Nose, meet grindstone

Back from vacation and now it's on to four consecutive months of 80-hour work weeks with the usual four days off a month.

Please allow me to heave a huge sigh of self-pity.

*sigh*

On the bright side, I'm getting one the of most dreaded, dangerous rotations of second year out of the way right out of the gate. By dangerous I don't mean the rotation is performing prostate exams on sky-divers. I mean the well-being of pregnant women and unborn children at Tacoma General will depend primarily on little old me every fourth night all of July and August. Translation: every single delivery, tragedy, ER case, c-section, pre-eclamptic seizure, preterm labor rule-out, everything, anything, that could possibly happen to anyone pregnant at Tacoma General is my responsibility. There are exceptions for private doctor's patients but, really, until that private doc comes in from, say, Gig Harbor, to see his or her patient I'm the back-up. Also, it is true that there will be at least two attendings available to help me. At least one of them in-house. And there is another resident in the hospital doing night float that I can call for help in dire situations. Despite all that, I can't help but feel that this is a risky way to go about bringing life into this world. However, it's not my call and it's been done like this for a long time without any truly adverse events (that I know about). I'll be sure to let you all know what it's really like when I'm in the thick of it.

As for the two months before that. These remaining 7-ish weeks of internship I will be rotating on in-patient pediatrics. I think the last time I did that was October of 2005. So wish me luck on that.

The bad thing about this stretch is that I will not be able to take advantage of the NW's supposedly gorgeous summer - the reward we get for enduring the abysmal weather of the last 6-7 months. The silver lining is that at least in my 80 hour weeks I will get to still see some daylight. Even if it's just during my trip from hospital to bed. The other silverer lining (wordsmith = Liz) is that the dreaded two consecutive months of R2 OB will be o.v.e.r. and I will begin to have a better idea if I want to pursue OB as part of my future practice. (photo I took of tree in Wright's Park).

I feel like I should include a brief summary of my vacation. It was rather nice. I got to see lots of friends, spend some QT with family and even got to finish reading a book. I went for a few runs in a park, walked around Detroit (took photo at left of Spirit of Detroit), saw a ball game, and spent part of a day in Grand Rapids and ate awesome Indian food at a friend of a friend's Hindu celebration/ceremony. I relaxed, I rested, I ate a TON of ice cream. It was good and I actually feel pretty refreshed (despite the nasty cold I caught somewhere along the way).