Driven to Drink

My partner and I have been incredibly social over the past few days. It's unusual for us. Both of us find being in socially heavy situations to be difficult. I know there's irony there, the woman who is going to be a doctor is uncomfortable talking to people. I think that situation will be different though since my patients will be coming to me with an agenda, and unlike our sneaky standardized patients, they will let me know what it is they want from me.

I've been asked at each of these events what I want to specialize in. I DON'T KNOW!! Family medicine looks good because there are so many options available for me. If I learned nothing else this summer it's that family docs can have a wide breadth of practice. It would help my attention deficit ways.

I've also been asked about my children. Someone has been telling people in the first year class that I have kids. This amuses me but also upsets me. I hate gossip...when it's about me. It really is amazing how quickly gossip spreads around and between the classes.

In other news, I passed Endo!! Yay! I've really got to start studying for the final so I can maintain my pass. Even though we have a saying in this pass-fail program (six-oh and go) I'd still like to learn the material well before heading into clerkship and having to attempt to diagnose a real live prolactinoma. Or at least put it on the differential.

I'm still enjoying digestion, but think that I've fallen further behind in it than I would have liked. What's new. More studying is definitely on the agenda for this week.

I Love Fall

It may be because it's when my birthday is, the smell of dirt, changing leaves, starting school or the change in weather. I think mostly it's the feeling of not being here or there but a magical place in between. We still get delicious warm days like today, but also chilly 3 sweater days like last week.

I slept last night for eight hours, almost in a row. It was glorious.

We're learning about type 2 diabetes right now. It's a fascinating disease and one that I know that no matter what speciality we choose we'll be helping patients who suffer from it. Except maybe radiology. I can't think of how T2DM would show up on film.

Up to my eyeballs

I feel like I'm running a million miles an hour. It's safe to say that I've bitten off way more than I can chew this year. I feel like I'm back in high school running between meetings and not doing my homework.

It's unfortunate since this block is really interesting. Endocrinology is one of the parts of medicine that I find most attractive - push part of the system here and watch what happens over there. It's a very elegant, logical science that I'm looking forward to spending the weekend learning more about.

There's been so much on the go that most of my socializing is done between classes. Or over coffee at a coffee pub while working on a paediatric assignment.

I've been in contact with a couple of women I want to speak to about being an older than average student at school. Mostly I want to know how they dealt with being married and in clerkship, though my lack of sleep now can only be helping me prepare.

O Week

Holy cats. What an O Week this is turning out to be. The biggest 2 parties are still coming up so the coordinators in their infinite wisdom gave the 2012s last night off to recoup and recover, they weren't quite ready for the partying force that is the 2011s.

Tonight's party involves us dressing up as our favourite 80s movie. Since most of my group doesn't know many 80s movies, we've decided to do a "concept" team costume instead. We will be ever so Pretty in Pink. Last night we hit a thrift store looking for pink clothes - so fun seeing the guys in pink dresses. My dress is a bit more revealing than I would normally wear. It seems likely I'll have a shirt on underneath.

In other news, endocrinology is like death from a thousand paper cuts. They jumped in with both feet, skipping the pesky "what does each hormone do" lecture and moved directly into the tumours and crazy diseases associated with them. Thank goodness I have all this extra time to cover them on my own - no sarcasm. Well, not much.

Oh, and I may have pissed off the academic dean in a recent meeting so I've got to make sure that I don't need his help. So off to figuring out what's happening with these hormones.