So today marks the end of my first 2 weeks on pediatrics and I honestly think its pretty cool. It really is internal medicine for kids, but I think that the pediatricians are truly the smartest and most amazing diagnosticians in the world. They really do have to be able to take amazing histories, and when the histories are spotty, they are still able to observe and discover so much with their thorough physical exam. I have so much more respect for their entire profession. With that being said, these guys make me feel so stupid, because there are like 1,000 different things to remember when it comes to a kid and I always miss like 400 of them. I think the main problem is that I am honestly not good enough yet to do a complete history from my head. I’ve realized that I need to carry around a paper with all the titles of the sections in the history so that I won’t forget to ask about them. Maybe once I look at the paper enough times it will stick. But yeah, a pediatrican can take care of me any day :-).
Other than peds, I am still working on different orthopaedic projects and trying to make sure that I’m visible, but not annoying to the residents and attendings. I had an interesting conversation with the ortho PD here about why they hadn’t had a female or black resident in so many years and he really cleared up alot of misconceptions that I had. Now, I’m pretty sure that there are some programs that really don’t care to have diversity, but from what the PD told me, they had been ranking women in the top 4 and some black residents high enough to match for the past 10 years, but the medical students who were applying didn’t rank LLU high enough so they didn’t match there. And to be honest, its probably a viscious circle, because the women and black medstudents who were applying probably rank LLU lower because they didn’t see any women or black folk there, and so they didn’t match there. And then it repeats the next year. But now that we have 2 female residents at LLU, I think there will be alot more female applicants ranking LLU higher. In terms of black residents, I may be the 3rd that they have ever had…we will just have to see. But the conversation at least made me feel better that they weren’t trying to keep women and minorities out of their program.
In other ortho news I have officially secured all 3 of my away rotations for ortho. I will do 2 weeks here at LLU, then I will spend 4 weeks at Atlanta Medical Center, then I will spend 4 weeks at Johns Hopkins, then I will spend 2 weeks at Howard. I really feel like my choices give me the largest variety and open of areas that I wouldn’t mind living in for the next 5 years of my life. Its always suggested that you do your first rotation at your home institution because they know you and you know them, so you will be more comfortable and you may not be judged as harshly if you don’t walk on water. I am only doing 2 weeks here at LLU during my 4th year because I spent 2 weeks during my junior year and the attendings got to know me well enough then to write a letter for me. Normally it would be advised to spend 4 weeks at your home institution. My next rotation at Atlanta Medical Center (AMC) was chosen because next to being back home in MD, I definitely wouldn’t mind being in Atlanta. Also, AMC is a community program, so its a little bit less academic, more laid back, and they put you into the OR sooner. In terms of difficulty to match there, it doesn’t seem like its on the insane level as HSS or Pitt, so that is good. Also, since you are in the OR so much and there are no fellows I should get alot of orthopaedic experience here to prepare me for my next rotation at Hopkins. My 4 weeks at Hopkins of course is going to be a big one for me because its home. This program is at the top in terms of competitiveness, so it is definitely a reach for me. And then my last 2 weeks at Howard should be great too since there is already a LLU grad there as a resident and its back home too. Also, Howard is at the lower end of the spectrum (like AMC) in competitiveness, so if I do well on the rotation, and they like me, then I will hopefully have a higher chance of matching there.
So I’m ready to get this thing going. And I pray to God that I match!
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