Wake up Mr. Joe...

Hey it's me, mr. never blogs cuz he's a bastard friend. Hehe, sorry about that Dee. I really gotta stop being such a stranger.

On to other stuff.... I've been here for 9 months, 9 long months and I have a couple of friends and my own little way of doing things. I have my spots, vices and watering holes. It's starting to feel more like home than LA does. It's weird but after going back to Cali, things just weren't the same, maybe its cuz it I spent so much time on the go trying to visit everyone, please everyone, that it felt too much like work.

Also, I'm not sure what it is, but LA just feels wrong, I never understood what you meant when you said you loved nor-cal and how its so much more chill. Well that's how I feel, it's like.... so much cleaner, smooth even in seattle. Sure the sports suck, the weather isn't always great, and the mexican food just straight blows donkey balls. But despite all that, it is so much more of a life that I want. At the same time, I find myself missing all the dirtiness and ugliness, because it makes you rough, tough, and just stronger. I mean, other than a jew growing up on the wrong side of the israeli border, it doesn't get much uglier being a mexican in east la. (sorry about the jewish reference but I've been around too many this past week)

So this past week I got my share of Bender shifts, 15 hours running around cooking for some rich jewish kids, then 5 hours sleep, then repeat. Very tiring and very boring. Seriously, I do not like dealing with picky eaters, it's like operating on a guy who brings in his own dull ass knifes and wobbly table.

In other news, I think I've decided to take up soccer watching... in a more intense fashion, its just so much more gratifying. Watching 45 minutes of straight action. No fucking advertisers throwing their shitty ass beer, car, penis/depression drug commercials down my throat until I have a seizure. Then during the break, you take a piss, grab some water and chips, sit down and watch another 45 minutes. So sweet, so fast, and pure... other than the shitty calls the refs make sometimes, but hey... you gotta have something to bitch about, right?

Seriously though, Bender, I'm so disappointed you forgot about our trip to the world cup in 2014. Seriously, if I have to remind you about it every year for the next 5 years I'm gonna kick your ass. I've already started a savings account for it, and did so months before Kim or Ags were in the picture, but of course, you being the busy bastard you are, you probably forgot all about it. Well you have 6 years to save, cuz we are going to Brazil and we are watching as many football games as we can. I'll be sporting my US jersey for the first two days, then when they are eliminated mathematically after the first two group games, I'll throw on my Italian jersey (gotta claim my 1/8th italian blood) and if they let me down, then we'll cheer for the team that has the hotter girls wearing their jerseys.

Well, I'm out of stuff to say.. actually I'm not, but I don't feel like ranting about politics, religion and other stuff.

Joe out...

P.S. You gotta send me your address Dee, I need to send you a couple of cd's and some other stuff.

In Living Color

Man, this picture reminds me of when 3D tv first came out and we had to wear those blue and red glasses from 7-eleven. Nothing topped captain EO at disneyland.

Anyhow, this is the stuff that is keeping me motivated in general surgery. These people are in India watching a live 3D broadcast of a robotic prostatectomy from Detroit. They are literally seeing the exact same image that the operating surgeon is seeing in live time. Crazy technology...

-bender

what have I done?

Here's a pic of me and rabbit on our first night on call...all downhill from there. seriously...

I had my department dinner last night and it was awesome. I love my urology peeps. Definitely feels like a family and I'm really looking forward to working with them.

General surgery in county on the other hand, is an entirely different beast. I just finished my second night of call. walking through those lime green halls feels like a bad dream all night. I'm seriously having second thoughts about this year. Yea...this year is gonna suck really badly. I love surgery, but I hate the hours and the culture that permeates it.

-bender

NBA draft

Today was the NBA draft. The bulls took Derrick Rose for #1. They need a legit scorer, so Beasley might've been a better option, but whatever. It probably means they might be wiling to move Hinrich. Maybe we can do a Hinrich and Deng for Lamar and mihm, haha.

