Diary of a Mad Brown Woman

MY LIFE IS SO GLAMOROUS

2008-08-03T00:09:00.002-05:00

Has anyone been watching this "Hopkins" miniseries on ABC? About the men and women that work at Hopkins? It's a 6-part documentary about the Johns Hopkins hospital and the nurses and doctors that work there. Watching the first episode, I was pretty impressed by the intense amount of drama all wrapped up in 42 minutes. Then again, if you could bundle up the most intense moments of a year in the shoes of any resident, it'd be pretty damn exciting.

It made me reflect back on my own intern year. I talked it over with a few other residents in surgical fields and we decided that while, yes, we all shared some intense moments, for the most part, if a camera crew followed us around at random over the course of a year, they would catch us doing a variety of quite un-glamorous things:

- "Discharge to SNF paperwork. Loads. And loads. Of paperwork."

- "Begging social work to help us find our patients a SNF."

- "You thought going into medicine was about helping people, but it's actually about writing notes. Thousands and thousands of notes."

- "Watch the intern as she spends hours on the phone making follow-up appointments!"

- "You listen very, very closely on rounds. Then you make about a million checkboxes in the margins of the sign-out based on even the most casual of comments made. Everyone then goes off the OR. You spend your day getting each and every single box on that list checked off by the time evening rounds happen, so help you God."

- "Even if your checkboxes list such tasks as, 'Find patient's roommate so she can get key to her apartment back so she can go home' and 'Patient needs semi-truck moved from where it is parked in the ED parking lot.'"

Clutching my pearls

2008-07-22T22:26:00.003-05:00

I still haven't found a good way to minimize and store my portables on myself. I've passed the med student pitfall of stuffing my white coat with every pocket-sized textbook ever written and every stupid physical exam instrument, like the tuning fork (which I mistakenly called "vibrator" today to a fellow resident... as in, "Ha ha, remember when we used to carry vibrators in our pockets?"), but now I don't wear a white coat often enough to store my cell phone and PDA in their. I would do the usual technique of latching things on to the waistline of my scrub bottoms but then I have this pesky problem of my pants falling down. So lately I've taken to stuffing my phone and PDA into the boob pocket of my scrubs. The only problem is these things want to slide out of there all the time. And spilling the contents of your scrub pockets (PDA covered in sparkly stickers, pink cell phone, Fun Size Snickers) onto a patient as you're evaluating them doesn't do much to enhance their confidence in your medical skillz. I now have this graceful ritual of clutching my left boob anytime I lean over anyone in the slightest way. Attractive.

(This is also why I've stopped running places. I only have 2 hands and there are 3 pockets on my white coat for things to tumble out of. Also, you look pretty stupid running down the hallway with your arms straight at your sides with your hands clutching your pockets.)

2008-07-14T14:44:00.004-05:00

Today's kind of a slow day, so I've spent the day brushing up (Ha! Ha! Get it? PAP SMEARS. Uh...sorry. Just some nerdy gyn humor) on colposcopy. And let me tell you, there is no better birth control than seeing a confluently warty cervix basking in the sweet embrace of some HPV. Almost as effective as delivering the baby of an un-epidural-ized woman screaming, "HE'S TEARING OFF MY CLITORIS."

Moobs

2008-07-12T12:04:00.003-05:00

Now that I'm no longer an intern, I thought it was time to come back to the important things in life. I now have time to devote to the essentials, like regular pedicures and my blog. That's right everyone...I'm a 2 now. A 2!! That means, when confronted with patient care issues such as, "Hey Peg, that senile patient ripped out her IV and is now hunched over her commode flinging feces at anyone who tries to walk in...can you help?" I can always offer such sage medical advise as, "I think the intern will be able to help you. Do you need her pager number?" HA HA HA. Just kidding. I love poop and I'll field any and all poop-related issues, but I am really loving not being the team bitch anymore.

In other news, now that my level of affection for my job has reached a point where I now have an acceptable level of hatred for my life, I can look into the future and see something other than residency. Namely, more bitch-assery in the form of a fellowship! YES. I find residency so irresistible that I wish to do EVEN MORE of it. I will be the KUNG FU MASTER of residency.

There is one new aspect of residency that I am so far less in love with. That is, clinic. The concept is great. We see patients like the little doctors we pretend to be and write prescriptions and do our own little exams and write our own little notes and feel kind of responsible for things. (I also received my very first business cards this year!! They say Square Peg, M.D.! So far I have given out 5. They were all to my mom.)

The problem is the clinic rooms are teensy. They're about the size of 2 bathrooms put together. I think it'd be ok, except for the fact that WE ARE GYNECOLOGISTS. When we see a patient, we have to get all up into her mix. It involves stirrups. And speculums. And not one but TWO trash cans. One for real trash and one for metal things that need to be sterilized. As luck would have it, the trash cans for metals is ALWAYS in some really awkward position in the room, like behind the head of the bed. And these rooms are so tiny that once you've positioned yourself in a rolly stool between some stirrups there's no room to roll yourself away from the perineum and towards a trash can. There's hardly any room to walk there, because then you run into the trash can for actual trash. So you pull out the speculum and then you end up doing this awkward sideways shuffle around the stirrups, the counter, and the trash can. And usually, that speculum is dripping with juices. Sometimes foul-smelling, purulent, scary fluid. Let's just say that often in clinic, my primary goal for the day is to avoid getting syphilis dripped on me. It's happened before.

Because this is way more fun than writing about 1st trimester aneuploidy screening

2007-12-17T16:10:00.000-06:00

Sooooooo as part of my preparation to start writing, I decided it was time to hang some things up on my wall. Not that having my apartment look like a very untidy cluttered prison was unappealing or anything. NOOOO. Usually hanging my pictures and various knick knacks is something I do with a fit of whirling dervish energy in the first 3 days of moving into a new place so I never have to think about it again but the walls in this apartment building are apparently made of plaster or some shit so you actually have to hire one of the maintenance workers to come on his own time and drill holes in the wall for you. In the first month of living here I decided that was highway robbery and set about forcing my own nails into the walls with my tried-and-true methods of big heeled boots I haven't worn since 2002 and some elbow grease. 11 bent-up nails and only 2 hanged items later, I decided maybe there was a point in having a professional come do it. So today I finally got around to calling them, and decided that in order to shave some time off their little visit ($65 an hour!! To drill holes! In my plaster walls!) I would walk around making Xs and sticking mini post-its where I wanted everything.

And THEN I spent some time catching up on some of my favorite blogs, including Doctor Squared, where I got the idea for this little game:

The rules:

1. Put your iTunes/music player of shuffle.

2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

3. You must write down that song name, no matter what.

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
"UMBRELLA" Rihanna feat. Jay-Z

"You can stand under my umbrella. Ella. Ella. Ey. Ey. Ey."

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
"SCAR TISSUE" Red Hot Chili Peppers

I AM SO DAMAGED.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"PASS THE DUTCHIE" Musical Youth

Heh.

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"SUDDENLY I SEE" KT Tunstall

What a bad-ass song. I'm usually not this clever or bright, or quick to recognize destructive men in my life. (HELLO DQ!)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
"STUNTIN' LIKE MY DADDY" Birdman and Lil' Wayne

I literally laughed out loud when this popped up.

Veerom on a yamaha chromed out 11 hundred
Wut im doin, gettin money, wut we doin, gettin money
Wut they doin, hatin on me, but they neva cross
Cash money still the company, and bitch im the boss
And I be stuntin like my daddy, stuntin like my daddy
Stuntin like my daddy, I be stuntin like my daddy
Im the, young stunna, stuntin like my daddy
Stuntin like my daddy, I be stuntin like my daddy

You guys just aren't STREET like me.

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
"WHEN THE STARS GO BLUE" Cary Pierce

Oh come ON I'm not THAT forlorn.

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW" Keane

That's actually sweet. "So if you have a minute why don't we GOOOOO? Talk about it somewhere only WEEEKNBBOOW!!

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
"WE BE BURNIN'" Sean Paul

My parents don't smoke pot.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"STARRY EYED SURPRISE" Paul Oakenfold

OMG wasn't I just talking about how bars suck as meeting places for Future Mates?

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
"Throw Some Ds" Rich Boy feat. Polow Da Don

No. Just...no.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"MARCH OF THE WITCH HUNTERS" Wicked Soundtrack

HA! Sometimes. (Just kidding! I love all of you!!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"BETTE DAVIS EYES" Kim Carnes

I currently have no crush. WRONG AGAIN iPOD. YOU'RE SO STUPID.

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"ONE SHORT DAY" Wicked Soundtrack

What a fun one!

One short day
In the Emerald City
One short day
Full of so much to do
Ev'ry way
That you look in the city
There's something exquisite
You'll want to visit
Before the day's through

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"SWEETEST THING" U2

I want to grow up and be someone's sweetest thing? eww.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PE
"OUTTA CONTROL" MobRSON YOU LIKE?b Deep and 50 Cent

Again, no one on the horizon here, but this guy sounds pretty cool. PRESENT YOURSELF TO ME O MYSTERIOUS LIFE PARTNER.

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"EVERLONG" Foo Fighters

"If everything could ever feel this real FOREVERRRRR. If anything could ever be this good AAAAGAIN." Uh.... maybe.

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"AAJA NACH LE" Bally Sagoo

Yep, probably will, especially if the DJ at my reception is that Indian kid everyone else uses.

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"SUNSHOWERS" M.I.A.

I hope not.

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"AMBER" 311

Huh?

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"GLAMOROUS" Fergie

Ain't no secret, baby.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"WALKING ON SUNSHINE." Katrina and the Waves

YES. Totally :)

WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?
"STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN" Led Zeppelin

Euuuighhh..but I already CAME UP with a title that was more appropriate.

2007-12-17T15:13:00.001-06:00

I was on 24 hour call overnight on Saturday and thus donned my usual ensemble of scrubs, sneaks, fleece sweatshirt, and the only part of my outfit where I get to have some fun, my socks. I own over 50 pairs of socks (less laundry!) and most are in some fashion of the pink argyle variety of Target. After years of experimenting with the different scrub sizes I've finally settled on medium mens scrub pants and medium ladies scrub tops. I find that this combo usually allows the greatest length of scrub legs with a manageable amount of crotch fabric. Unfortunately, there's still a huge variety in the length of scrub bottoms, such that the pair I was wearing on Saturday was a little shorter than usual. Also, it's the middle of winter, and I'm single and live alone, and thus, it's been approximately 6 years since I've shaved my legs and I'm growing a veritable forest down there, which I'd successfully managed to ignore until Saturday night when I sat down and crossed my legs, exposing a good 4 inches of freely flowing leg hair. I have got to shave my legs, like, HELLO I AM SUPPOSED TO BE ENGAGED IN 11 MONTHS NO TIME FOR AMATEUR NIGHT.

(I'm camped out at the computer "working" on a presentation I'm supposed to give on Thursday. I've almost started! And hence the rapidfire posting.)

2007-12-17T14:31:00.001-06:00

At this program, like in most surgical subspecialties, we get 4 days off at either Christmas or New Years. This is a pretty sweet deal, and I don't even mind taking call on the night before my 4 days begins. I had YOOGE plans to spend my 4 days in my sweatpants falling asleep in front of the TV at the big comfy couch at my parents' house but then they abandoned me and decided to go back to the motherland for the holidays.

In any case, Jagdish, in his own residency program in Texas, is coming to visit for Christmas. This means I will have to put all my bras away from their carefully laid out positions on top of the dresser and possibly vacuum and have all the drains snaked. I never notice all the janky things I put up with until I have others come up and visit me and then I'm like...Oh...so it's NOT normal to be standing ankle deep in soapy water after a shower? Also, I'll have to doubly restock the fridge because I anticipate Jagdish is going to spend the bulk of his time eating my food and in an unwashed state on my comfy couch.

Dancing through LIIIIIIIIIFE

2007-12-17T14:05:00.000-06:00

Now that I'm on outpatient ultrasound (snorebore) I have my evenings pretty free because I don't have to wake up at asscrack o'clock every morning! There IS a sun! And it shines! And there are other people in the city besides half-dead residents trudging to the hospital at 4:30 in the morning! Hello!!

Last week I got the chance to see Wicked again here in St. Louis, which was just super fun. Before the show R and I went out to eat a little Italian restaurant by the Fox, where we had cocktails at the bar before dinner. While we were drinking at the bar, the bartender brought us a 3rd round and said it was compliments of "that guy down the bar." R, who is married, was like, "Oh, that was nice of him!" And that was all we mentioned of it. It left me wondering what exactly the etiquette is of the "I'm a strange man buying you alcohol at the bar" maneuver. Strange man in said case happened to be about 48 years old with a goatee and a sparkly diamond in one ear so I wasn't too interested in following up on my drink, but I wondered if maybe we were supposed to wave to him, or walk over and say thank you, or what. I generally think that the bar is the worst place to find your life partner, because without the friendly warming tincture of EtOH and soft glow of the bar, the daylight can be harsh.

Also, I've never spent money on extraneous souvenirs at a show before, but I love this show so much that I coughed up the THIRTY NINE dollars that this t-shirt reading "defying gravity" cost (I'm still reeling):

And R bought this one:

Which I also adored but somehow I don't think I can quite pull off wearing a bright pink shirt that says "Popular" on it. At least not in public anyway. And then I had to talk her out of buying a snow globe.

2007-12-14T20:24:00.000-06:00

I have no linear train of thought here but wanted to make sure I documented the following thoughts somewhere because they are priceless:

1. Seasonal affect disorder? Who, me? No, because RSVPing for a party and then boycotting it because the host writes back asking "Thanks, Peg. Will it be you + 1 or just you?" IS TOTALLY REASONABLE GODDAMMIT. (In my defense, that "JUST YOU" was completely fucking accusatorial and I refuse to justify it with a response because it made me feel like a loser for like an entire 48 hours.)

2. My dad isn't much of a phone talker but there are certain instances where social niceties call for your phone presence, such as, oh, WHEN YOUR DAUGHTER CALLS TO WISH YOU HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

S: Happy birthday dad!

D: Uh-huh. Remember, this is the guy who thinks it's stupid to celebrate birthdays because "you're just one year closer to YOUR DEATH." Uplifting, no? So what did you do at work today?

S: Well I got to scan a baby with anencephaly which was kinda neat--

D: Interrupting. Ok whatever. Talk to your mom now.

Really. I'm not joking. The really funny thing is, when my dad asks a question that requires some long rambly answer I know it's because he's watching TV or at the computer and the "Ok whatever" comes out when he thinks he's listened long enough. Parenting! (Happy birthday Daddy!)

3. Shanmugam is considering pursuing a career in Urology. Except he doesn't know if he "can look at penis and balls all day long. But if I could, it'd be great."

2007-12-12T18:50:00.000-06:00

Where did we leave off? Ah yes, I was passed out on my couch while IMDTT journeyed across the country just to see me. My leading thought was that one (or more likely both) of us were headed for a world of serious disappointment, but what the hey.

My parents called around 5 pm as I was trying to muster up the energy to get off the couch and into the shower and trying to decide how raunchy my hair smelled and whether or not I could put off shampooing for another day. My mom, as you might imagine, was SUPER-EXCITED about another opportunity to prostitute me out some more.

M: So....what are you doing?

S: Too embarassed to admit that I've just proudly assembled a bag of Sun Chips, a bag of Dove miniatures, a jar of trail mix and a can of Cherry Coke all strategically within arms reach so as to minimize any effort. I'm studying!

M: Where is IDMTT? Is he there with you?

S: Oh...no. He missed his flight and won't get here until 8.

M: Oh... Quietly confers with someone else, apparently my dad.

Now my dad gets on the phone.

D: Hello, Peg?

S: Yep, still here.

D: Ok, because we are in the parking lot of the hotel IMDTT was supposed to be staying at, because we wanted to see you together.

S: Too stunned to speak.

M: Why didn't you tell us he wasn't coming until later?

S: Because I didn't realize you would be STALKING ME.

D: Uh, so we're kind of tired of sitting in the car. Can we come over for a while?

15 minutes later, my parents are hanging out in my family room while I groom myself for my big meeting with IMDTT.

M: I think you need more lipstick.

P: I'm already wearing lip gloss.

D: Do what your mom says.

