Second and last week at the VA:
- Every day has been a struggle to navigate the broken system. It's inefficient and makes me want to scream. Also makes me feel horribly incompetent that I can't chart even basic labs or I/Os.
- I love the feeling of surgery. The opening, the handiwork involved, the moving, living, pulsating things within. It's completely magical. We're wonderfully made.
- I've seen a kidney transplant, a million hernia repairs, an abdominoperineal resection, a panniculectomy, and some colonoscopies. VA has been a delightful grab bag.
- Clinic goes something like this: "Hey so your imaging showed a lung nodule. We'll take out the part of your lung that contains it. Any questions?" It's fantastic.
- The people on my team are my kind of people--they don't talk too much, they have a sarcastic sense of humor, and they work efficiently to get a lot accomplished.
- Neither of my classmates have ever had to present a single patient in the last two weeks. I've had to present two patients four times. I always get corrected and grilled on the specifics, like hypotonocity of their IV fluids and why we changed the rates. I look like a complete idiot, and then my classmate will answer because instead of performing actual patient care, they were studying. I can't win. But that's okay.
- How sure I am that I'll be a surgeon when I grow up: 97.5%
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