home

Home again, with so much to do and write. I don't know where to begin.

A. I have new-found respect for a colleague. I have always thought highly of her but this time she is my new role model for good patient care. I need to be reminded that doctors treat patients, not lab results, not side notes on charts.

B. I'm rethinking my choice for residency training. Having been assigned to the pedia department I'm starting to have difficulty managing IM patients. Pediatrics was always an option from the start, it's just that nobody thought I could handle children.

C. I went out one night with other co-residents, none of us on 24-hour duty. When we came back we were greeted by a truck unloading patients from an MVA. Just like that, the bottle of beer I drank disappeared from my system. A co-resident smiled as he waded through the bleeding patients. "This is ER medicine," he retorts. It really was ER medicine.

Head-on collision between a passenger van, an ambulance transferring a patient to our hospital and a ten-wheeler truck = a terrible, terrible accident.

D. These days I keep wondering what people do with money. My salary is pretty basic. I am able to live comfortably within budget. I do believe money offers a lot of opportunities for learning and travel. But just because money is not overflowing from your pockets does not mean you will lack for opportunities. Seriously, what do people do with money?

E. On that note, I have a colleague who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. "More like titanium spoon", another colleague often interjects. He has a job, a 17M condo unit, a 2M SUV, beachfront property and still receives money from his parents. A former chief resident (when he decided to quit his residency training) with a 3.98 GPA in med school. And guess what. He's not happy.

F. Sometimes I think I'm stupid.