Then, I prepare to leave my apartment. Please note, at this time in my life I was still wearing the boot.

M: Why don't you wear a shoe that will match your boot? What did you do to your ankle in the first place? WHY ARE YOU SO CLUMSY AND AWKWARD AND WHY CAN YOU NOT JUST WEAR THE LIPSTICK LIKE I TELL YOU TO WE WILL BE STUCK WITH YOU FOREVER AND YOU WILL NEVER MARRY.

P: You guys need to go home. Jesus crazy.

D: We're leaving. But...uh, first we were hoping you'd be ok with us FOLLOWING YOU THE AIRPORT AND SEEING IMDTT GET IN YOUR CAR. Because we want to see him.

P: You guys already know him! YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN HIM.

D: So is it ok then?

P: Sometimes the path of least resistance is easiest. Also, one day I will probably torment my own children in a similar fashion. FINE.

D: Ok, but if you see us, you don't know us. And we don't know you.

P: That sounds GREAT. Let's start RIGHT NOW. Also, when did my parents get all ninja?

That pretty much sums up the interesting part of it. I could go on for hours about IMDTT's atrocious ensemble (a two-toned blue/purple monstrosity with hot pink flowers embroidered on it strategically unbuttoned to the xiphoid to display both a thick gold chain and the love rug - this outfit screamed I MEAN SEXY BUSINESS) but I'm trying to cut down on the smack talk. Needless to say, such an auspicious start to our night of passion was pretty much a good indicator of what the rest of the night would be like. We ate at a restaurant and then I dropped him off at his hotel. And then we never spoke to each other again. (Also, in my new move away from smack talk I will refrain from mentioning how he went on and on at dinner about his ex-fiance, a manic depressive psycho who lived at home with her parents and had to be fed Xanax. Hello, desperation!)

2007-12-11T21:43:00.000-06:00

First: Aw. Ya'll are sweet :) I am there for you also. In the words of Rihanna, You can stand under my umbrella. Ella. Ella.

Secondly, another awesome Parental Intervention into my Lovelife (or Lack Thereof) [PILLoLT]!

(Wait, first, let me just say that I've been watching the A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila marathon on MTV and HOLY SHIT. Actually, the show gets more substantial as the dumber contestants leave, and now with only the 2 left, more and more frequently the people on the show say things that make me think maybe they're not all complete idiots.)

But OK! PILLoLT!

My mother has gotten it into her head that I will be engaged by next November. I'm not sure how this deadline was set (November! Month of Romance!), or why 2008 shall be the year that Peg finds her Life Partner, or why my mom has reached desperation mode so prematurely but they are on the lookout. Single men: BEWARE. My mother will find you and force my biodata on you.

Anyway, the latest winner they scrounged up was a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, ("I do mostly tummy tucks") whose parents they apparently knew. I know... EW. BUT -- it had the potential of fulfilling my most recent intern fantasy of becoming a Lady Who Lunches and does absolutely no work. My other intern fantasy involves being able to stop time and take a nap. Seriously -- if I had one wish, it would be to stop time. Not so I could do anything spectacular. Just so I could nap. Another intern fantasy involves a big, fluffy bed that could magically be teleported anywhere. ANYWAY.

So IDMTT kept calling me, and I wasn't really feeling any "special connections" over the phone, but then IDMTT wanted to meet anyway. I was on onc at the time, so I had one day off a week, but IDMTT was READY FOR BUSINESS - he decided to fly in that very same weekend. I was a bit taken aback, but then I decided that if he was indeed my Life Partner than WE SHAN'T WASTE ANOTHER SECOND WITHOUT EACH OTHER. So I went in on Saturday to round, and his flight was supposed to get in at 3 pm. I came home around noon and promptly passed out watching TV on my couch. IDMTT called around 1 pm explaining that he missed his flight and now wouldn't be getting in until 8. He profusely apologized for "cutting short the amount of time we'd have together" but I was secretly thrilled to be able to extend my little nap.

Ya'll, I'm so tired but I'll have to continue this story later. All of a sudden I'm overcome with a wave of exhaustion but I don't want to renege on my words from yesterday so I'll post this incomplete story with the promise to finish story. You don't have to tell me I blow goats. I already know.

2007-12-10T19:42:00.000-06:00

I should also talk about what has prompted this recent exuberant renewal of vows with my blog. Lately I have felt extremely burnt out and like I'm losing sight of a world beyond writing endless notes, answering an infinite amount of pages, trying to straddle the egos of all those superior to me (which, when you are an intern, is MOTHERFUCKING EVERYONE), and never, ever seeing the sun. This is probably just intern winter blues but I needed to find my emotional outlet again, and here it is! Also, most of my friends are interns too, and I'm sure they're tired of hearing me cry about how the nurses call me "Dr. Peg" so much that I think they're making fun of me because HELLO PEG WE ARE ALL TIRED AND CRANKY INTERNS TOO SO SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY. (YOU BIG PANSY.)

So I made a list of the things I do enjoy about residency:

1. I LOVE getting to go home and not having to study. Well, uh, I guess I should be "learning stuff," but I'm just thankful I don't have a shelf exam to go home and study for. Med students: I feel for ya.

2. I like the camaraderie. The residents here are all superclose and get along great. (We have to. We are together ALL THE DAMN TIME. Like being in prison!)

3. I actually enjoy the hospital at night. It's kind of scary because many of the usual back-ups aren't as immediately available but there's an intimacy between the entire hospital staff at night (like, "Hey, this really sucks ass. Let's be friends and suffer together.")

4. I am losing weight! Not eating and not sleeping: works like a charm.

Hey!! Yeah you!! Come back -- I'll try to be funnier!!!

2007-12-10T19:05:00.000-06:00

OK! So I know it's been about, oh, FIVE YEARS since the last time I deigned to share my very important thoughts with the Internet, but I decided today that IT IS TIME TO GET MY SHIT TOGETHER. (I've actually been saying that since February of 2004, when I had to give myself daily pep talks/instill the fear of God into myself to study for the boards.) But really guys - NOW. IT IS TIME. FOR THE SHIT. TO COME TOGETHER.

So...residency! Heck yeah dude it's a BLAST! Well, it's mostly a blast. Ok, it can be a blast on occasion. What I mean is, there are occasional hilarious moments intermixed with moments of incredible stress and unbelievable amounts of adrenaline such that you can actually feel your stomach dropping out of your rectum. Exhilarating! Actually, it's not too bad. I'm surviving just fine. Not just surviving, NAY!! Succeeding, even! Well... probably just surviving.

Ok, so where to begin? There have been many, many legendary moments thus far in residency. I've twice been asked now where I "get my weave," I've had to explain the differences in poop-hole, pee-hole, and baby-hole to at least 5 different laboring patients, all 12 years of age (yep, had to draw pictures and everything. Changed their lives.), and, I enjoyed one too many libations one night, fell on the way home and gave myself a "high grade dorsal ligament sprain," and ended up in an aircast for 6 weeks (all through the duration of gyn onc. Fun!).

It actually wasn't toooootally unattractive though:

See? So fetching! In an attractive "neutral stone" shade. What could be sexier than a woman strutting about in that? NOTHING. My bootfoot and I even attended 2 weddings together!

Allow me to bring you up to speed on a few things
-- After long and painful discussion, my family and I decided to put Reflux to sleep. He had awful arthritis which was giving him painful constant kyphosis, and he also fell on his L shoulder and developed an abcess that just wouldn't heal. After a few nights of him not even being able to sleep because he was in so much pain, my mom and dad took him to the vet. I really wanted to see him before he went so I drove home on a Monday night just to see him. As my dad said, "He gave everything and asked for nothing." (He then proceeded to tell my mom, "I couldn't be more upset if one of my real kids died." Uh...thanks dad.) Rest in peace, my dear sweet little teddy bear-faced friend.

- Residency has made me realize that I am both much smarter and much dumber than I previously thought. I know. It's like a Zen thing.

- I am still single. My boot is shocked too.

Ok! So that's it for now! I promise to be a little more consistent, and to call when I actually say I will, and etc. It's nice to be back!!

2007-07-29T10:23:00.001-05:00

Despite the fact that I myself have worn scrubs day in and day out basically since I started residency, I still notice other people's clothes. There are certain accessories that make or break people's outfits at the hospital. On women, it's shoes. On men, it's ties. Seriously, a stupid tie can take a nicely dressed man from zero to idiot in 3 seconds flat.

A really attractive male medical student just rotated through our service, and EVERYONE noticed him. When he finally came through ob while I was on I finally had a chance to meet this guy who had all the residents talking. (Yes, yes, we value people's MINDS, we do not objectify people, blah blah professionalism-cakes.) Unfortunately, I couldn't take him seriously after seeing his tie:

The answer is: NO. A Mickey Mouse tie is NEVER appropriate.

2007-07-22T19:32:00.000-05:00

I think it's funny that anytime I ask a medical student a question they assume I'm pimping them, when, in fact, I'm asking them because I myself don't have a damn clue.

Case in point: today was my first day of my Labor & Delivery rotation. I haven't done obstetrics since I was a third year medical student, which was three years ago. Today I was all like, "Uh...the baby comes out of the where now?"

I went to do a History and Physical on a patient about to be induced for labor, and I asked about bleeding, gushes of fluid, contractions, fetal movement, and then I ran out of questions. The patient and I stared at each other for a while until I turned to the medical student, "Uh...James, what else do we want to ask the patient?" And he was all, "Well, we must ask about right upper quadrant pain, visual changes, BLAH BLAH pre-eclampsia-cakes." Whilst I nodded my head sagely at all the Socratic teaching I was bestowing upon my pupil. Then I left the room and quickly made a note to ask all patients about pre-e symptoms during their H&P.

First days of rotations, especially as an intern, are just painful. You don't know where anything is, you don't know the nurses, you don't know how any of the paperwork is done, and you basically just get in the way and hinder actual work getting done. Also, I have a hard time getting used to the fact that I'm the one people are calling for when they say RESIDENT TO ROOM 65 STAT. So I'll run to room 65 and when I get there I wonder what exactly I'm supposed to do.

Also, when they say RESIDENT FOR DELIVERY they are also referring to me apparently, so I run into the room as the nurses are preparing the light, pushing the sterile table to the field and breaking the bed. The attending was already there getting gowned and gloved and she told me to go ahead and put on some booties, a surgical bouffant, a mask and goggles before getting gowned and gloved. Everyone was too busy running around in preparation for the baby about to fall out of the mom's vagina so I couldn't ask anyone where exactly all those things were kept, so I randomly started opening cabinets and drawers looking for the protective gear. I stuck a cap on my head and found the booties and had jammed my leg into one of them, and was hopping around trying to get my other leg into one when the baby delivered. Seriously, I felt like the world's biggest idiot. I bet the attending is still laughing at me.

In other news, I got to deliver babies! I like the adrenaline on labor and delivery and I like my teammates so I don't mind the long hours. Anyway, I'm on overnight call tomorrow night. I'm not sure how this is going to pan out. I'm tired after 3 hours on L&D.

2007-07-17T19:35:00.000-05:00

Hi everybody! Sorry about the delay here!! I'm still getting accustomed to, uh, having a steady job and whatnot, thus explaining the tumbleweed around these parts.

Next week I switch over to obstetrics which should be fun (Yay!! Babies!!) but also terrifying (OMIGODBABIES). So far work has been exactly my speed but I have a feeling I'm about to be bowled over. I have resolved to make a more concerted effort at posting, though. You're welcome.

So, hmm, yes, hot-button medical issues and social commentary. But first: embarassing stories about my lovelife!

I had vacation 2 weeks ago, and it was all very nice, all laundry-home-sleeping 14 hours a day-watching TV-couch-pajamas-not-showering and then during the latter half of the week I went to California to see VCAE. I was pretty nervous about the trip, given the disasters that have recently comprised my lovelife, but I'm happy to report that it was officially: not terrible! There was wine-tasting, and hiking, and double dates with his friends, then with my friends, and shopping (where OMIGOD he bought things on my recommendation) and most of all, Planet Earth on DVD and quality time on the couch, which cemented the bond of nerdliness we share.

Thus leading up to the embarassing story: on Saturday after having dinner out with some of my friends we returned to his apartment to get ready to go out that night. I was flipping through a magazine on the couch and he was in the kitchen doing the dishes when I realized my right eye felt a little itchy. I kept scratching it then finally asked him if my eye looked okay because it felt a little weird.

VCAE walked over and his face was completely expressionless. "Uh...it's ..just a little bit swollen."

"Swollen? Wait, let me go look at it in the bathroom mirror."

"Hold on, hold on. I think you need to sit for a minute. It's really not that bad, but it might be a little...surprising. Seriously, sit down. I'll bring you a compact so you can look at it."

VCAE brings over one of my compacts and gingerly hands it over. My right eyelid is swollen to the size of a golf ball and occluding 80% of my right eye. Yes, I'm sure it was all very sexy.

"OMIGOD. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!?!"

"It's ok, you're ok. I really think it'll be ok."

"ITISNOTOKIAMQUASIMODO."

This very lovely story ends with VCAE making me hold an ice pack to my eye for an hour and a half while he called his dad, an ER attending, who diagnosed me with "bug bite" and told me to use Benadryl when I was ready to go to bed. It was really a fun way for me to meet his dad.

The swelling returned to normal overnight but the sweetest part of the story was when he confessed that he cleaned his apartment from floor to ceiling in preparation for my arrival and felt so terrible when I got bitten by something there that he put bug spray on all the plants on his patio to make sure no bugs could find their way into his apartment to attack me again.

Oh. There you are.

2007-07-04T01:34:00.000-05:00

Hello everybody! Sorry about the, uh, total lack of communication on my part here. I can't even claim that residency has sucked away all my free time..I mean, it's sucked away the vast majority of my free time, but I've just been a smidge lazy lately on my down time.

So...where were we? Ah yes! I had moved to STL for residency, my computer croaked, and I was in the midst of a minor myocardial infarction myself. An incredible person saved my computer for $80, and I lost all my iTunes but that was a totally acceptable alternative to losing EVERYTHING, because then someone might have had to die.

I started residency, and am currently on benign surgery. I get in around 5:30 and usually leave around 6:30. It's really not bad right now, with the exception of weekend call which I basically have every weekend this block - either 24 hours on Saturday or Friday night/Sunday day. Currently, though, I'm on vacation. Yes. That's correct. I worked for 3 weeks and then I was awarded one of the precious THREE vacation weeks I get all year. It's ok though, to be honest I could use a breather right now, and I'm happy that it's warm enough that I can actually do enjoyable things with my time off...like visit a certain very charming aerospace engineer (VCAE) I met at a wedding a few weeks ago. (Ok...if you really want all the painful details I met him when I interviewed at a program in California back in November, and we just happened to see each other again at this wedding.)

I like surgery. I like this rotation. I get to operate all day and then just come home. Our patients are rarely seriously ill and have few post-operative complications. The only bad part about being the benign intern is that we have to do circumcisions. Which I hate hate HATE doing. I'm not passing opinion on the circs themselves, but I think it's dumb that ob/gyns got stuck doing them. We practice medicine and operate on the reproductive tracts of adult women. How the hell did I get stuck slicing the foreskin of newborn baby boy penii?

First, I have to go consent the mother. I always take great pains to explain that this is an ELECTIVE procedure, meaning NOT MEDICALLY NECESSARY, and we are only doing it ELECTIVELY. I also explain the usual risks of infection, bleeding, blah blah complication-cakes, but the most important risk is the risk that what looks like a good circumcision to me may not look like a good circumcision to them. Though, for most of the circs I've done, I think we can all agree that I haven't produced some good-looking penii. NOTE: This is a cosmetic issue only. I know what I'm doing enough to take the foreskin off in a clean and safe manner with no harm to the head of the penis. These babies will urinate and have babies of their own in the future, but they won't have the most attractive penis in the world. Sometimes I'm just a little uneven in the actual amount of foreskin I remove from the front and back. There's a lot of that stuff to go around, and it's awfully wrinkly and bunchy.

The best part about consenting patients (or in this case their moms) is that occasionally one will say no and just flat-out refuse the procedure. In this case, where it's an elective procedure that I hate doing, I am completely okay with this. In fact, I've considered carrying around the actual restraint gear we STRAP the baby to.
I think being strapped down is the most upsetting part for the babies.

