And Step 2.



Step 2 is this Friday! Helloooooo M4 year. Amongst my bulletin board full of notes on the differential diagnosis of hyponatremia and renal cell metabolism, you will see a tiny glimmer of horse.. Cindy Ishoy is coming back to our barn this weekend and I somewhat rashly decided to ride in the clinic (9 hours of Step 2 test on Friday.. clinic Saturday and Sunday.. start sub-internship in the NICU on Monday.. what could go wrong?)

 

 

That's really all the news I've got. Study x all day x repeat every day. Good stuff!

 



The field on the way to the barn has baby cows. I luff them.

 All the boys are doing well.

Scheduling anxiety

I decided to sign up for a twice weekly exercise class, which will start tomorrow evening.

I think a good chunk of my anxiety is due to my now well ingrained tendency to obsessively guard any free time for studying. (MUST STUDY ALL THE THINGS)  But another good chunk of this worry is due to the slow but steadily progressive atrophy of any muscle and good exercise habits over the last several years of medical school (again with the study all the things..).

I have been riding fairly regularly in lessons this spring and am getting ready for a clinic this May. Fear really is excellent motivation...

As we start to work on more fun (and difficult) things I really need to have my end together to expect Teddy to be able to work effectively. If I'm asking him to carry himself well around a 10m circle in the canter I can't be flopping down or collapsing my hip. I am struggling to keep my core engaged and stay stretched up tall, especially when Teddy is struggling too and tries to throw all of his considerably proportioned neck into my arms. Trainer tells me I need to kick on and send him up and out of my hands-- I get this in theory, but right now I honestly just am not strong enough to do this well (I get pulled down from my arms then can't keep my core engaged then can't have a long light leg... it's not pretty!)

 

 

Poor little fattie.

  

Out on one of our conditioning hacks

 

 

Ol says Happy Easter!

Power differentials

A sarcastic "fun" nurse I met recently calls me Maggie. That's not anywhere close to my real name, she says she gives nicknames to all the students. I spent a lot of time trying to decide if asking her to call my by my actual name demonstrates respect for myself, or if asking her to do this means I can't work easily with people / am not a team player.

Solution: I sing this song to myself and walk away.

Dear future self:

I need to remember what it's like to be a medical student when I finally finish my training, the attendings really must not remember. It is so exhausting, physically, mentally, and emotionally, to constantly be the member of your team that is lowest in social standing, intelligence, and ability. I'm rotating through specialty clinics, and man is it humbling.

Notes to future me, Part 1:

1. Your medical students Do. Not. Care. about your fancy personal hobbies or your adorable shnuckum offspring. However, because you are responsible for our grades we will agonizingly pretend to, despite having 3 notes left to finish from this morning's clinic (knowing it means we'll be staying till 7 or 8 that evening, while you trot off at 5pm to co-sign our notes at your leisure)... AHHH stop it already! Also stop. Also I'm not sad that you are having difficulty finding good storage facilities for your boat.

2. Stop interrupting my presentations every other sentence. I have trouble keeping track of the 50 things a patient has just thrown at me in a completely disorganized fashion and have worked hard to present in a logical and clear way.

3. Remember all the completely dumb dumb dumb stuff you said when you were a 3rd year. Then remember how awful you felt for the rest of the day agonizing over it.

4. Your med student is not impressed by standoff-ish arrogant attitudes. We don't think you are smart because you intimidate people. News: I've worked with a bunch of really brilliant physician teachers by this point in my training, and I have worked with doctors I respect and want to be like who are super nice to me. You being a jerk just makes me hate you.