Chillin'

4th year of med school is kind of weird. I guess it all depends on what you're made of. Some med students are studs...an oro-maxillary facial surgeon (sp?) classmate of mine is now working as an away anesthesia resident in the surgical suite. He puts me to shame. I on the other hand am goofing off and wasting time. I thought I was a better student than that...that I'd use all of my free time to study and prepare for my real first day on the job as a doctor. I guess I'm pretty weak sauce.

I've been taking night call with one of the urology residents who is working on the SICU with me. My time is divided between checking on my fantasy basketball team, reading blogs, checking my email, hanging out with the nurses and getting late night eats at the cafeteria. Every morning, we've been celebrating all of our hard work by getting pretty plastered at a few local bars where we've gotten to know the owners a little too well. Bloody Marys and Irish coffees in the morning are fantastic. Got a little night skiing in last weekend and this coming weekend will be a great outing in san francisco to check out my brother's new pad in marin.

I finally got my scores back from step 2. I passed...whew. I didn't do as well as I had hoped, but I shouldn't have expected too much after all 5 days that I put into prepping for the test. I'm not sure if I'm burned out, just don't give a damn, too lazy, or a combination of all of the above. I don't know...it's just gotten hard to get out of bed these days. I'll be matching on Monday morning, but trust me, I won't be waking up at 6 am to check where I matched.

Med school is a lot about self discovery. I'm slacking off because it kind of doesn't matter. I don't really get to take care of the really sick patients and all we do is the same stuff every day - tranfuse if low, check cultures - give antibiotics if sick, give fluids if they're not peeing, and mess with their vent settings. It's really all the same ole shit. One of the reasons I did so well down in LA is because I was seriously running on fear 100% of the time, ready to shit my pants at any given moment. That's the environment in which I'm most miserable, but am at my best. I don't know how the match will end up, but honestly, I'll be a little surprised if I don't end up there. hmm...I guess I had always hoped that I'd be one of those self learners. Sometimes I think to myself what would AO do? He is a badass med student in my class from Iowa. Whatever. Joe, I think it's time for a real vacation...a few days on the slopes or something. If you want to come down during ski season, I'd love to have you. $15 friday skiiing at boreal. Let me know.

-bender