As far as actual procedural devices, I'm a Gomco girl myself.

It takes a little longer and requires some more coordination than the Mogen, but I like that the little bell protectively sits over the head of the penis, thus ensuring that no goofage and injury to the penis head will occur. I offered to bring both devices to VCAE and give him a demonstration but he politely demurred.

2007-06-11T23:14:00.000-05:00

You can't seen this right now, but I'm curled up in the fetal position and sucking my thumb. Residency started today, benignly enough, with orientation, but it was the devastating and horribly shitty disaster at home that sort of left me all traumatized: I went home to discover that one of the discs sent to me by my new employer meant to train me in the new electronic medical record corrupted my hard drive and caused a permanent, fatal error in my computer. Painful as it is losing your computer, all your research, photos, files, etc, it gets even worse: I was supposed to finish an ACLS training course I had installed on my computer over the course of tonight and tomorrow night. I took the disc to my friend's lab thinking maybe I could just reinstall it and do all my work over again in time for the skills portion on Wednesday. Of course, turns out you can only install the disc on one machine, so it wouldn't let me reinstall the disc on this other computer. After bursting into tears AGAIN, I decided things weren't that bad. If I can get another copy of the disc tomorrow I'll just work on it all night and finish the training on Wednesday. And the fact that my apartment is a fucking disaster right now (boxes, clothes, and shit everywhere because my dresser, bookshelves, and couch aren't here yet) doesn't exactly help. I am just a total stress ball right now. And yeah, not having a computer kind of really sucks ass.

2007-05-30T01:31:00.000-05:00

I'm at home in Centralia for a few days while I try to get my apartment in St. Louis all set up, and last night Reflux slept in my bed with me. Until I woke up in the middle of the night to the sweet sensation of Reflux urinating all over me and my mattress. It was as awesome as it sounds.

2007-05-23T23:14:00.000-05:00

I always bemoan my lack of Art Appreciation and how I like to look at art (Pretty! Look at the pretty things!) but I don't really understand it, and I never pretend to get it. I accompanied a close friend of mine to the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of our recent Farewell Tour of Chicago. The museum has been hosting a Rudolph Stingel exhibit, and we started by walking through his earlier pieces and ending with his latest pieces. I won't even try to describe the pieces because they're all futuristic and obtuse and I've probably just missed the whole point and will sound like the world's biggest moron, but there was a huge room with totally empty white walls and a big orange carpet on the ground. My friend asked me what I thought of it.

R: Squinting around and looking for the art piece in question. Uh..think of what? I think they took this one down.

L: Beatifically. Nope, this is it! What do you think?

R: The ugly-ass dayglo carpet is what I'm supposed to be looking at?

L: Isn't it incredible how the carpet can make the entire room glow? Do you see any emotion here?

R: Um...danger? Actually I think the artist is hiding in a room somewhere watching this all on camera and peeing his pants laughing at us.

L: When I look into this room I see every human emotion mirrored in here. (I believe everything she says, too. This girl knows art.)

R: Oh...say, whenever you feel lonely, have you ever looked up at the stars and thought about how maybe there was some other lonely or sad person looking up and seeing the exact same thing? It's so comforting. Maybe you could take home a little piece of this carpet and you'll find some comfort in it too when you're down.

L: That's really beautiful, R. I'm so glad I got to experience this with you.

R: Smugly, for I AM A GENIUS. No problem.

Currently: Packing. It is so fun! I *heart* this so much! I am so much looking forward to moving by myself to a crime-infested city where I know like 2 people, will spend 90% of my waking hours at the hospital, and still make so little money that I can legally claim financial hardship! OMIGOD I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO BUSINESS SCHOOL.

Also currently: Wallowing in self-pity. What, was it obvious? I know, it is so attractive! There are certain events in one's life that can make all other facets of life seem dismal and depressing. For me, that event is packing. And maybe dieting.

No need to worry, I'm not rethinking my career choice, I am just mentally steeling down for residency to suck ass. Liz and I decided we're just going to expect the worst: all work all the time, with no time for fun or friends. That way, when something fun does happen, it'll be like a bonus! All part of the business, friends.

2007-05-22T23:02:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago a close friend and I went on a kick-ass road trip through alot of them big square states out west. I lost my digital camera in a big messy party after the match, so I borrowed my younger brother's. When I brought it back and returned it to him, we discovered that somehow over the course of the trip I had broken it. (Seriously. Do yourself a favor and never lend me anything.)

I finally took it to the camera shop today and they told me it would cost $175 to repair it. I asked if there was anything I could do to try and fix it myself and the very helpful guy behind the counter said since I'd probably just want to buy myself a newer more sleeker one anyway at this point, it wouldn't hurt to get my fingernails in there and see if I could dislodge some sand or knock some dust of whatever wasn't working.

That sounded like the dumbest idea I'd ever heard in my whole entire life, so I brought it home and let Shanmugam do it, right after I'd told him that I'd buy him a nice new one once I got my first paycheck. Seeing as how I'd have to buy myself one too. Maybe I could get a bulk discount or something.

But voila! He "fixed" it! And thus I was able to retrieve all the inspiring photos from my road trip. You're welcome.

I cannot even express the anxiety this picture represents for me. I was up all night right before we left trying to finish my thesis, and I still had to make my revisions on the road.
Some dude got arrested when we stopped for gas. That was indeed inspirational.
We spent one night at Luxor in Las Vegas, and there was tons of construction happening in the hotel and we got all turned around trying to find our room, and we stumbled upon this little flock of Christmas trees, all wrapped up and waiting for December.

After Las Vegas we drove through Nevada and a little triangle of Arizona before arriving at Zion National Park in Utah. It was absolutely breathtaking. I would totally go back there for a camping trip.

I took about a zillion pictures here because I was so impressed with the canyon, but looking back now the pictures do it absolutely no justice.
Neither of us were dressed or equipped for some nature-ing but we decided to see if we could cross this river anyway.

I spotted a trail of rocks all the way across and thought with some careful maneuvering I might be able to make it across in one piece. This photo was taken roughly 4 seconds before I fell in the river.
Here my pants are totally soaked, and my feet are all swollen and puffy from being immersed in ice-cold water.
Uh... thanks for the warning.

We climbed up this rock formation, and it was totally awesome. This little waterfall comes over the top when there's a ton of rainfall, but in the meantime the slow constant trickle of water over the ages had carved out this huge recess in the stone. It was incredible.

Later we went out to eat at this very cute restaurant near the canyon. I had some authetic Utah-ian beer.

This amused me to no end. I'm sure my friend wanted to kill me when I tried to video myself drinking the beer.
Shanmugam ran into my room to excitedly announce that the camera worked, and I didn't believe it for a second. He took this picture of me as I was forming my mouth around the word "Idiot."

And, some pics from graduation...
This is right after the champagne toast with the Dean. My parents refused to let me take the stupid gown off despite the fact that I was overheating under there. And LOOK WHAT THAT STUPID HAT DID TO MY CAREFULLY COIFFED HAIR. Stupid hat.

See? So pretty from the back! The hood looks oddly like an orifice though.

At some point during my own graduation party (which I was too drunk to fully participate in), I wandered out of my room where I was sequestered with my friends for some pictures with the fam. My mother must have shunted me right back into my room right after this though, because I barely even remember being out there. My family is big.

Welcome aboard, BEEYOTCH.

2007-05-21T23:41:00.001-05:00

Today I had to send my final medical school transcript and fax a copy of my diploma to the hospital where I'll be doing my residency. I went to the Registrar where the option of either faxing or mailing the transcript was on the little request form. After ascertaining that an official transcript could indeed be faxed, I opted to do that instead, seeing as how it would save time and whatnot. Then I called Grace as I was leaving school to see if she was in her lab and wanted to take a little break to sit out in the sun. As I was waiting for her to come downstairs I received a phone call from the secretary of the entire residency program (SOERP) at my new hospital:

R: Hello?

SOERP: Hi doll. This is SOERP. I just wanted to let you know that we got both your faxes today.

R: Oh, ok, great! Is everything all squared away?

SOERP: Actually you were supposed to mail the transcript in. You faxed it.

R: Oh whoops, my mistake! I'll run in right now and make sure that hard copy gets to you.

SOERP: Oh no, I already called and took care of it.

R: Oh, ok, well thanks so much, and sorry again about the mix-up!

SOERP: So did you actually get the email I sent you last week SPECIFICALLY and EXPLICITLY saying you had to MAIL THE TRANSCRIPT IN? Did you bother to read it?

R: Speechless.

SOERP: I just wanted to let you know that you need to pay better attention to instructions especially WHEN YOU COME DOWN TO OUR HOSPITAL where HUMAN LIVES ARE AT STAKE. (That last part? About the human lives? At stake? Transcribed here VERBATIM.)

R: Wow. I'm...uh, well, sorry, like I said. Again.

SOERP: Thanks doll. Click.

Well, hopefully the fax of my transcript didn't harm anyone. Also, Shanmugam helpfully pointed out that was just a sweet sampling of the loving and nurturing milk and honey I'm surely in for at my residency program. Yowza. (Also, I went back and looked at the instructions. They simply say, "Send the final transcript to BLAH BLAH," an address which includes a fax number.)

It's Over!!

2007-05-19T10:05:00.000-05:00

So graduation is over! It was really anti-climactic.

(Hi, this is Liz. Peg is on the phone, so I would like to take this opportunity to say YEAH BUDDY, WE ARE DOCTORS! And Peg is super-buena.)

Ok, I'm back. So yeah...graduation. It was at Navy Pier, which was super-swanky and whatnot, despite the fact that the pier is about 8 miles long and I, in typical fashion, was running embarassingly late, so I had to speed walk all the way down in my heels with my graduation gown flapping all over the place. People kept asking me if I was emotional, which I definitely WAS NOT - I have no romantic nostalgia about medical school, much of which is just hazing. Afterwards there was a reception with an open bar, and my biggest challenge there was hiding my TOTAL INTOXICATION from my parents. They were actually really cool and left early so I could "spend time with my friends." Thusly, I ended up recouping roughly half of my tuition in Jack and Ginger.

My mom especially was just hyper-excited about the whole event. She and my dad arrived really late on Thursday night and then insisted that Liz and I decorate the apartment for my graduation party last night. There's really no way to say no to my mom, so we ended up spending 2 hours taping mini paper graduation hats to the ceiling. Last night after the ceremony we ended up catering dinner from an Indian restaurant and having a bunch of people over to the apartment. My girlfriends and I all sequestered ourselves in my bedroom, where I proceeded to drink a water bottle of vodka. Yep, I went from "lady who lunches" to "lady who loses her lunch." It was hugely immature but as I see it, that was probably the last time ever I can get away with acting like a 17-year old. Y'know, "professionalism" and whatnot.

I wasn't emotional at all (in fact I usually hate all this forced celebration) but this afternoon I went to another classmate's graduation reception/birthday party for his 3-year old niece, and many of my close friends and classmates were there, several of whom I also went to college with and have known for years. We were being incredibly silly and were getting more excited about the party favors than the toddlers were. In my goody bag I received a hand puppet, a gold crown, and a princess party hat, all of which I immediately donned. My friends were all acting similarly goofy, and I couldn't tell if my friend's family was getting a kick out of us or just wondering who the hell thought it fit to confer MDs on us. I was looking around then as we were all taking pictures of ourselves resplendent in our party gear and I got really sad thinking that the era of my life when it was ok to be young and stupid was ending. Also, there will never be a time when we'll all be together and carefree like this again. Ok, I was getting super-sappy and that was my cue to switch to water and possibly take a long walk, which I did. But..yay! Life is good. I am happy.

Yours,
Square Peg, MD

Be the doctor your mother always wanted you to marry.

2007-05-16T11:21:00.000-05:00

Countdown to graduation: 48 hours!!

Ya'll, I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.

I'm about to get sappy here for a sec: I wanted to be a doctor for so long that now that it's about to happen I can't even believe it's real. It's been a long(ish) road, but it's been paved with the best friends a girl could ever hope to have, along with some hilarious (and heartbreaking) moments I'll remember forever. Finally, my "knowledge" will be backed by an MD!

Hopefully it doesn't suck.

2007-05-15T09:37:00.000-05:00

Two of my girlfriends and I are taking a little vacation to Puerto Rico shortly after graduation and we're getting back to the States roughly 30 hours before my residency starts, so I guess I'm cutting it pretty close. Right now I'm online trying to figure out exactly how I want to plan our time out there, and I think we're going to Vieques, a tiny little island off the coast of PR, for a few days. I was trying to book a hotel there, when I saw this package:

Procreation Vacation

Let the undiscovered island paradise of Vieques Island be the scenary for a romantic getaway designed exclusively to promote fertility.

Our Procreation Vacation package includes luxury suite accommodations as well as:
• Unlimited glasses of sea moss elixir for the future dad. Made from a marine plant mixed with evaporated milk, sugar and spices and sea moss has long been the Caribbean’s aphrodisiac!
• Unlimited bowls of pumpkin soup for the would-be Mom. De rigueur among island women for conceiving, pumpkins are rich in vitamin A and beta-carotene, which promote fertility, successful pregnancies and lactation.
• One 50-minute couples massage with aromatherapy, an aid in regulating women’s fertility cycles, and reflexology, known for boosting virility.
• One in-suite dinner for two.
• One romantic dinner for two at resort fine dining restaurant.

I...just...wow. Planning a vacation around your infertility seems like a huge recipe for disaster, in my opinion. Infertility, though not a medical emergency, is almost worst because it's a problem that can strain a relationship and lead to insecurity. Darling, I'm afraid your sperm are sluggish. Or perhaps it is my retroverted uterus that is impeding the preggers! Let's celebrate! And can you imagine calling the hotel and asking for the "PROCREATION VACATION package?" I love that their selling points are unlimited sea moss elixir and unlimited pumpkin soup. Those both sound like severe punishment to me.

One more. I swear. Then I'm over it.

2007-05-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

HOHOPIS. Oh yeah. This rant's not over yet.

MESSAGE FOR ALL MEN: If you don't plan on calling a woman again, DO NOT. TELL HER. YOU WILL. See, I know you THINK you're being all non-confrontational while quietly backing out with your hands outstretched in the surrender position if you reconcile the move by tossing out an, "I'll call you!" but really? It creates ALL KINDS OF CRAZY PISSED-OFFEDNESS, AKIN TO WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE RIGHT NOW. AND IN MY BRAIN.

Moreover, it's patronizing. And motherfucking rude. If a woman really is psycho, do you REALLY think that planting that stalk of hope is a good thing? I would SO MUCH prefer a man to be like, "It was great meeting you. I had fun" AND JUST FUCKING STOP RIGHT THERE. Don't offer me the concilation prize. Asshole.

I thought about it a little today and I decided that what HOHOPIS did was inexcusably rude. As part of my new kick to not kiss men's asses to protect their fragile egos, I felt an overwhelming urge to send him a text telling him exactly what I thought of him, and his PORSCHE, and his STUPID FANCY SOULLESS JOB, and his OVERPRICED PLACE IN SOHO, and how he was probably using them to hide his total LACK OF PERSONALITY and SOCIAL GRACE (not to mention game), but I was a good little monkey and resisted the urge. Plus, I deleted his number right out of my phone yesterday, because I am prone to sending incredibly damaging text messages when I lose my temper.

This all lead to a fun conversation I had with Shanmugam:

R: THAT ASSHOLE I WISH TO SEND HIM MEAN TEXTS ATTACKING HIS PERSONAL HYGIENE HABITS AND WHATNOT.

S: I would suggest that you NOT do that. No matter what you say, you're going to look like a big psycho.

R: Brooding.

S: Besides, I've definitely sent that ill-advised text before. And next thing you know, they actually did like you. But now they don't anymore. Because you're psycho.

Heh. I'll try to get the details on the gem of a story THAT is sure to be at another time.

Countdown to graduation: THREE DAYS!!

