So, I know this was originally my Cameroon-y retro-blog, and that sort of fell to the wayside. Maybe someday I will pick it up again, but for right now it's going to be my place to let out whatever's on my mind, I think. I don't really think I have any readers and pretty much I am planning to write just to get things off my mind.
Today was the orientation for my internal medicine clerkship. While I have already been "oriented" to third year (last Friday) and now theoretically have been oriented to this rotation, I have never utterly felt more thoroughly disoriented in my life. The clerkship director and the chief resident got up and sort of overviewed our responsibilities as med students and what happens on the rotation, and while I understood the words that they said, somehow at the end of it all I still have no clue exactly what I'm going to be doing every day. I know it involves seeing patients and H&Ps and presenting, and in theory I know what that means, but in practice I have no idea of the moment to moment actuality of it all. I don't think I've ever felt more lost before, or hopefully will again. . . It's overwhelming because not only do I not know much of anything about practical medicine, but I also really don't know any of the nuts and bolts of the system I'll be working in.
Our orientation let out at around 10:30 today, and suddenly I was left with a whole day of empty space. I went to the library and played around a little with the eCare system so I can at least find my patients' charts and open them. . . maybe. Still haven't figured out exactly how to look at an actual image, but I can see the report so I guess that will have to do for the moment. It was nice because as I fiddled with the program some of the nervousness melted away into routine and I'm hoping that will continue as the rotation goes on.
Tomorrow is another pretty light day, from the looks of things although at some point my team for the month is supposed to get together and talk about our responsibilities/patient assignments. Thankfully I'm on a team with Will Fuller, someone I'm already pretty good friends with, and someone who I think has a good deal of clinical experience already. Our first day of call is Friday, which is crazy. I don't really know what to expect but I'm on short call (til 8 pm) and Will and Stephanie are overnight. Then on Tuesday is my first overnight call, and I'm the only MSIII on that one. But hopefully I'll have some idea of what I'm doing by then.
In the pile of other miscellaneous stressors. . . Still waiting for Step I scores. In theory we're not supposed to even imagine we'll get them til next Wednesday but in actuality I just can't keep myself from checking almost every day. I alternate between wondering if I failed or aced it. I know there's no reason to worry at this point, what's done is done, but it would just be so embarrassing not to mention disruptive and horrible to have to quit rotations to study and take it again. And I'm so far removed I can't even begin to properly speculate (if I ever even could). Please just tell me I passed, please please.
Also my financial aid is nowhere to be found and my landlord is on vacation and we have to basically do a new lease even though I'm just staying on another year. Not a huge problem yet, I can make it another month I think but it would be nice to have some money in my hand or at least know that some is headed my way eventually. Ugh.
I know God knows what he's doing, that he got me this far and that he'll get me through this, and that millions? at least a whole lot of people have done this exact same thing before and made it through. I know that I signed up for this and this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and there's so many people who want so badly to be in my position right now. But it's just so scary.
I was trying to calm myself down on my way to the orientation this morning, walking across campus in my white coat, planning on getting there 15 minutes early so there's no way I can be late. A guy stopped and asked me for directions and I about had a heart attack. This is going to be an interesting year.
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