Ambulating On

I've completed week 2 of my ambulatory block, and week 6 of my intern year.

This past week I had Urgent Care, my continuity clinic (small panel of patients that I am following for the next 3 years or until death do us part), Hepatology clinic, and Endocrinology (where they forgot an intern was coming and had no patients scheduled - yessss!).

I honestly can't remember what happened in Urgent Care clinic. This is most likely a coping mechanism whereby my memory is selectively forgetting all of urgent care clinic. Thank you, memory.

Hepatology clinic went something like this: guess what's behind doors number 1-9? If you guess Hepatitis C, you're right every time! Except maybe 1 out of 10 it's Hep B or nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, just to mix things up a bit.

In my continuity clinic I had a patient who was scheduled with a chief complaint of "itchy warts." It didn't say where the "itchy warts" were, either. I can't tell you how relieved I was to diagnose multiple skin tags on the neck of this pleasant woman with metabolic syndrome.

Then on Friday night we had an intern scavenger hunt in midtown. I made a list of 20 items for each team to find within a certain time frame. The best item on the list: "4. Tell someone that you’re looking to get a new tattoo to celebrate your recently becoming a doctor. Ask them for ideas, and get them to draw something out either on a napkin or on you." One of the girls came back with a stick figure with one shoe drawn on her bicep. The artist had told her, "This is a crackhead. Because you're going to have to get used to taking care of lots of these. See? Only one shoe. Crackhead." Other highlights from the list: "Make an intern sandwich," and "Go up to a group of strangers and bust out in your best robot moves."

Young doctors of America. Beep beep beep. BoooooOOOooop. Rrrrreeee. (Those were my best robot moves.)