Square Goes Celibate

2007-05-14T17:49:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been so hugely disappointed with my lovelife (and lack thereof) that I think I'm swearing off dating. I'm so tired of it. It's been such an enormous waste of time, money, and dressy pants and each successive loser just reminds me of how much I love my sweatpants, my television, and my apartment. I honestly can't even remember the last time I met a guy I thought displayed some actual, solid, life-partner material, and I hate all this frustration and negativity that lately has gone hand-in-hand with meeting the opposite sex.

Worst of all, it's starting to make me doubt myself, like maybe I'm just a huge freak who can't get along with a man and am not worthy of being in a relationship -- I started to have those feelings today and it was just so overwhelmingly, breathlessly saddening that I immediately went shopping and charged yet another dress that I can't afford. (CLOTHES DO NOT EQUAL LOVE, SHUT UP, I KNOW, I'm MOPING over here.)

At the mall I stopped and sat down at a table for some people-watching. As I sipped my Cherry Coke and watched all the fucking happy couples walking around hand-in-hand, I realized: Oh my God. I am starting to become pathologic. This bitterness and self-pity is NOT a good look for me, and I'm certainly not funny enough to carry it off.

That's when I decided this isn't worth my time anymore. I have more important things to worry about than a sequence of stupid and pointless dates. Like my career! If I could add up all the time I've frittered away obsessing about guys and preparing for dates, I could have probably uncovered the rest of the human genome or figured out the healthcare crisis in this country. Why am I wasting my life worrying about some guy who may or may not come round, and likely won't understand how to chew with his mouth closed or be polite company, and make lame jokes and dress like an idiot, and just generally suck and be late even when he does get here?

ENOUGH I say! From now on, no more guys. No more dates. No more laughing at guys' dumb-ass jokes to be polite. No more going to shitty restaurants because some asshole wants a Portuguese lobster. No more 'dumbing down' all the nerdy stuff I like to talk about because it isn't feminine. No more downplaying the things I'm proud of because I don't want some piece of shit guy who can't stand being around a woman who might be smarter than him to feel insecure. NO MORE! As of today, I'm done. I'm not perfect, but I'm comfortable with who I am and I don't need someone to kiss my ass to feel good about myself, so I'm done doing it for others. Men are allowed to be lifelong bachelors. In fact, it's rakish and makes them seem youthful and devil-may-care. Let's do that for ladies, too.

Wow. I'm sitting taller even as I type this.

He HOHOPISsed me off.

2007-05-13T20:40:00.000-05:00

In a spontaneous decision last week, HOHOPIS decided to fly in to Chicago early Saturday (yesterday) to meet me. I was at Liz's graduation in Iowa on Friday, so I deprived myself of alcohol that night so I could wake up super-early on Saturday to come back to Chicago. (Probably for the best, because I ran into CNG. And we all know what happens when the two of us are drunk at the same time. Also, I made deliberate effort to stay away from DQ, who still hasn't spoken to me since the wedding.)

He was staying at a very nice hotel a block away from me, so I put on my dressy pants, extra-specially did my hair and make-up, and walked over to his hotel to meet him for lunch. (He was dressed like a dork. Cargo pants went out in 1998, honey. I'm being bitchy, but he has it coming.) We went to the Signature Room for lunch. I, being a huge dork, really like dorkiness in people, so that doesn't bother me, but as soon as we had ordered he was all restless and moving around, and finally said, "Let's take a walk around the restaurant and check out the view." Which was kind of cool and spontaneous, but he kept bombarding me with questions like "Where does the Chicago river end?" "What is the square mileage of the Gold Coast?" "What year was your school built?" which got tiresome after awhile, like, DUDE, I DON'T KNOW, let's chill out and get to know each other. (He was kind of spastic. And YES I know if I pick guys apart over every little thing I will be single forever, however I refuse to date assholes. Anymore.)

Then we ordered lunch and he had THE WORST table manners I have ever seen in another human being. I'm sure I'm no Miss Manners but HOHOPIS: It's called a motherfucking NAPKIN. USE IT.

There were some nice moments though: I was playing with his Blackberry and stumbled upon a series of lists he had made which he let me read through. I liked his list of quotes. There was a cute series of recipes in there. I also found a list of gifts, one of which was BH Gold. He told me that was "Black Hills Gold" and then he winked at me and said I might be getting some of that. I thought that was sort of strange but I just want to point this out -- all of these comment sort of led me to believe he had some interest in me, or liked me at least a little.

Afterwards we took a stroll down Mag Mile and ended up at the Shedd. That was actually really fun, he and I are both really immature so we were perfect ADHD companions for each other, but I was sort of embarassed at this huge tank right in the front lobby where HOHOPIS kept banging on the glass to get the attention of this big stingray that was stuck to it. Finally I grabbed his hand and asked him to stop because he was going to get us both in trouble. (I KNOW. When you have to ask your date - a grown-ass 31-year old man - to behave himself you know it's headed down a road to nowhere good.)

After that we wandered back to my apartment where he proceeded to go SNOOPING AROUND MY APARTMENT before I even had time to take my shoes off and set my bag down. Who goes into a stranger's home and starts poking around without their permission? The first thing he did was go into Shanmugam's room and exclaim about what a giant disaster it was. I sort of laughed along but on the inside I was kind of pissed. He's my younger brother, I can make fun of his dung beetle ways all I want to but I get defensive when others enter my world and criticize people I care about. Also, the dung beetle just had a stressful neuroscience exam on Friday, so give him a break.

I asked him if he was interested in having dinner, and he said, sure, did I mind if some of his friends from business school join us? I was a little taken aback, but I said okay as long as my friends can come too. So we made plans to reconvene at Vermilion at 8. I would seriously rather stay home alone on a Saturday night to eat Subway and watch TV with my farty little dog than eat at Vermilion because it's kind of pretentious, mediocre, and overpriced, but whatever, he was the guest and got to choose the restaurant. So the crowd ended up being HOHOPIS and one of his friends, and me and three of my friends. HOHOPIS and I ended up sitting far apart from each other, and HE TOTALLY IGNORED ME. This was actually fine with me; I thought he was getting to know my friends and I thought that was rather friendly on his part, until I got the unsettling but distinct impression that he was definitely hitting on one of my friends.

We left the restaurant and went to a lounge where some people he knew were having a party, and there it was definitely clear that he was more interested in engaging with others than he was with me. We went to another less crowded and slightly more intimate late-night club after that where I thought HOHOPIS would have a chance to bring it back and make good with me, which he definitely did not do. I had the impression that he was more content to sit in a corner by himself than talk to me. I was sort of pissed off - like, dude, you can't drag me out to hang with your friends then totally ignore me. I really wanted to leave but I wasn't really sure what to do. It was all just so awkward. We finally did leave, and in the cab we were just chatting about random things, and finally I decided to just put my cards on the table:

R: So do you want to stop by for a drink before you head back to your hotel? No, I wasn't planning on showing him the business but I thought I'd cover my bases in case he was too shy to make a move.

HOHOPIS: Nope I'm heading back.

R: Ooookay.

Cab pulls to a stop outside his hotel.

HOHOPIS: Leans in to kiss R's cheek then hops out.

Ok, so that all was weird, but I can get past a lot of weirdness by chalking it up to social awkwardness. But get this: early on our lunch date on Saturday I asked HOHOPIS what time his flight on Sunday was because I might be able to drive him to the airport, and he said it was at 3pm. Nonetheless, at 9:30am on Sunday I received a text from HOHOPIS: Hey I don't know if you're up yet but I just wanted to let you know I'm on my way to the airport right now. My flight is at 11 am. I had a good time and will call you later....

I had no idea what to make of this but I sent back a chirpy little text wishing him a safe flight and hoping he had a great time in my city. He immediately wrote back saying Thank you. I had a great time.

I was thinking about it later and I couldn't understand what had happened. Could he have possibly been so repulsed by me that he CHANGED HIS FLIGHT because he didn't even want to be in the same city as me? What I really love is how I wasn't even worth the time it takes TO MAKE UP A POLITE EXCUSE as to why he felt the need to retreat so suddenly. Laura, who set me up with him, said that maybe he was confused about what time his flight actually was and felt dumb. Then she profusely apologized for setting me up with a freakish weirdo who was a bad dresser to boot. Yeah. She better be sorry. I was mostly just confused about the whole thing. Furthermore, a bad dresser who can't eat in public and solves equations for fun shouldn't be doing the rejecting, know what I'm saying? Oh yeah. I went there. The inner bitch is out.

I think the chances of him calling are zero to none, and I'm not that sad because I don't have anything invested in this guy, but I'm disappointed because it strengthens my conviction that I will be performing IVF on myself in 6 years. Maria summed it up best: "It's a letdown for all of us. We just want to see each other happy so it sucks when something with so much promise doesn't work out."

Other comments:

Jeannie: "You're disappointed?! I saw him picking his ear during dinner. YOU DON'T WANT THAT."

Liz: "Wait a minute - forget about everything else for a second: he doesn't DRINK? Well that's just not going to work."

Shanmugam: "He sounds like an idiot."

Personally, I think it's part of his ADHD. He probably came here and was dazzled by our friendly, clean, beautiful city (MUCH more desirable than NYC, in my opinion) and I was all shiny and new for the first few hours and then he probably just lost interest. I am confused to as why someone would travel all this way unless they were really invested in a positive outcome but ... eh, whatever.

As much as I'm ready to put being single behind me, I must say, it was rather nice to put on my sweatpants, smoke some cigarettes, order my choice of Thai food, and watch Charm School last night without worrying about impressing some dude.

Pillow Angel

2007-05-09T15:37:00.000-05:00

This morning I had to go take BLS for healthcare providers, in preparation for the ACLS training I need when I start training. I've taken BLS so many times I could probably teach the course, but I can never remember how to perform CPR on infants. (I just don't care. Ok, I'm just kidding, I'm sure as an obstetrician that might be important, I need to pay attention, I should take my job more seriously, BLAH DE BLAH.) The only thing I do remember is that you try to wake the baby up not by shaking said baby by the shoulders but by clapping in baby's face and screaming, "BABY, BABY, ARE YOU OKAY?" It sounds dumb but it's hilarious when you have to practice the entire sequence and the first part is running up to the little plastic baby mannequin, clapping in its face then asking it if it's okay.

***

I was reading on CNN yesterday that a state investigation into the treatment administered to the Pillow Angel found that the operations were illegal. We talked about this case in an ethics session we had on rehab medicine, so I had kind of been following it to see what happened.

In a nutshell, a girl was born with severe cognitive handicaps. Her disability was such that she would never talk or walk and was 100% dependent on her parents for all of her care. Though her body continued to grow and develop, her cognitive level remained infantile. Her parents approached her doctors and asked them if they could stop her growth. She received high doses of estrogen so her period of growth was shortened and terminated, and her breast buds and uterus were surgically removed. Her ovaries remained in place so her body could continue to produce sexual hormones. Now, Ashley is less than 5' tall and has never undergone puberty in the sense that she will never menstruate or develop breasts.

This was an extremely tough case and I have no idea how I would have voted if I sat on the ethics committee that had to decide this one. Many disabled rights and women's groups have decried the treatment as paternalistic but the truth is, for someone so cognitively impaired, does it matter how tall she is? Menstruation is traumatic even for cognitively sound girls, how would someone with such limited capacity for understanding what was happening to her body cope with monthly bleeding, which she wouldn't even be able to take care of herself? Ashley's parents were immediately called out for being selfish and asking for this procedure out of convenience (the smaller child would be easier to care for) but I can't help but think that the benefits of the treatment outweighted the disadvantages. Her small size ensured she would never become a burden to care for, thus minimizing any resentment or lack of personal connection her caretakers might develop.

On the other hand, it's a slippery slope. How impaired is too impaired to get to hang on to your reproductive organs? Sterilization of a minor sounds, well, terrible.

The real question is about Ashley's quality of life. Will she be happier remaining childlike forever? There's no way of knowing, but I don't think it's inappropriate that her parents and medical team made an informed decision for her wellbeing.

2007-05-09T00:06:00.000-05:00

After spending a few hours at the library again today writing up my research from last year, I hopped over to Macy's for their One Day Sale, and let me just say that days like today are how I will justify buying this with my very first paycheck. (My preciousssss. *Drool* And yeah, I know it's the most excessive ridiculous bag ever, and I'll spend the rest of the month proudly stroking my bag whilst subsiding on canned corn bought in bulk at Costco and the free coffee supplied by my apartment building.)

I picked up this Michael Kors dress for LESS THAN $20! Those who know me know that I often shell out for something I know I will NEVER wear, because I CANNOT RESIST A BARGAIN especially on the pretty, pretty clothes. I blame my genes. (I'm looking in your direction, MOM.) The dress is very pretty, very flowy and A-line, and I scored the last in my size so I was SUPER-psyched, though I was highly suspicious and pawed and sniffed all over it to make sure there wasn't anything wrong with it. I can't think of any event swanky/trashy enough to warrant me trotting the girls out on display as this dress seems wont to do, so it will hang in my closet forever, gently swathed in plastic, except when I occasionally don it to feel a bit more glamorous as I sit on the couch with a bowl of potato chips to watch my stories. (Yes. I do this.)
Also, is it just me or does that model's body language indicate that she is either extremely pissed off or just really needs to...unclench. Something. Either way, she is doing the dress no justice. She's standing such that the A-line skirt unattractively resembles gaucho pants. WHICH I WOULD NEVER WEAR. My ass looks big enough without the assistance of gaucho pants, thanks. It's so fun to say, though. GOW-CHO PANTS. Hee.

I also scored this fun red sweater (also by Michael Kors) for about $9, which was approximately 90% off the retail price. There was also another MK sweater, red and white striped with jewelled buttons which was less than $9.

Sorry to bore ya'll, but discount shopping is like, my number one favorite activity in the whole world. All of the savings released a GIGANTIC rush of endorphins and I've been walking on air all day long. (Yes, yes, you needn't lecture me, I understand that CLOTHES DO NOT EQUAL LOVE, just let me bask in my endorphins, mkay?)

2007-05-08T11:19:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched Game 2 of the Bulls-Pistons series with my brother and his friends. I think his friends were really confused as to what I was doing there and why I was asking all kinds of dumb questions, so I had to explain that St. Louis is a HUGE sports city (moreso than even Chicago, in my opinion, because there are fewer other things to do) and I'm trying to "learn sports" before I move down there.

There was a time when I was addicted to basketball but that was in high school, and then I ignored it for about 8 years, and now I'm back. As one of the guys said, "It's incredible. You have this amazingly detailed knowledge of the game circa 1998, and then there's just this huge gap in your knowledge. It's like you have amnesia."

I was asking all kinds of questions and Shanmugam, who was intently concentrating on the game got all irritated because I was "ruining the experience" and told me to just go to ESPN and read a bunch of the basketball articles.

R: But isn't it more fun to just talk things through? I will remember it better.

S: NO THIS IS NOT FUN NOT FUN AT ALL.

And thus, I was prompted to use this old Amazon gift certificate I had to purchase the entire sports for dummies series.

HOHOPIS Update: I know this is getting obnoxious, but I was endlessly charmed by a text he sent me yesterday: "For an ice cream cone: What is the capital of North Dakota? No cheating." I thought about it and sent back the opinion that it was either Bismarck or Pierre, I could never keep those 2 straight, and I knew a great place on Michigan Avenue where he could make good on that offer. Text flirting! I love it.

2007-05-07T19:18:00.000-05:00

So I dragged myself and my computer to the library to work some thangs, and right after I had neatly arranged my Starbucks coffee, laptop, colored pens, stack of research articles, clipboard and cell phone, I received a phone call from another incoming intern to my program in St. Louis. I was curious and asked the innocent little first year medical student in the corral next to me to watch my things while I strolled outside for what I thought would be a short conversation.

When I returned ONE HOUR later, he shot me a really nasty look, packed up his stuff and left. I felt hugely guilty about making some guy I don't know sit there and watch my computer when he clearly planned to leave the library some time ago, but I am also very surprised by how sweet he was to actually stay there until I returned. I would have just left. Not out of spite, but probably because I would have forgotten that I was supposed to be watching something. Responsibility!

Nursing a Hangover

2007-05-06T22:35:00.000-05:00

Welcome back! To me! Much Advil, a 6 hour nap, and lots of sweatpants and couchtime later, I'm feeling almost normal!

Pictures! Eyes have been blacked out in a lame attempt to protect everyone's identity.

