ER Shadowing

Since I didn't make the cut into med school this year, I have been trying to find some more opportunities to shadow and keep involved in medicine. I am interested in doing emergency medicine, and a friend of mine actually shadowed in an ER.  She was able to give me the contact information and help set it up so I could start shadowing there too!  Awesome!  Yesterday was my first day, well night, and it was very interesting.    It's a smaller ER, so most of the major traumas get shipped over to the bigger hospitals, but it was still very steady.  The staff was very laid back and fun, and due to the way they change shifts, I got to shadow two different Dr.'s.  The cases I sat in on were very similar to what you would see at a primary care/family practice, which I find kinda funny, and of course i got to see a couple drug seeker cases.  I think I was more interested in the drug seekers than the primary care cases because of the wonderful acting.  :o) The sad thing was the patients were only in their early 20's! What a waste.

Another sad case was a 90 yo diabetic patient with gangrene in both feet/legs.  They were in pretty bad shape, and the patient was refusing surgery, which meant he was going to die. The family understood the patient's wishes, and they all seemed to understand what was going to happen, and they were fine with that.  The patient was admitted and another physician was coming in to talk over some other options, but there was no guarantee the other options were going to work either.


I really enjoyed seeing the cases that came in, and I really enjoyed the chance to talk to the ER doc's.  After talking to Dr. F. and hearing how he went from family practice to emergency med, and the reasons he changed,  I am thinking that emergency med is a good fit for me.  I know I will have a lot of experiences in medical school and something else might come along, but right now emergency med is really calling to me.  The variety of cases, the calm before the storm, the storm, the eye of the storm, and then the calm again.  I find that I do really well under pressure and I like to be busy.  Yes, it is nice to be able to sit down for a breather, but being busy keeps me focused.  I think I am really going to enjoy this experience and hopefully I can get a letter of recommendation out of it!  Oh, and Dr. F went to KU too, plus he has family in Bozeman, MT. :o)   He was pretty cool and I really liked his doctoring style, so I hope I get to shadow him some more.  I'll keep ya'll updated!

Some Crochet Fun

After I took my full length practice exam last weekend, I kicked back and played around with some crochet patterns. I had some left over yarn to play with so I started the patterns below. The first one is a 12 x 12 granny square. The patter is to make 12 squares roatating the colors. The picture isn't the greatest because I took it with my phone, but I really like the color combo. The pattern in the second picture is from an afghan that Brads grandmother made for him. It took me a couple tries to get it down right, but I got it. I like the colors in it too. I am thinking about buying more yarn to finish them both and then maybe selling them. We'll see though. I have about three afghans to finish before I can start on these! So I guess I better get crocheting!

The Patient Part II

Since I'm sure you are all on the edge of your seat... I took Bubbs into the vet on Saturday to get his stitches out.  Everything looks fine and he is so happy to have the collar off!  The poor guy though, I put a flea collar on him yesterday and you swear I yelled at him!  He seemed so heartbroken!  I brushed him and petted him and snuggled with him for a bit, and finally he started purring and acting a little better. I felt so bad!  But he is better and I am glad that's over with.

Another Practice Test

I took another practice test this weekend and scored the same as last time… which is good because I have improved, but bad because I really should have scored a lot higher.  The reason I am not scoring higher, is because I pick an answer, then change it!!!  ARRRGH!   As I am reading the answers, I’ll pick one, then read them again then change it.  I need to start trusting my instincts!  This is frustrating because it’s like a little voice in my head that says ‘A’, but then another voice comes in louder and stronger and says, it is ‘B’.  It’s like subliminal messaging flashing through my mind – it’s there for a second, just enough time for me to “see” it, but not think about it, and then it’s gone.  Sort of like a knee-jerk reaction, but I don’t stick with it because I try to reason out the other answers – which are apparently wrong.  So, I need to work on trusting my instincts and stop doubting myself.  This is easier said than done though.  Sigh. 

The Patient

Things have been a little crazy lately, especially last week. I noticed last weekend that my cat was acting a littl funny and seemed to be a little protective of his back end. When I looked at it Sunday night I noticed an area that looked as if he has licked the hair off. It looked a little sore but not too bad. When I got home Monday night I looked again and this time I saw puss everywhere. Great, off to the vet we go. He had what looked like a huge abscess on the left side of his butt under his tail.  It was pretty bad.  The vet decided to put him under to clean up the wound and really see what was going on.  She called when she was done and explained what she did and said that it was possible his anal gland ruptured. So I brought him home the next morning doped up with a nice new shiny clinic collar on his head. :o)  It was kinda funny to watch him walk around with it on for the first time.  I felt bad for laughing, but I was glad he was home and he was ok.  He is doing much better and is just about healed up.  The stitches come out this weekend along with the cone of shame.  he he he.  I'm sure he'll be so happy when that day comes.  

Bubbs waiting for the vet.

 Cone baby

MCAT Practice

Well I took the practice test last saturday and ... I scored higher than what I was scoring last year! Yay! I took practice test 10, which is supposed to be the hardest one according to the majority. I like the practice tests because you can review all the questions and mark why you got a question wrong. For example, I missed a few of the physics questions dealing with frequency because I forgot the simple equation and haven't reviewed it yet, so I marked that question as "not familiar with material" or something like that. It then totals up all the reasons for getting a question wrong so you have an idea of where your weaknesses are. I had quite a few material stuff, again mainly with physics (surprise, surprise) and some questions were just bad test taking. I like knowing where I stand and what I'm doing wrong. I also like knowing I am scoring better. :o). I have two moew tests
expiring next month, so I will be taking another test next sat and the sat after that. Let's hope this upward trend continues! I have more to talk about, but my computers down at the moment and posting from my phone is cool, but a pain to type on. :o)

More MCAT talk and a new practice test.

So I've been doing a lot of practice problems using The Berkeley Review (TBR) books for everything except bio, for which I use ExamKrackers. I find myself doing really well on most of the passages, but there are always one or two that I do bad on.  It seems like no matter what I do I can't break the 60-75% range.  It's rather frustrating, but  I was looking over some forums and found one that kinda made me feel a little better. I have heard that TBR passages are harder compared to the real thing, which is good I suppose, but I am still hoping that even if I can't get over the 60-75% TBR hump, I can at least get a 28-30 like BerkReview Teach says is typical.  I am taking my first full-length practice test next weekend, so I guess I'll see what sort of progress I've made since last year. And yes, it is early to take a full-length, but it expires the 23rd and I don't want to pay for it again.   

I also purchased the new full-length exam #11.  I haven't done any research on it to see what the difficulty is like.  I hear most people think that #10 is the hardest and #3, the free one, is the easiest.  If any of you have heard anything about it, let me know!