Looks like the Lopez brothers did well in the draft. Go Stanford! Hopefully Brook has a better career in the NBA than Jason Collins. Anyhow, looks like we picked up Joe Crawford, the SG from Kentucky. Not the most exciting college career...seriously. Whatever. We need another guy at the 2 to back up kobe and sasha I guess.

Guys I want to drop - Vlad is garbage. I haven't really seen Coby Karl play, but he looks soft. Lamar is garbage mostly, with mild glimpses of greatness. Actually, I kind of like the Hinrich and Deng idea. They've had a rough year, but they'll come around. Anyhow, we'll see how this new year comes along with a healthy bynum. We should trade mihm the minute he gets healthy before his bum ankle becomes a problem. Lucky for him he had an year to exercise his option on his contract.

-bender

Made it through my first night on call...

So I'm post call today. Went in at 5am on Tuesday and got out at 10am on Wednesday. The only sleep I got was from when I dozed off while an attending was talking to me.

Honestly, that was one of the most brutal days I've ever spent in a hospital. Even the free food wasn't enough to keep me going. Luckily, my second year resident turned out to be pretty cool, so I think it's gonna be an alrite month.

My duties seemed easy enough. We had about 15 patients on our service and on average got 1-2 new patients every hour. My job was to log all the labs on the patients, see them every 6 hours and jot a quick note on them. I had to make sure everyone was ready for surgery (PT/INR, x-rays, EKG), write post-op notes, etc. In addition, I had to write all orders, admits, etc. Outside of the service, I was in charge of the wound care clinic in the jail ward.

Actually, now that I write it out, it sounds bloody easy. Really, the only part that made it complicated was that I'm really slow. The hospital is huge, ~15 stories, and the elevators don't work that well, so there was a fair amount of stair climbing involved. I had to cross cover for the non-trauma/general surgery service, so I looked like batman with all the pagers on me. hmm...I think that was what got to me. Every time I tried to get something done, I'd get paged for something. Seriously, the nurses in my part of emergency are awesome. They really take care of me. In other parts of the hospital, there were definitely power struggles. I readily admit that I'm their bitch. They'd have me run across the hospital up 10 flights of stairs because a form didn't have the patient's name stamped on it. Seriously...you could just write the patient's name for me. Lots of little things like that kept me from keeping up with patient care.

One of the tougher parts of being a newly minted doctor was having a title, but no power. Actually, I guess it's the same for all doctors. We've got some pretty sick guys on our service. There's a young guy with AIDs, a huge brain mass, crazy fluid in his lungs and we had to remove his colon because he got a massive C. dif infection. He is my age, DNR/DNI palliative care aka let die status. I don't think he knows what's going on. Every time I go in, he just looks at me and mouths "help me." I can't do shit, except feel bad and give him some more morphine. Then it's off to see the next patient. There isn't enough time to transition mentally/emotionally like a normal human being between patients.

One day and I'm completely drained. I came home and crashed. Eight hours went by, but it felt like a blink of the eye.

I can see why the 80 hour work week was instituted. By the end of my shift, I kept making mistakes on my patient's notes, kept writing the wrong ID numbers and lab values. In addition, I just got slower and slower. It was a pretty painful night. I'm glad that I get tomorrow off. I think my resident took pity on me.

-bender

Here we go

Tomorrow is my first day in the Emergency/non-trauma surgery unit. My team is on call my first day, so it'll be an interesting 30 hour shift.

I'm a little scared, but I'm sure that it'll be alrite. Just gotta get the first few pages out of the way. The nurses in my ER are hilarious. They all have names that end an ary sound, like mary, gary, larry, etc. I must look a like a newb because they keep calling me their baby, stopping short of calling me bambi.

-bender

I work here

Here are a few gems from my fire and safety orientation today.

1. The security officer gave us a few tips on how to survive county. This is literally his advice on what to do if someone tries to kidnap you. He had a big powerpoint slide that said FIGHT!!! "If you get kidnapped, chances are, we won't be seeing you again. It doesn't happen that frequently, but when it does, it'll ruin your day. If you get killed, the ER docs can bring you back to life. Right guys? In addition, if you can feel yourself getting shot, it means that you're still alive."

hmm...way to inspire faith.