The evening started out innocently enough: all of us went to a bead shop and made necklaces for ourselves! It was actually quite fun and I was superexcited about my necklace and wished to put it on immediately.

And then -- oh my goodness.

And, we made Dr. Engaged wear a white tank top and collect guys' phone numbers. She ended up with 20 - nice job!

HOHOPIS Update: When we spoke today he said he was coming out to Chicago in a few weeks! I was filling Shanmugam in on the plans and he just said this seems like a terrible idea. I kind of also think we are headed for a place that is not good, but I'm not really sure if there's an alternative more graceful or subtle way to go about this. What am I going to do with him all weekend? Also, I feel like I might be a little low-rent for this guy. I've thought all along that we live in 2 totally different worlds, and today when he was telling me about his Porsche (!!!) and how he's saving for a boat I didn't really have much to contribute to the conversation. So I said something about how he might look cool in his Porsche but does it have butt-warmers like my Honda? At least I can make him laugh. Maybe he'll like having a long-distance clown.

Presenting a Thesis: Part WOO HOO

2007-05-05T02:10:00.000-05:00

So, it is done! I presented my thesis, and I wasn't too embarassed by my lack of knowledge, and everyone clapped, and then it was over! A 30-minute talk doesn't seem like much, but if you're deathly afraid of the public speaking as I am, it is quite arrythmia-inducing. Which reminds me - I will tell the story of me unceremoniously presenting my research to a committee of Very Smart Faculty Members around this time one year ago some other time. (Prepare to be dazzled.)

Anywho, I was sitting in my room going over my talk when Shanmugam walked into my room and casually asked me what I was eating for lunch. Instead of just answering the question I exploded into a 7-minute long tirade about FUCK POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS and isn't it enough that I turned the goddamn paper in already, why do I have to READ IT OUT LOUD to people now? FUCK THEIR QUESTIONS THEY SHOULD ALL BE ANSWERED IN MY PAPER WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LET ME FESTER IN MY SENIORITIS. Anyway he left and then I heard him calling out to me 30 minutes later, "So are you still all upset or are you ready to talk about lunch yet?"

After my talk I came home and napped, fretted more about moving to St. Louis, then had Killer Margaritas with some friends, returned home a little while ago to discover my very first call schedule in my inbox -- EEEEEEIUUUUUUUGHHHHHH. There's just something about seeing your name forlornly sitting in an empty calendar box designating that you are ward bitch for that 24 hour period that is just really disheartening. I should stop thinking so much about how I will make friends and where I'll go out in St. Louis and how I will find guys to date BECAUSE I WON'T HAVE A LIFE ANYWAY SO WHO CARES IF ST. LOUIS IS THE CRIME CAPITAL OF THE COUNTRY.

Tomorrow is our overnight Milwaukee bachelorette party mini-adventure! Details and incriminating photos to follow.

2007-05-04T01:53:00.000-05:00

As much as indentured servitude is going to suck, there's just something so wonderful and awesome about the fact that I WILL NEVER BE A FUCKING STUDENT AGAIN and it is just orgasmically sweeeet. I mean, the thought of having real, actual responsibility scares the living shit out of me, but knowing that I will NEVER HAVE TO STAY UP ALL NIGHT DOING HOMEWORK EVER AGAIN that is totally awesome. Ok, and yes, I know I will be taking call and staying up all night like every 4th night for the next 4 years so I should just suck it up now, just shut up.

And I know I am totally fixated on residency lately (I'm sure it must be just enthralling for ya'll to hear about all my conflicted inner angst); Shanmugam noted that when I talk nonstop about someone/thing, it either means I have a huge crush on them or am really, really anxious about it. I am not attracted to residency at all so that must mean I am really effin' stressed about it.

Anyway, my presentation isn't til tomorrow afternoon so I'm just adding a few slides and coming up with a script. I've got the TV on to keep me company and usually I'll just leave it on Lifetime, WE, or Oxygen, but tonight I left it on USA, for some reason, and they're showing The Cell, which oh holy mother of god they need to broadcast some sort of epilepsy warning before airing that shit. I was all typing happily on my computer and sipping my coffee and then I looked up and OH GOOD GOD WHAT IS THAT SCARY GOAT MAN DOING TO VINCE VAUGHN - is he...OH GOOD LORD. He is somehow slowly disembowling him and winding his entrails on some sort of rotisserie roaster. I am repulsed, yet can't look away.
I quickly flip back over to the Lifetime movie channel. At this time of night I much prefer feel-good women-oriented movies about plucky single moms overcoming adversity or darn-fool kids having unprotected sex and getting pregnant, or this gem, about a young woman who grows up with loving but drug-addicted parents and against all odds, goes to Harvard! Clearly, my version of sundowning is just turning into a hugely emotional sap who likes crappy TV.

2007-05-03T08:21:00.000-05:00

My 15-year old cousin discovered me on Facebook and left the following message on my wall:

OMGOSH...u have a faceboooookk! *spaz*

yay =)
ilu

Was I like this when I was her age?! I think, probably, yes, but I was such a super-nerd that I even took notes in complete sentences. Either way, I feel old. What really made me feel old was after dining out with 5 other people at the dining room at Kendall College last night. All of us got the prix fixe menu and we still needed a calculator to split the bill at the end of the night. I used to like, DO CALCULUS and whatnot. I used to know how to synthesize ozone! I can't do math anymore. (But I CAN recite Ranson's criteria forward and back! So useful!)

Anyway, I'm supposed to be presenting my thesis tomorrow, so I've been consistently parked in front of my computer getting ready for that. Hence the daily posting! You're welcome.

UPDATE: Just returned from getting my eyebrows done and was informed by my facebook newsfeed that my cousin (again, FIFTEEN) joined the "hey underaged facebookers - go back to myspace!" group. When you're 15, who is "underage"?

2007-05-02T09:56:00.000-05:00

I try not to think too much about medical malpractice because it leaves me curled up in the fetal position sucking my thumb for hours, but PandaBearMD had a totally over the top but hilarious look at the future of medicine, where doctors become pariahs, hospitals are burnt down, and lawyers get to wear white coats and become the most important purveyors of healthcare. Like I said, it's totally over the top, but there were some parts that made me laugh out loud. Check it out:

They had a trial of course, but he wasn’t exactly a model citizen and at that time lot of people still remembered how those doctors with their fancy medical education and their big fancy doctor words used to rub it in our faces that they knew more about our health than we did. The jury delivered a guilty verdict pretty quickly after he was hanged.

After selecting our court-appointed malpractice attorney, we went inside and ‘presented’…that’s genuine doctor talk kids and I’d better not hear you saying it in public… we presented ourselves to the young lady sitting at the counter. Waiting for medical service was technically against the law but it was unavoidable, seeing as our attorney had to inspect all of the hospital’s certifications. Sometimes they tried for a settlement right away and it was not uncommon to walk out of there with a couple of thousand bucks.

Against my attorney’s advice I waived my HIPAA rights so the doctor didn’t have to wear a blindfold and examine me in a darkened room through a one-way mirror.

My attorney was magnificent. He consulted with me at length before letting me answer any questions and I plead the fifth quite a few times on his advice, especially when it came to my past medical and travel history which he felt was irrelevant. Clearly, as my lawyer stated, the doctor was badgering the patient.

I told him I needed some antibiotics. He told me I had appendiwhatsities or something like that. And then the magic was gone and I saw that he was just another arrogant relic of the bad old days before they caught on that the customer was always right. We got a court order from a the vending machine back in the waiting room and I made the doctor write my prescription for antibiotics in Klingon just to show him who was in charge.

It's a funny if somewhat depressing read but I don't think such a future is a reality, because I can't think of a single lawyer who can deliver a baby or remove an appendix as well as a doctor can. This post was really popular on Panda's website because everything he's talking about is an extreme case of something we've all experienced. Patriarchy in medicine is an era long since gone; the new way to practice is by forming a partnership with the patient, informed consent every step of the way -- which is nothing but good, in my opinion. Patients SHOULD know about their healthcare and take ownership of and responsibility for their bodies. Unfortunately, as I learned on my medicine subI, there are no quick fixes for a lifetime of bad habits, and sometimes patients are upset that we can't offer them a surgery or short regimen of pills to "fix" their problems. Like...dude, you're sick. Don't trivialize your own health.

Also, as one of my attendings said, doctors are just too nice! We HAVE to be -- it's part of the hippocratic oath. A lawyer can turn down a case she thinks won't be lucrative. We can't turn away a patient who needs healthcare just because they have their attorney on speed-dial. When I went into medicine, I had no idea that the doctor-patient relationship could be so adversarial. We all want the same things here -- how can we not be on the same team? I just received a 500-page book and some DVDs (along with popcorn, heh) about "risk management" I'm supposed to churn through before residency starts. Ugh. I didn't sign up for this.

2007-05-01T09:24:00.000-05:00

I finally caved in and realized that, shockingly, no one offered to buy me the $300,000 condo in the Central West End of St. Louis that I so desired, so I picked out a one-bedroom apartment in a building within walking distance of the hospital. I am wary about living alone (Remember? Last year? When I lived alone? And that's where Reflux came from?) but decided it was the best option for my situation right now. (Also, as my mom said yesterday, "If you live alone it'll be easier for HOHOPIS to stay with you when he visits!" I like my mom's contingency planning. Live alone to facilitate hooking up with some dude you may or may not even meet!)

Also, St. Louis = not safe. There are several lovely places in CWE that are unlivable because it's just not safe to live any more than 2-3 minutes away from the hospital when you have to walk to work at 5 in the morning. Because of all the crime. And danger. Oh St. Louis. Your charm is NEVERENDING.

I also finally picked out a place for graduation dinner: India House on Grand. I'm glad that's all settled, because my parents kept calling me to FIND A PLACE WHERE WE CAN ALL EAT DINNER AFTER GRADUATION FOR GODSSAKES when they weren't even sure what date or time my graduation was in the first place. Also, they're not even sure how many people are coming to dinner or who they're inviting yet so I felt really dumb making a reservation for, "Uh...between 15 and 30 people, I think. Maybe around 22?" The menu is going to be prix-fixe so I went ahead and picked out all the dishes when I made the reservation, which -- yum. Ok, now I'm hungry for some carbs.

Biodata

2007-04-30T19:21:00.000-05:00

Thoughtful reader gabbiana asked:

Hee. Your mom is totally my mom. And apparently also Chick Pea's mom. THEY TRUST US SO MUCH.

But what is biodata?

Why, thank you for asking! "Biodata" is a well-known term in the South Asian American community for what is essentially your dating resume. It includes not only important CV-type stuff, but also information about your siblings and parents, like where they went to school and what they do; basically it tries to give a sense of how well-established not only the individual but his/her family are. When the lucky son/daughter reaches marryin' age, those biodata are flung far and wide to every distant cousin or friend your mom can think of, in the hopes that someone has a child of the opposite sex in the same approximate age bracket whom they wish to pimp out as well.

In addition, the biodata includes descriptions of one's hobbies ("Square reads, dances, and cooks full north Indian dinner!"), interests ("She loves to wear sarees and play classical Indian instruments"), and MEASUREMENTS. (Yes! Height and weight are STANDARD on a traditional biodata!) It may also include an unflattering photograph or two. "Cringingly awkward" is the name of the game here.

These biodata are usually concocted not by the subject, but by the subject's mother, which is why my hobbies would lead a potential mate to believe that I am Captain Dork. My mom claims not to have created a biodata for me but the fact that she was so eager to see HOHOPIS's biodata leads me to believe that there is surely some terrible document saved somewhere on our home computer as "Square's biodata for future life partner."

(Also, as I'm typing this, I remember this one time I was at a bar and this very attractive Caucasian guy and I were having a humorous conversation about our parents' disastrous efforts to set us up on dates, and I made the mistake of using the term "potential mate." I forget sometimes that ONLY MY MOTHER says things like "life partner" and "potential mate" because we talk SO MUCH ABOUT IT that they have started to feel like terms that can be tossed about casually. He gave me the weirdest look and I had to try and explain myself, and it was hugely embarassing.)

2007-04-30T11:09:00.000-05:00

Updates:

In response to questions I've been receiving about the photos of Reflux, it's not that my parents like to see him in awkward positions. He'll wander into an awkward position, attempt to extricate himself, find himself unable to move, bark for a while, then fall asleep.

A close friend who's getting married in June is having her bachelorette party this Saturday night so a few of us went down to the sex shops on Belmont to pick out party favors for her. I have never seen such a wide and dazzling assortment of dildos in my life.

Despite my hungoverness, I woke up at asscrack on Saturday and drove down to St. Louis to look at a few apartments. I need to just get over the fact that I lucked into a beautiful apartment in Chicago and I'll never live so nicely again. Much like I'm resigned to the fact that my social life will be nonexistent through intern year, I need to get used to the fact that I'll be living in a hovel.

And a good friend of mine in college who lives in NYC met a "really nice Indian guy" who's a friend of the guy she was dating at the time. He asked her if she had any Indian friends she could set him up with, so OF COURSE she sent him my picture and my phone number. She called me immediately after this encounter asking me to try and be open-minded and nice because "he owns his own place in Soho and is willing to have a long-distance relationship. Seriously, if he was Jewish I'd be all over it." (You know how I'm always complaining about how I'm turning into my mother? Turns out my friends are turning into my mother as well.)

I forgot all about it until he called on Saturday afternoon when I was with some friends in St. Louis and we actually had a nice (though somewhat awkward) conversation. He's from one of those big square states I've neve been to, which is a major plus -- I really gravitate towards people from the midwest because they're so down to earth. (Which is funny, because I myself am not usually described as "down to earth.") My conversation with HeOwnsHisOwnPlaceInSoho was cut short Saturday due to presence of others in the car and ensuing awkwardness, so I told him I'd call him back. Yesterday I left a voicemail for HOHOPIS and he called back 5 minutes later and we chatted for 45 minutes. It was actually rather pleasant - we talked about our childhoods in the rural midwest, listening to old, old Indian music on long car trips with the p-units, visiting India, how we'd both like to go on safari to Africa, and his love of guns and hunting.

Wait a minute. HIS LOVE OF GUNS AND HUNTING? I have done my fair share of shootin' rifles and handguns in a controlled environment at a shooting range, but this does not jive well with me. HOHOPIS is also 6 or 7 years older than me so he obviously has had way more life experiences, but our lives are very, very different. The world of finance is one that I just don't understand, and when he was talking about his job and his summershare in the Hamptons for the first time in my life I totally felt like a little country mouse. We ended the conversation with us talking about my impending move to St. Louis, him professing his love for "second tier American cities," me telling him that he might like St. Louis, and him saying that a good friend of his from business school recently moved to STL and "she and her husband love it so I should put you in touch with her and maybe come visit you all sometime."

Then he had to go because he was having some friends over for a barbecue and was all stoked to roll out some astroturf he had bought to lay out on the rooftop so they could simulate being on grass. I love dorky stuff like that, along with the fact that he's a self-proclaimed nerd, which I find really charming. I called Laura later to give her an update and she was very pleased with her matchmaking efforts. "Your mom is going to be so happy with me."

R: I know. She'll probably offer you Shanmugam's hand in marriage.

L: And I forgot to mention -- he dresses really nice too! Although, now that I've got you thinking he's all GQ when you meet him he'll probably be dressed like a dork. So it's probably best not to expect too much from him when it comes to clothes.

R: Giggling. Will do.

I have the distinct feeling that HOHOPIS wants to get serious fast; not necessarily with me, but that he is definitely looking for a long-term relationship to start, like, yesterday. I mentioned it to my mother and she became SUPEREXCITED.

R: Mom, Laura set me up with a friend of a friend and we've talked on the phone a few times. He's educated and seems nice and funny, but he lives in NYC.

M: Do you have his biodata?

R: Uh, no, I don't have his biodata.

Mom: He should come visit you in Chicago before you go. You know this city and could show him around!

R: I'm moving away in less than a month, mom. I think we should just talk and see what happens.

M: You should invite him here for graduation and then we can all meet him together!

R: Barely containing laughter. Mom, you know I love you but THAT IS APESHIT CRAZY.

M: You should really try and meet him before residency starts though.

