D.

P.S. – I finally gave my Ophthalmology patient presentation last week. It wasn’t my best presentation, but it was also far from my worst too. You don’t realize how hard it is to give a presentation about a topic you’ve only spent about three weeks actively learning about to a room full of physicians who specializes in that topic, until you get in front of them and actually do it. 😅

P.P.S. – Shoutout to Black Panther for grossing over $1 BILLION in just 26 DAYS!!! WAKANDA FOREVER!!!