2. Our fire system. The county hospital was built in the 1920s, so it doesn't have fire sprinklers or smoke detectors even. Rumor has it that it is some guy's job to walk around the hospital and check if the wing of the hospital is on fire or not.

3. The elevators. They're really really slow. Damn, I really miss the davis tower elevators. Anyhow, the sensors on the doors don't really work that well. Several people break their hands every year trying to stop a closing elevator door. It gets better. The safety inspector bragged that they can get us out of the elevator in 45min to an hour if it gets stuck. The national standard is 2 hours. Apparently, this happens with some regularity. Sometimes, the elevator falls a couple of floors, but the safety mechanism stops you from falling to your death. Yay...

4. This is probably my favorite. If there is an emergency and you need to evaculate, there is no way that you're going to get people out through the elevators. The beds have this thing called an evacusled. The mattresses have straps that tie down the patient, and there are ropes that allow you to drag the mattress across the floor. The idea is to basically push your patient's mattress down x number of stairs.

I finally got my long white coat with holes so that I can put my hands in my pockets. I'm pretty happy about that. I'm even more happy about the free meals at the hospital. Life is good.

-bender

Let the good times roll...

Joe, I've been pretty lazy about blogging, but you know what's been going on. Here's a quick recap of the last few weeks.

Before graduation, I took a couple of weeks to go to korea. It was some interesting time. Got to visit the DMZ, see lots of palaces and see my family. Most memorable incident. I was hanging out with my buff ex-model cousin and his thugs friends in Itae-won. They were hoping to see some hot russian girls. It was late and we went out on the street to get some korean fast food from the carts on the street. A totally drunk, super skinny gay guy came up to my cousin and playfully kicked his butt. My cousin got pissed and almost threw him into the food carts. A few minutes later, the guy came back, grabbed my cousin's arm and pulled it toward his crotch, leans over and kisses my cousin's ear. It takes three guys to hold my cousin down so that he doesn't kill this skinny kid. Good times...

I graduated from medical school. Thanks Joe and KB. It was pretty sweet...played a lil forty man and re-lived some good times.

The Lakers got crushed by the Celtics.


Fast forward to today. Had my orientation for my general surgery internship today. Me and the neurosurg intern showed up in t-shirt, jeans and flip-flops. Everyone else decided to wear a tie or a suit. Luckily, the chairman no-showed and decided we should have breakfast with him at 6:30am on our day off...

There were 3 schedule options available for the urology interns - a month off in december, march or august. I drew the short straw, so I'll be taking august off a month into my intern year. This sucks in a few ways...I won't have enough time to get used to the system, so I'll still suck when I restart after my vacation. I'll look bad in comparison to the other interns. Second, by the end of the year when I really need a break or a golden weekend, I'm gonna be dying without a vacation to look forward to. I'll be on all major holidays. Third, my vacation isn't really time off because I'm gonna be going in to surgery skills clinics during my "vacation" so that I don't fall behind my colleagues. Worst of all, I won't be able to take a real ski holiday this year. yikes...oh well. Usually everything has a way of working out. On the plus side, I'm looking forward to seeing my girl again soon. I've got a few rough rotations, but there are some cush months on ortho and ENT to cushion the blow. In addition, my co-interns don't seem so bad.

It's a really small world. It turns out, one of the neurosurgery interns is the guy who dated one of my college friends after we left the farm. One of the plastics interns went to high school at exeter with my college mentor.

On a sidenote, I don't know whether to laugh or be horrified by this. On the side of the emergency room is a door with a bell. It's called the "homie dropoff." It's the place where the homeboys leave their gunned down friends and cars pull up riddled with bullet holes and pools of blood. Whoever brings the bodies rings the bell and takes off so that they don't get in trouble with the law.

hmm...interesting

The PGY-2 general surgery resident told me that if I think about quitting fewer than 5 times on my first day of call, I'll be able to make it through the year.

-bender is now officially moved back in with his rents


I had to copy rabbit and list a song that's been on my mind