R: I think so too, and he kept talking about meeting, so maybe we'll work something out. I don't want to force anything though. Just let me be myself, ok?!

M: I DO LET YOU BE YOURSELF AND THAT IS WHY YOU ARE STILL SINGLE.

2007-04-27T12:38:00.000-05:00

"Square, please call me as soon as possible about your graduation requirements." is not an email you wish to see in your inbox 3 weeks before graduation.

Also: Reflux update! He's livin' it up with my parents. My mom takes more pictures of that dog than she has of any of her human children:

And, inspired by Dr. Pea and her inspirational words about her momma, I really, really miss my mom.
Last year our local high school called and asked her to give a mehndi demonstration to the art class, and the newspaper came out and took a picture (it doesn't take much to pass for "news" in Centralia). I love this picture not only because it's a candid of my mom but also because it really captures her personality. My mom and I are VERY different...she is very artsy-craftsy and very creative with her hands, where I like to order things out of catalogues and use that time I saved to watch TV. So early Happy Mother's Day mom! Again, uh, apologies for the excruciatingly long time I took exiting out of your womb. (Hey, have I ever been on time to anything?)

And last night (after a very ho-hum date with a guy who JUST GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE LAST YEAR -- Shanmugam said I was basically going out on a date with him or one of his friends, which was exactly what it felt like) I went with some friends to the opening of a new Middle Eastern restaurant, Alhambra. It was modeled after the Alhambra palace in Spain, and it was GORGEOUS - there were hookahs sitting on every tiled tabletop, and the walls and arched doorways were all ornately decorated. In the back was a band playing Arabic music along with an incredible belly dancer Suhaila. We scored a table so we could have appetizers and drinks to watch the show. She was such a good dancer that I couldn't take my eyes off of her. When she left the stage to dance on the dancefloor alone several men kept showering her with bills; they looked like $1s, $5s, and I thought I saw $20s too but I couldn't be sure. There was so much money on the ground someone had to come sweep it all up into a large sack with a broom. Also, the food was awesome - we stuck to the basics, hummus and falafel but everything just tasted really fresh and well-made. Lori (who is currently on ob/gyn and had to go into work at SIX AM today) wanted to stay late, but we were there til 1 am which is plenty late on a Thursday night for this grandma.

UPDATE: Turns out I signed up for an elective rotation which I never bothered to show up for. Responsibility! The registrar just asked me to go officially drop it so it would stop looking like I had failed the rotation.

2007-04-23T13:26:00.000-05:00

Ok, back from the wedding with DQ! It was a beautiful disaster, which doesn't surprise me at all. I mean, it was a fun time, until our personalities got in the way. Needless to say, we probably didn't part on the best of terms, but I'm sure in the next 3-6 months one of us will call the other for another, similar event, and we'll repeat the whole thing again, because WE ARE MASOCHISTS.

Also, my parents sent me a picture of Reflux being his usual graceful, agile self:

DQ: We do NOT treat you right

2007-04-21T20:16:00.000-05:00

Three days ago DQ called and told me the wedding we're going to together is tomorrow, Sunday, and not, in fact, today, Saturday, as he had told me previously. THANKS FOR THE INFO, DQ. He came in town yesterday for the bachelor party and called to confirm the scheduling, which is also when he told me that he had accidentally left his suit and tie at home in Iowa. It's pretty funny. I don't really care what he wears but he called today and said another friend from Iowa who's attending the wedding will bring the suit.

Also, I turned in the final draft of my thesis. (I could not wait to get that sucker off my hands.) Rather than attending the rehearsal dinner tonight with DQ (he's not in the wedding party but he is a close friend) I'm at home writing up my research from last year. I would complain, but after medical school it feels like a huge privilege to be able to stay home in my sweat pants with the TV (Hellooooooo Lifetime:Television for Women!) on doing work on my own schedule. Also, I'm supposed to call DQ tomorrow morning to make sure he stirs from whatever puddle of beer he fell asleep in to come pick me up.

And I bought a dress to wear to graduation! See:

2007-04-21T16:05:00.000-05:00

Grace was over and we were discussing more about the partial birth abortion ban. It's such an infrequently done medical procedure (it comprises like 0.17% of all terminations as of 2000, according to the Guttmacher Institute) and yet, the ENTIRE ABORTION DEBATE has come to surround it. It is SO MOTHERFUCKING DUMB. It's a rare procedure done under extreme circumstances, yet we've spent so much time, money, energy, and emotion in the sturm and drang over this issue that I don't even think the average person understands that WE NEVER DO IT. In all the graphic "partial birth abortion" descriptions I've heard, NOT ONCE has anyone bothered to distinguish it from a plain ol' run of the mill 1st trimester termination, which are a dime a dozen, and in the end people who opposed choice opposed partial birth abortions as a knee jerk reaction. I am so afraid that now no one will be able to distinguish between the two and it's just a matter of time before ALL terminations are outlawed.

I just want to make sure that everyone understands that:
1) There are no maternal health exceptions to this rule.
2) Physicians who perform this procedure now will face criminal charges and up to 2 years in prison even if they are acting to preserve maternal life.
3) Many rights that were guaranteed by Roe v. Wade have been repealed.

Why was this such long, drawn-out, expensive disaster that garnered so much media attention happening in the first place? Why can't we focus our energy on things that ACTUALLY FUCKING MATTER like maybe trying to extract ourselves from Iraq because our troops don't want to be there anymore???? Or trying to figure out a way to ensure that the 40 million uninsured people in this country can receive consistent healthcare?? Or maybe stress preventive medicine and education straight from the getgo so everyone will stop getting obese and having coronary artery disease and we stop pouring billions of dollars down the drain treating illnesses that may have been preventable in the first place??

Or HERE'S a novel concept: instead of "abstinence only" education, which this country has spent almost a billion dollars on in the last 10 years and HAD NO IMPACT AT ALL ON NUMBER OF SEXUAL PARTNERS, SAFE SEX PRACTICES, OR NUMBER OF THOSE PRACTICING ABSTINENCE, how about we try to prevent women (who, *gasp!* are going to have sex whether you tell them it's ok or not) from feeling like abortion is their only option AND TEACH SAFE SEX? (PS: Hey President Bush! Where was the big press conference when that study was complete? Why was it released quietly on the internet without so much as a peep anywhere else? Is it because it was DEAD MOTHERFUCKING WRONG AND PROBABLY THE DUMBEST IDEA ANYONE'S EVER HAD? No way! Surely the NEXT attempt at legislating morals will be the first successful one in the history of mankind!)

Why do people who have ABSOLUTELY NO UNDERSTANDING of medicine get to legislate it?? Women and their physicians should not have to make difficult, personal medical decisions based on radical politics!!!!! WHY DID PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BECOME THE CIRCUS HOOPLA THAT IT DID IN THE GODDAMN FIRST PLACE?? WHY?? I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!! STUPID ADMINISTRATION!!!! AAAAARGHHHHHHH!!!!

*Whew* Sorry, just, uh, had to get that out of my system. Carry on now.

(And in other news, my cousin delivered a little baby girl today!!! I generally do like people and babies. I am happy and excited for her.)

Multifunctional VaJayJay

2007-04-20T18:30:00.000-05:00

Has everyone seen this:

Doctors in New York have removed a woman’s gallbladder with instruments passed through her vagina, a technique they hope will cause less pain and scarring than the usual operation, and allow a quicker recovery. The technique can eliminate the need to cut through abdominal muscles, a major source of pain after surgery.

My most recent career aspiration is to do a laparoscopic fellowship after residency and become a minimally invasive gyne surgeon but this is just plain weird. I have many, many questions about this procedure and would love to see the tape. It says here that they cut through the wall of the vagina to access the peritoneal cavity. Do they use ports like we do for laparoscopy? How do they prevent post-op peritonitis? Do they just sew up the vaginal wall externally?

I also see in the article that the inspiration for this surgery, the first of its kind, came from a 2004 tape of a surgery in India where a woman's appendix was removed with a scope through her mouth. I guess I'm...uh, proud of the medical innovations happending in "the motherland?" Seeing any part of the intestine being fetched through the mouth makes me feel a little nauseated though. It also reminds me of that South Park episode where Cartman discovers he can poop out of his mouth.

That is all. Discuss amongst yourselves.

You're Really Starting to Look Desperate

2007-04-20T15:37:00.000-05:00

I'm at the library working on thesis revisions and I just received my third email from a residency program asking me why I did not choose to come to their residency program. I think the Match kinda sucks and while a part of me hates that we all have to buy into this intricate game of sorority rush (which, let's face it, that's what the Match is) when we're all grown-ass adults and THIS IS MY DOGGONE CAREER we're talking about and not just some sorority, I guess a good part about the Match is that you never have to write a break-up letter. You make a list, they make a list, hopefully you and the program meet up high on those lists, and voila! You've entered indentured servitude at the program of your choice. So it's weird when some programs email you wondering what made you rank another program's list over their's. I know they do it to improve their interview day to ensure they'll get their top picks next year, but it's one of those awkward-yet-flattering things none the same. I'm actually happy to answer their questions though, because I had certain criteria I looked for in a program, interviewed at all the programs fulfilling those criteria (and who offered me interviews), then made my ultimate decision based on proximity to my family. And that's a nice, non-personal, "it's not you it's me" way of dealing with it.

On the other hand, 2 days before the match I received an email from a program I had already been rejected from rejecting me yet again. I KNOW, assholes. I'm sure it was some technical error, but STILL. There is no need to reject me twice. I got the message the first time.

SWEEEEEET DUUUUUDE

2007-04-20T12:36:00.000-05:00

The other big news that happened while I was on my carefree journey through America was the Supreme Court upholding the partial birth abortion ban. I AM PISSED. I'm going to let Ruth tell it like it is:

In an alarming decision, the Court today reverses the judgments other federal courts have uniformly made. Today’s decision refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously. The Court’s opinion tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman’s health.

The Court asserts that its ruling furthers the Government’s interest in “promoting fetal life.” But the Act scarcely furthers that interest, for it targets only a method of abortion. The woman may abort the fetus, so long as her doctor uses another method, one her doctor judges less safe for her. The Court further pretends that its decision protects women. Women might come to regret their physician-counseled choice of an intact D&E and suffer from “[s]evere depression and loss of esteem,” the Court worries. Notably, the solution the Court approves is not to require doctors to inform women adequately of the different procedures they might choose, and the risks each entails. Instead, the Court shields women by denying them any choice in the matter. This way of protecting women recalls ancient notions about women’s place in society and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited.

Her entire dissent can be found here.

I am shocked. I honestly think this has less to do with personal opinion and more to do with bipartisan politics; Dems vs Republicans; liberals vs conservatives. When will people let go of this black and white notion and realize that allowing D&Es is just GOOD HEALTHCARE? Why does it have to be about politics? Why must people be pigeonholed into "radicals" or "liberals" when this is about a MEDICAL PROCEDURE THAT IS STANDARD OF CARE. Why can't it simply be about providing the best possible treatment for women? AAARRRRRGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-04-20T11:36:00.000-05:00

Also, I'm looking out my bedroom window and I can see all the flags in the city are at half-mast. It's late, but I have to say it: my thoughts and prayers go out to anyone whose family or friends were hurt on Monday. It's so heartbreaking. Jagdish isn't even a college student but he lives close enough to Virginia Tech that my first instinct was to call and make sure he and everyone he knew were ok; I can't even imagine the fear and anxiety the students' families were experiencing on Monday.

2007-04-20T10:39:00.000-05:00

I'm back from my cross-country bonanza! And now the number of states I've visited is:

create your own personalized map of the USA

So you may have noticed that I'm actually missing some states here; that is because I realized that the Ozark Mountains, site of many a traumatic family vacation, is actually in Missouri, a mere 1.5 hrs from home; not Mississippi as I previously believed. Probably because that car ride sandwiched in between my brothers having a farting contest probably felt like it was 8 hours long. Also, I realized that while Jagdish actually lives in Virginia, I have never visited him there, and I really thought I had. I think I was confused by the fact that I live with Shanmugam fulltime, and that's enough sibling exposure to me for the both of them.

So there will be pictures to follow, and they will be spectacular, and you and I will both wonder why I thought these stupid rock formations were worth taking 200 pictures of yet there are no pictures of any humans, and then all will be well.

Also, the longest leg of our trip, from Denver to Iowa City through BEAUTIFUL AND EXCITING NEBRASKA was so beautiful and exciting that I actually made Gaya read outloud from Cosmo to me. Did you know that the speed of semen during ejaculation is 28 mph? How do you suppose they measured that? (I'm not trying to rag on Nebraska. It was as beautiful and exciting as southern Illinois, where I'm from; that is to say, it's as flat as a pancake and the highway is one straight line. You could turn on cruise control and take a nap.)

In the meantime, I'm working on thesis revisions and hopefully writing up another scientific article this weekend.

2007-04-15T01:45:00.000-05:00

I am so with Calvin on this one.

(Courtesty gocomics.com)

IT SUCKS

2007-04-13T15:51:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! I'm still working on this damn thing. Hopefully I'll get it done tonight. I have one major obstacle to overcome before I can just start freestyle writing -- I have to master this software system for one simple data analysis I have to do. Ya'll, it is PAINFUL. A major reason I went into medicine was specifically because it's one of the few fields where it's acceptable to be compu-tarded. I am scared of computers and programming. Scared of and bored by. Mostly bored. (Seriously though, it took me a year and half to figure out how to add links to this page.)

Also, there's nothing like being the ONLY ONE left working on something when everyone else is free and clear. It's like being the only sober one when everyone else is obnoxiously drunk, like say for instance if one of your patients infected you with tuberculosis and you had to be on prophylactic isoniazid all through your 4th year of medical school, your match, and your own graduation from medical school and you couldn't drink a drop of alcohol. (It happened to my older brother. I've seen him in better moods.)

I have a friend who's finished all his medical school requirements and is basically drinking until he gets his degree. He KNOWS I'm slaving and still saw fit to mock me last night with a phone call at 1am:

My Drunk Friend: Square!! How goes the thesis?

R: Eeeeeeiiiiuuuughhhhh...it sucks but I'm getting there.

MDF: Keep crackin', what you have to say is important.

R: Flattered. Aw, man, that is SO NICE! Thanks!That is exactly what I needed to hear.

MDF: SO IMPORTANT. So are you publishing in JAMA or the Journal?

R: Uh, well, no plans to publish yet.

MDF: Because your thesis is going TO CHANGE THE WORLD.

R: Smart ass.

MDF: Sounds like it's time for someone to get back to winning the Nobel Prize.

I'm done with my thesis!

2007-04-11T17:49:00.001-05:00

Ha ha, I'm just playin', ya'll. No one's done with anything over here. Instead of doing work, I thought it might be more fun to track where all I've been in the US!

Hm. There seems to be a distinct pattern of "big, rectangular-shaped states out west" that are missing. In any case, I intend to further culture myself when, beginning this Sunday, Gaya and I roadtrip from LA to Chicago! We decided to stay on Rte 66 for part of it, then switch over to the faster, multiple-laned highways for the rest of it, because I will die if I'm late to the wedding I'm going to with DQ. I'm a loser.

2007-04-11T09:40:00.000-05:00

See my little weather pixie over on the left? It is indeed the middle of April and snowing in downtown Chicago. I refuse to walk all the way to the library in such injustice.

2007-04-10T00:41:00.000-05:00

Team SPWAT (Square Peg Writes a Thesis) hit another snafu today: we woke up with the snuffles and spent all day lying in bed surrounded by used Kleenex and ibuprofen. I blame my younger brother. He was on spring break a few weeks ago and roadtripped with his friends to South Dakota, where he spent the last night sitting in a sweat lodge COLLECTING WATER AND AIRBORNE BACTERIA TO BRING HOME AND INFECT ME WITH. Anyway, he came home and felt sicky all week until I finally scrounged up a tongue depressor and looked down his throat and saw something to this effect:

And it sucks that he has strep throat, but check out my education paying for itself!

There was also a span of several minutes where he really scared me into thinking he might have meningitis. As part of my physical exam I also tested him for nuchal rigidity (neck stiffness) just for the heck of it and he yelped in pain when I flexed his head forward:

R: Seriously alarmed. OMIGOD. Does that really hurt?

S: Yes...? What does that mean?

