Clerkships and the BEACH!

Ok, so I'm making this a quick update.  I've been getting a little behind on my posting, but I think things will settle down for me a bit in the upcoming weeks.  I have had some significant hoops to jump through in terms of my medical school application (for anyone thinking about applying to med. school, I'll go ahead and warn you that AMCAS is a major pain!).


Alas, I have finished and my application is finally submitted.


While I do love my internship, the highlight of this last week for me was going to Amelia Island, Florida.  My family goes just about every year and it's A-W-E-S-O-M-E.  I had a great time getting some R&R, and eating lots of good food.


In internship update news:


For this last week, all of the interns got to sit in on clerkships for the second year med students as they transition to their third years.  It was great for me and the other interns because the med. school did a lot of "basic" reviews for the students.  I got to sit in on a number of really interesting lectures and classes: I heard a lecture on reading EKGs and ABGs.  I found this lecture intriguing but, as usual, a little beyond me.  Although, I got better at determining and reading some of the EKGs.  We had a couple of practice cases where the lecturers gave the students a chance to tell them what they noticed about different EKGs.  I got to the point where I could tell when something was wrong (or different from a "normal" EKG, at least).


ABGs are pretty interesting too.  I found those to be a little more easy to grasp (at least for the purposes of our practice cases).


Over the clerkship, I got to sit in on a class on ATLS, pediatrics, and airways.


One of the more memorable classes, at least for me, was a class on suturing.  The med. students were given pig's feet and practiced suturing and stitching with those (pig's feet are similar to the feel texture of human skin).  The knots we learned were really basic.  The other interns and I had to wait until all of the med. students had the opportunity to suture up pig's feet until we were allowed to practice.  While stitching up a pig's foot might sound gross or boring to some of you, it was a good time.  I can't say that I'm particularly good at suturing, but I'll have plenty of time to practice, I'm sure!


Anyways, it was another crazy week and I'm sure next week will be more of the same.


Expect a longer update next time!


Extremely tired,


Peter