R: We are going to the ER RIGHT NOW. Rushes off to get coat. Have your headaches been bad? Are you experiencing photosensitivity? You didn't even have a fever! YOU'RE GETTING A SPINAL TAP THEN WE HAVE TO TRACK DOWN EVERYONE WHO WAS IN THAT SWEAT LODGE WITH YOU.

S: Oh wait, I forgot! Last night I fell asleep on the couch and my neck has been stiff all day. Bobs head forward a few times. Yeah, it actually hurts less the more I keep doing it. Keeps bobbing head. Actually, this feels pretty good.

R: Eiiiuuughhh, next time you exhibit symptoms of a life-threatening disease can you make sure it's not a false alarm? I almost changed out of my sweatpants for this.

Anyway, I had a doctor friend call in a script for antibiotics for his strep and now he's feeling better, but I'm starting to feel my own ears throb with otitis media. Luckily, my dog had otitis media a couple of months ago and I still have a bottle of his ear drops lying around, so I've just been using those. My medical "knowledge" at work!

I'm hanging out in my room now trying to get some more work done and I've got the soundtrack to Wicked playing. It's very inspirational! All

It's time to TRYYYYYYYY deFYYYYYYing GRAVityyyyyyyyy, just You and AYYYYYYYEEEE deFYYYYYYYing GRAVityyyyyyyy

and occasionally in between my show tunes I'll hear Lil' Jon and the Eastside Boyz:

I'M FROM DA A SO WE LEANIN' AND ROCKIN' SNAPPIN' MY FINGAZ
THEN REACHIN' FOR MY GLOCK BITCH! REPPIN' MY BLOCK BITCH!

I think my upstairs neighbors might be having a party. It's a little unnerving. Crunk music is SO SO FUN when you're drunk and so straight-up dumb when you're sober.

I also called DQ a couple of days ago. In times of stress I tend to go reaching for support from the worst possible sources. I accidentally blurted out that I missed him and then foolishly asked if he missed me too.

DQ: Silence.

R: Hm. Guess that's a no, huh?

DQ: Well...I mean, we still talk twice a week. It's hard to miss someone you're so connected to. Also, we're going to see each other in like two weeks.

As much as DQ drives me up the wall with what I perceive as mixed messages, he is actually always brutally honest. I look at my previous frustrations with him and I'm starting to realize that I was unhappy with what he was saying; not what he wasn't saying. Could I have possibly been in denial all along? Yikes. Ok, I must get back to work before I delve into the black hole of Why Square Peg Fails at Relationships.

Progress Update. Or, PU.

2007-04-07T16:58:00.000-05:00

Ok everyone. Team "Square Peg Writes a Thesis" suffered a minor setback last night. We may have gone out and been coerced into doing shots. And then slept until noon today. Fear not! We are presently back at the hospital collecting the rest of our data which we will then spend all night intoxicated by, doing all sorts of fun activities like "Mann-Whitney U tests" and "Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests"! Oh, THE GLAMOUR.

2007-04-06T02:20:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday, everyone! I'm emailing half my manuscript to my PI as soon as I've given it the once-over then attacking my MPH research tomorrow. It is NON-STOP FUN over here! NON. STOP.

Also, I would like to direct your attention to an article I turned up doing some preliminary research for the Discussions section of my MPH research paper:

17:	Dudish SA, Hatsukami DK.	Related Articles, Links
	Gender differences in crack users who are research volunteers. Drug Alcohol Depend. 1996 Sep;42(1):55-63. PMID: 8889404 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

You put the word "crack" in a scientific setting and it will always brighten my day. Like herpes! Oh...STDs and crack. How you bring me so much levity and joy. I am so going to the right city for the right line of work!

	Henderson DJ, Boyd C, Mieczkowski T.	Related Articles, Links
	Gender, relationships, and crack cocaine: a content analysis. Res Nurs Health. 1994 Aug;17(4):265-72. PMID: 8036274 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I smell short fiction all over this article. Seriously, I would read this kind of stuff just for fun.

:	Andersen MK, Field RA, Riley ML, Crouse JD, Bailey DG.	Related Articles, Links
	Factors influencing difficulty of removing pelts from lamb carcasses. J Anim Sci. 1991 Dec;69(12):4690-5. PMID: 1808165 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I don't know what this is or why it would come up in a literature search for "pregnant" and "emergency department."

20:	Booth RE.	Related Articles, Links
	Gender differences in high-risk sex behaviours among heterosexual drug injectors and crack smokers. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse. 1995 Nov;21(4):419-32. PMID: 8561095 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I don't know why but "crack smokers" in a scientific journal is even funnier.

Also, my mom took Reflux for a grooming today. I am a BIG FAN of hairbows and if that dog is anywhere near my sight, he is gettin' some hairbows. My mom refusees to let the groomers affix hairbows to his head because she thinks hairbows might "make him confused" but I say HE IS ALREADY DEMENTED. Put the hairbows on, say I! Because they make me happy and he won't know the difference anyhow.
(My dad hates dogs and the first time I brought Reflux home he made me keep the poor little guy in a laundry basket anytime he was around. Anyway, they're BFF now so everyone's cool.)

This was really the best you could come up with?

2007-04-05T10:45:00.000-05:00

Last night as part of my procrastination routine I set about beautifying my blog which involved posting all the links I've been meaning to get up there for months now, as well as setting up a technorati profile. I wanted to see what other blogs linked here and I was surprised to see that one of them was a Myspace blog of someone I don't think I know. The blog was set to private so I couldn't look at it but on technorati you can look at their last 5 posts. I was half shocked and half amused to see that this hooker had copied my posts, sometimes word for word, onto her blog. Then I thought maybe she had just copied certain posts of mine into hers, because she had linked to me, right? (I'm a bit of a megalomaniac.) But then I looked closer (clearly I WAS TRYIN' TO KILL SOME TIME) and realized she had changed key elements of my posts to fit onto her blog.

Exhibit A (I tried to bold some of the changes she made):

HOT! HOT! HOT!

145 days ago

So two weekends ago, my mom made some chai tea and I got really excited to drink it before letting it cool down: Mom: Have some hot chai! S: Yay! Lifts cup to lips and pours. M: Wait!! I just took it off the stove. S: Experiencing unbelievable pain as chai, at approximate temperature of 917 degrees F bubbles on mucose membranes of mouth. Seriously, there was probably steam coming out of my ears. HOT!!!! HOT! HOT! Owowowowowowow. Can't think straight with a mouthful of lava and just swallows ...

My post:

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

My problems are so effin' dumb.
Over the weekend my mom made some chai and I got really excited to drink it before letting it cool down:

Mom: Have some hot chai!

R: Yay! Lifts cup to lips and pours.

M: Wait!! I just took it off the stove.

R: Experiencing unbelievable pain as chai, at approximate temperature of 917 degrees F bubbles on mucosal membranes of mouth. Seriously, there was probably steam coming out of my ears. HOT!!!! HOT! HOT! Owowowowowowow. Can't think straight with a mouthful of lava and just swallows. Chai sears esophageal mucosa on the way down. Oh my Gaw! Ih ith ho, ho, hoh! Falls out of chair and rolls around in agony.

Exhibit B:

Tonight at the Gym

146 days ago

Tonight at the gym the girl on the next treadmill started clapping when she finished her run. It was a little strange but she looked so proud of herself that I clapped too. Like, Good for you, treadmill gal! We should all support each other! We are sisters! And I thought we were totally sharing this moment til I realized that she was watching a game on the t.v. and was clapping because the team had just won. (!!) Well I'll clap to that too -- Yay (for whoever won)!! lol ...

My post:

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

I Can Play the Guitar Like a Motherfuckin' Riot

Tonight at the gym the girl on the next treadmill started clapping when she finished her run. It was a little strange but she looked so proud of herself that I clapped too. Like, Good for you, treadmill gal! We should all support each other! We are sisters! And I thought we were totally sharing this moment til I realized that she was watching the World Series and was clapping because the White Sox had just won. (!!) Well I'll clap to that too -- Yay Chicago!!

Exhibit C:

Big Truck Balls

146 days ago

I have a confession. I have really bad road rage. (This probably isn't surprising to those of you that know me.) Like, REALLY bad. This past weekend I was driving on I-95 and by the time I reached my destination my voice was hoarse from all the screaming I was doing sitting by myself in my car. (Guns don't cause violence. BAD DRIVING cause violence...there actually is a point to this: I recently watched a very compelling documentary entitled "The Science of Traffic Jams" on the Discovery Channel, ...

My post:

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Big Truck Balls
I have a confession. I have really bad road rage. (This probably isn't surprising to those of you that know me.) Like, REALLY bad.

This past weekend I drove to Chicago and by the time I reached the Quad Cities my voice was hoarse from all the screaming I was doing sitting by myself in my car. (Guns don't cause violence. BAD DRIVING cause violence...there actually is a point to this: I recently watched a very compelling documentary entitled "The Science of Traffic Jams" on the Discovery Channel, and discovered scientific evidence backing up what I had already known --

Like...who does this?! I'm not shocked that one would plagiarize another's work, but I am surprise Shauna-licious would take MINE. Shauna - my stories suck. I really like my life but it isn't glamorous or enthralling and I write a lot about my family, my friends, my dog and work. I like documenting things in excruciating detail and I really like being able to keep those who are far away from me up to speed on what's happening in my neck of the woods. The point is that those stories are my own. They are specific to an Indian-American woman from a small town in the southern midwest who's now getting ready to graduate from medical school. My point is -- WRITE YOUR OWN SHIT. (Also, did you read that chai post? I SUFFER FOR MY ART. Don't trivialize MY SUFFERING by passing it off as your own.)

The Creative Process: Prepare to Be Dazzled

2007-04-04T18:51:00.000-05:00

As some of you may know I currently have two big projects keeping me in Chicago right now: the first is my MPH thesis, and the second is a manuscript I'm writing up of more research I did last year. I want to get the first half of the manuscript done and sent back to my PI, before I finish up the data analysis for my thesis. I've written a 22-page paper before entirely overnight so I'm not too worried about my thesis. My rough draft is due in a week and I've got 5 pages done. Not to fear! A lot of people say they do their best work under pressure; I take it one step further and say I only work under pressure.

My writing process is a little different from most though. It involves A LOT of internet surfing, stalking my elementary schoolmates on Google, staring at my teeth in the mirror, calling all my friends to see what they're up to, scrutizining everyone's picture albums on Facebook, baking a chocolate cake (I did that last night!), checkin' out the sales on Bluefly, and finally, polishing off the cake, lying facedown on the floor moaning for 3 hours wondering how I got myself into this mess and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I WILL NEVER PROCRASTINATE AGAIN BECAUSE IT SUCKS SO SO HARD before finally rising, phoenix-like from my toxic nadir of unproductive slothful uncleanliness and embarking on a Spartan-esque regime of research, typing, and efficient thoughtfulness before reaching a point of THIS STUPID THING IS 30 PAGES LONG PLEASE JUST TAKE IT I AM SO SICK OF LOOKING AT IT AND THINKING ABOUT IT AND EVEN BEING IN ITS PRESENCE MAKES ME NAUSEATED.

When I lived in my sorority house the procrastination REALLY got bad. I remember participating in a Sunday night movie marathon with the other girls when I had a 15-page paper due for my Asian-American History class the next day. The funny thing was one of the girls in the house was actually in the class, and I remember her coming downstairs to the living room where we were all being couch potatoes and proofreading her paper while she watched Centerstage with us. I was still in my pre-writing/paper-planning phase which usually involved me trying to think of a paper topic that could be adequately researched between the books owned by myself and my roommate and thus would not necessitate me leaving the house to go the library for sources. I marvelled at this wonder. I have never proofread a paper. (Unless spellcheck counts.) Generally I have to muster such concentrated effort to finish the paper in the short amount of time I give myself that I never even want to look at it again.

So...yeah, that's all kind of what I'm up to right now. If anyone is interested in being my life coach I make a GREAT chocolate cake.

2007-04-04T13:00:00.000-05:00

Gaya was over a few days ago and I was lamenting the whole DQ situation to her all over again. (Ya'll, I am TRIPPIN' and I know it) when he happened to call. He was likely calling in response to some really drunk text messages I probably kept sending him all weekend. Drunk texting always feels like such a good idea when your brain is all nocturnal; it certainly feels smarter than leaving some slurry voicemail telling someone how much you miss them and asking what they're wearing at 3 in the morning but in reality it might be worse. The text is actually saved to your outbox leaving you wondering what sort of message exactly you were trying to convey with "HEA i! WUSH DRYHK WUT u DIUG?>" when you go through all of your texts the next morning. (And, oh yeah, brain? WTF? You won the 8TH GRADE SPELLING BEE (I still proudly display my blue ribbon. I'm a winner!). Shouldn't there at least be SOME residual spelling skillz even when your neuron synapses are a little smothered by ethanol?)

At least with the voicemail you never actually have to listen to yourself (THANK GOD). On the other hand, the lucky guy on the receiving end of that phone call now has a priceless gem he can replay for himself and his friends until the next time you see them and all they can think about is how they can get you drunk enough to call one of them and sing "Goodbye Horses" on the message. (WHATEVER, I had like, JUST SEEN Silence of the Lambs that very day.)

2007-04-03T14:06:00.000-05:00

Also, today is Mama Peg's birthday!! I called her promptly at midnight, lest I forget AGAIN this year, which woke her up and probably pissed her off, but woo hoo now I'm not the bad kid that forgot!! So last year, I just totally, completely forgot about my mom's birthday, and in fact had no idea that I'd even forgotten it until a week later when I called home and my mom refused to talk to me and I had no idea why until my dad reminded me. Yeah...she was not too happy. Anyway, this year I got a nasty little email from Jagdish yesterday reminding me "not to forget mom's birthday again this year, especially because I know you're doing nothing, so if you forget again...you just suck." Oh, the family harmony!

And I was thinking about the opposite; like, how would I feel if my parents forgot my birthday? To be totally truthful, it probably wouldn't happen because I'm just such a frickin' loudmouth about everything that everyone would be fully aware of the birthday countdown and my mom would of course take this opportunity to remind me that she had really hoped I "would be engaged" by the time I was 25 (LIKE WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO IMPRESS YOU PEOPLE AND EVEN IF I SOMEHOW DID SCROUNGE UP SOME DUDE WOULDN'T YOU PROBABLY HATE HIM ANYWAY??? Erm...sorry, a little stream of consciousness there) and I would have anxiety about turning a quarter of a century old, and I pretty much hate birthdays anyway because some extremely pessimistic part of my dad's personality was unfortunately passed on to me so when it comes to birthdays I'm all "meh, you're just one year closer to dying," along with a heavy dose of "THINGS ARE CHANGING AND I CANNOT DEAL I must go lock myself in my room for a few days" especially because the only really monumental birthdays have been 16 (DRIVING = A BIG DEAL) and 21 and maybe 18 if I'm really feeling socially conscious, and those are all over and done with so now I'm just getting old. And so are my ovaries, according to my mom.

So, no, people don't forget my birthday mostly because I'm obnoxious and can't shut up about "all my birthday ANXIETY and EMOTIONAL UPHEAVAL and DISTRESS." And I really can't imagine my own mother forgetting my birthday because when I was younger anytime I got into big trouble (most notably the time she had a friend over who left her keys in the ignition of the car and my 4 year old self crawled in and backed that car down the driveway and into a tree) all she could talk about was how she LABORED FOR THIRTY HOURS TO BRING ME INTO THIS WORLD and this is how I repay her?? (An unusual parenting method, yes, but it did scare me out of ever wanting to have children, so I guess they did something right) and it sounds so horrible that I can't imagine ever forgetting an event so awful. Happy Birthday mom! Sorry my delivery was so traumatic. You're the best :)

2007-04-03T10:22:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend I finally saw Wicked! The book was a really dark, dismal complicated affair so I wondered how it would be adapted for theater. The playwriters did an excellent job condensing the story line down to a bite-size, understandable chunk though many of the relationships were totally different. I did like it, though, and the soundtrack was amazing, so I was really happy when Gaya bought me the CD yesterday. Probably because she was tired of me trying to keep singing the songs when I couldn't really remember the tune or the words, and the sound of my singing sounds like a wounded moose.

I would like to say, though, that much as there are height minimums to riding roller coasters, there should really be a head circumference restriction to theater-goers. The man sitting in front of me had THE WORLD'S LARGEST HEAD, both in height and width. We had pretty good seats in the Orchestra section but I had to keep twisting my neck around to see around this guy's head. I didn't figure there was any point in informing him he had a large head, because what crunches can you do to reduce your head, anyway?

Also, I was walking down Michigan Ave yesterday and some people were handing out free bottles of Bawls. Heh. Yep. I got some Bawls.

I lied.

2007-03-30T00:27:00.000-05:00

Ok ya'll. I'm secretly thrilled that DQ asked me to his friend's wedding. Although, as he did unceremoniously point out after issuing the invite, "Well...uh, the wedding's in Chicago, and you're, like, already there." I harbor no delusions of DQ and I headed for a fairytale ending, but we occasionally have conversations like the following which make me wonder why WE CAN'T JUST GET OVER OUR DYSFUNCTIONAL SHIT AND WORK IT OUT because we both share the same extremely immature (and probably not-very-funny) sense of humor:

DQ: So did I tell you I've decided not to date anyone until I leave this city? I don't want to get attached to someone and complicate my plans after graduation.

R: Are you kidding? You won't graduate for another 3 years at LEAST.

DQ: I'm totally serious.

R: But won't you get lonely? What about when you just want to snuggle with someone?

DQ: Uh...I haven't figured that part out yet.

R: Continuing. I mean, sometimes it's just nice to have another warm body in bed with you.

DQ: Isn't that what hookers are for?

R: Ha!! Sounds like a great plan, especially if you're cool with catching a potpourri of STDs.

DQ: When will you be able to write prescriptions? You can just keep a steady stream of ceftriaxone and doxycycline coming my way. And penicillin for when I catch syphilis!

This was followed by a lively stretch of conversation about genital warts....and, in my nasty little world, any conversation with herpes is an A+ conversation!

DQ also sent me this picture of him getting dressed in his Halloween costume several months ago. I've tried my best not to violate anyone's privacy on this blog, but I really, really adore this picture, so I blocked out his face and put it up. Although, I think if he knew I'd posted it, he'd probably drive over here and kill me. Or at least give me a very stern talking-to.
I actually saw the final product and I'm still not sure what he was trying to dress up as. That's a lot of bubble wrap happening right there though.

(To be honest, I don't know if he knows about my blog. I honestly can't remember who I've told about it, but I do know that most of my friends DON'T read it, especially now that I've come back to Chicago. But, I tend to repeat my stories over and over again as it is, so I understand that. One of my friends pointed out that now that I was back, she had to stop reading it because she'd read a story one night and then the very next day she would have to hear about it again from me in person.)

2007-03-29T19:40:00.000-05:00

And oh yeah! The Drama Queen asked me to go with him to his friend's wedding in a couple of weeks. DQ and I are way more functional as friends than anything else but I am excited to see him again. Hopefully this time we won't end in a big epic disaster.

2007-03-29T19:00:00.000-05:00

(First of all, NBC is currently airing a marathon of The Office. AWESOME.)

Yesterday I received a shit-ton of papers I had to fill out to obtain my medical licensure for the state of Missouri. It took 4 hours and I'm not even exaggerating. And it was all witnessed signatures and notarized and made all official. They won't just let ANY casual fuck prescribe narcotics, I guess. (WOO HOO! I get to prescribe narcotics! Kidding.) As with all major life changes, I did not handle this well. Immediately after sending off all the appropriate documents via Priority Mail I fell into a deep funk. Now that graduation is coming up and I'll be moving, and starting a job, and having an income, and basically becoming the little adult I pretend to be, I am having some major emotional upheaval. The same thing happened to me when I graduated from college and I would sit for hours in my room in the dark doing nothing. Just all part of my slow and quiet transition to maturity, people. My posts might grow a little sparse and weird; just thought I'd put that out there.

2007-03-27T08:59:00.000-05:00

(From PostSecret.)

I saw this postcard on PostSecret on Sunday and I saved it to my computer while I thought about it for a few days. I didn't have any strong feelings about Victoria's Secret in general except I kind of appreciate the convenience of having a store full of underwear where you pretty much always know your size. The more I stared at this postcard though, the more the candy cane pink stripes made me feel a little nauseated.

On rounds the other day we were actually just talking about this -- how the feminist movement is about choice, and that made it ok to be feminine and feminist. There's something so over-the-top about the Victoria's Secret empire though. Before their fashion shows the models (all 6'0" 107lbs of them) talk about how Victoria's Secret is empowering women by embracing women's sexuality, 2 things which sound pretty good to me but the truth is I think the premise of the VS kill is selling you an impossible dream, not empowerment. In the past few years the image of VS became wrapped up in their models -- supermodels who become spokeswomen for the line, known as the "Angels." Their faces are all over the catalogs and supersize staring down at from you from up on the walls of the stores, and especially their flagship store on Michigan Avenue, where lifesize mannequins of the current angels (Gisele, Adriana Lima, and Alessandra Ambrosio -- aren't they stunning?) dressed in teensy little underwear stand guard amidst the racks of bras. In the fitting rooms one entire wall is a mirror and contains a little screen constantly playing the VS fashion show from that year. It's a little unnerving to try on your plain ol' cotton underwear while Gisele stomps down a runway at you in a bra made of diamonds.
When VS became all about the Angels, they weren't selling an idea of feeling comfortable and sexy in your own skin (which is maybe what the store started out about). It was about being able to look like Gisele if you bought this $65 bra!

Also, I hate leaving the store and carrying those stupid bags. I appreciate the market value of having such an instantly recognizable bag but I feel like they're begging for attention (Look at me!!!! I wear Victoria's Secret underwear!!! I am SO SEXY!!!) and I HATE that. Maybe women feel sexy when they're sporting the bag (I personally feel utterly ridiculous and usually try to stuff the bag into something else) but I think it invites mockery: Shanmugam and I were walking down Michigan Ave the other day and we spotted an overweight woman toting an extra-large VS bag.

Shanmugam: Whispers to me. What could she possibly buy at Victoria's Secret?

R: Um...underwear?

S: Victoria's Secret makes underwear in plus-sizes?

R: Shanmugam, the average American woman is a size 12. If Victoria's Secret didn't make "plus-sizes" they'd go out of business in a hurry.

Is that what VS has done? Has the VS image become all about looking like a supermodel, and invites criticism of how sexy one actually is they shop there? Ew.

This Post is Dripping in Estrogen.

2007-03-26T08:48:00.000-05:00

I have several weddings to attend in the coming months (SIX!!) so I've been doing a lot of shopping lately looking for dresses to wear. I found one beautiful dress from Ann Taylor, which I LOVE LOVE LOVE and must now display here: I haven't been to that many church weddings so I always sort of feel at a loss for determing what's appropriate and what isn't, but I think this dress really reconciles church appropriateness with my own taste.

Anyway, I decided I would have to buy at least one more dress, because I'm just not that responsible with my dry cleaning, so I walked over to Bennetton yesterday to poke around their dresses. I adore Benetton; I think the style of their clothes really meshes with my own personal style, but my problem with Benetton is that the clothes are made for WAIFISH EUROPEAN WOMEN WITH NOTHING IN THE CHESTAL/JUNKAL AREA.

I tried on a bunch of dresses, including a replica of the gorgeous green/white polka-dot halter that Julia Roberts wears in the horserace scene of Pretty Woman. It, of course, is a stunning dress, but Benetton is really in love with expandable keyhole necklines this season, with the end result being that I looked like some sort of high-end prostitute. I ended up buying this very elegant shimmery brown sheath dress with a gold scarf. The dress had a double V neckline, and let me tell you, the girls were popping out all over the front. I ended up buying it one size too big so there would be enough fabric for me to take it to my tailor to sew the anterior neckline up 1-2 inches, but now I'll have to have the waist and hips taken in as well.

That all seemed like quite a bit of work, so I went back on the Ann Taylor website and found this other strapless dress which I think I might just walk over and get today.

Having to spend an additional $50 on an already-pricey dress is very irritating to me, so I might just return that one.

Sorry to bore you with all the mundane details of my life, but I did have a point to this post: SMALL-CHESTED WOMEN HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN. If I hear another average-sized women bemoan her lack of chest, I might hit her. You are so lucky! You can wear anything without looking like an effin' hooker! When the girls are big, even the most innocent t-shirt can advertise your bra size. We can't try on 70% of blouses and tops because WE LOOK LIKE PROSTITUTES IN THEM. I have to buy all my button-down shirts one size too big and they get all balloon-y around my waist! The reason why I think the extreme of largeness is more of a pain in the ass than the extreme of smallness is because bra technology is pretty advanced these days. Even the most flat-chested girl can put on a bra and become a knockout. You can add on up to 2 cup sizes just by putting on a bra! But can you TAKE AWAY a bra size? Is it possible to wear a v-neck top without putting the girls on display if they're large? NO. IT IS NOT. (Minimizing bras are a cruel myth.) So stop your bitching already.

2007-03-25T14:04:00.001-05:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

2007-03-25T11:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Jeannie, Maria and I walked down to the Art Institute of Chicago for the Cezanne to Picasso exhibition. I really, really liked it. The collection was from a famed French art dealer named Ambrose Vollard, a "patron of the avant-garde" and he had works of art of Cezanne and Picasso, of course, as well as Matisse, Gauguin, and Degas. I'm happy to say that I can add one more famous painting I've seen in person to my (rather sparse) list, The Old Guitarist by Picasso. I love art and my biggest college regret is that I never took an Art Appreciation class. I am a firm believer that there is no one way to appreciate a work of art but I do wish I had some basis on which to assess its artistic merit. Especially around Maria, who has some training as an artist, I feel extremely dimwitted and just slow. I think I focus too much on the subject of the painting; I always wonder what they are looking at, or where are they going, or why did the artist choose to give them such shifty eyes, rather than wonder about the art itself; like how can Cezanne paint the eyes with a few quick brush strokes and they can still convey such strong emotion.

After that Jeannie and I saw The Namesake. This movie just opened in Chicago this weekend, and I was very surprised and happy to walk into the theater for the afternoon matinee and see that it was PACKED, and not just with other Indian-Americans. I hated the book with a passion but heard such good things about the movie that I was curious to see how Mira Nair would adapt it. I thought it was MUCH better done than the book. If it's any indication to how moving the film was, when I left the theater, I had 2 immediate urges: 1) To call my parents and tell them how much I loved them and 2) To go find a bathroom and fix my makeup from where it ran all over my face.

I had issues with the book in its portrayal of the immigrant experience. Many of the scenes in the book are from the perspective of Gogol (Kal Penn's character) and so in the book, for instance, in the scene where he stops by with his white girlfriend for a quick visit before joining her parents on the coast for vacation, Gogol's parents become sort of caricatures of super-traditional, unsophisticated, country-mouse Indians. While reading the book I cringed at the description of how Ashima put on a fancy sari and cooked for 2 days straight in preparation for the little visit. It just made her seem...desperate. Whereas the film did a much better job of making us comfortable with Ashima and Ashoke's perspective; the first 35 minutes of the film is entirely devoted to their lives, in India and when they move to the US and start to build their little family. I just felt the characters were much better fleshed out, especially Ashima.

Anyway, that's all! I also just spent an hour talking about the movie with a friend on the phone, so I'm a little emotionally burnt out now .

Planet Earth

2007-03-24T09:10:00.000-05:00

A hundred years ago, there were one and a half billion people on Earth. Now, over six billion crowd our fragile planet. But even so, there are still places barely touched by humanity. This series will take you to the last wildernesses and show you the planet and its wildlife as you have never seen them before.

Let's all geek out for a second -- tomorrow night Planet Earth starts on the Discovery Channel!!

You MUST see the preview if you haven't. I'm a huge sucker for nature shows but even the preview is dazzling. Apparently 4 years were spent filming "from pole to pole" for this BBC documentary. It explores 10 different natural ecosystems including Mountains, Fresh Water, Caves, Deserts, Ice Worlds, Great Plains, Jungles, Shallow Seas, Seasonal Forests, and Ocean Deep. I'm really excited about Ocean Deep and Caves in particular. Being from a Great Plains (the North American prairie), I'll probably skip that one but HOW COOL DOES CAVES LOOK:

This is from the recently discovered Lechugilla Cave in Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. It's 120 miles long (GOOD GOD) and has really ornate interesting stalagmites and stalactites from where sulphuric acid carves gypsum crystal formations.

I thought this picture was a close-up until I spotted the man standing right underneath it. This is the Chandelier Ballroom.

There's also a huge lake down there which one of the scientists went scuba-diving in it and found an air-filled room and 200 feet of submerged passage before finding an end.

So anyway, stuff like this is super-exciting to me, and I think I have a decent sense of adventure, but I read about the scientist going on a lone scuba-dive just to s ee what was at the bottom of the lake and I assumed he was on crack. I'd be way too afraid of running into some as-yet-undiscovered subterranean eyeless giant salamander or something. Clearly I've watched Lord of the Rings way too often.

Speaking of weirdo animals, I can't wait for Ocean Deep because I'm fascinated by all those cool deep sea creatures.

Like the vampire squid, which likes to live in the dark and freezing cold ocean depths. It has crazy eyes and its own light-producing apparati, much like this creature, which we may remember from that gem of a movie, Finding Nemo:

Like, what if you ran into THAT in your unexplored underground lake?

Also, read about how the anglerfish mates (Oh how I love you, Wikipedia. You endlessly find ways to distract me for hours straight daily.):

Anglerfish have a unique mating method. Since individuals are rare and encounters doubly so, finding a mate is a problem, especially at a time when both individuals are ready to spawn. When scientists first started capturing ceratioid anglerfish, they noticed that all of the specimens were females. These individuals were a few inches in size and almost all of them had what appeared to be parasites attached to them. It turned out that these "parasites" were the remains of male ceratioids.
When a male of one of these species hatches, it equipped with extremely well developed olfactory organs that detect scents in the water. They have no digestive system, and thus are unable to feed independently. They must find a female anglerfish, and quickly, or else they will die. The sensitive olfactory organs help him to detect the pheromones that signal the proximity of a female anglerfish. When he finds a female, he bites into her flank, and releases an enzyme which digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair down to the blood vessel level. The male then atrophies into nothing more than a pair of gonads that release sperm in response to hormones in the female's bloodstream indicating egg release. This is an extreme example of sexual dimorphism. However, it ensures that when the female is ready to spawn, she has a mate immediately available.

2007-03-23T00:52:00.000-05:00

And oh yeah, I just took Step 2 Clinical Skills on Tuesday. I walked out of there a little frustrated because...well, I'm actually not allowed to talk about it. I will say though, that, if you ever have to take an 8-hour exam, you'd do better to start it, oh, maybe BEFORE EFFING 3 IN THE AFTERNOON and then you don't leave the testing center til 11pm and you're stuck taking the fucking blue line home in the middle of the night and then they decide to arrest someone on the train a few cars down from you and you sit at the Belmont step with all the doors open for about 20 fucking years wondering what the hell is going on and why a normally 45 minute el ride is now taking about 2 and a half hours and your feet get very cold.

Anywho, the very first thing they tell you right before you start the "patient encounters" is that if you EVER share any information about the test you'll be barred from taking any tests administered by the National Board of Medical Examiners for life. Which, y'know, might get in the way of trying to become fully licensed in the practice of medicine and whatnot. What's funny is, I don't remember seeing that 2 weeks ago when I took the written part of the exam, Step 2 Clinical Knowledge but that's probably because my main objective when I sat down at the computer to take THAT test (yet another 8 hour nugget of fun!) my main objective was to exit the situation as quickly as possible so I probably clicked right past that disclaimer.

What's funny is that in college right before I was initiated into my sorority I received a similar warning: something about how if you "ever violate the secrecy of the rites of initiation into the sisterhood may your tongue wither and fall out, may your eyes shrivel and sink back into their sockets, and may your fingers recede back into your hands!!" Or some such happenings; with the main gist being...you become a leper. I didn't violate that oath, and I won't violate this one. I will, however, say that CS sucks big hairy sweaty goat balls.

WHAT AM I GETTING MYSELF INTO

2007-03-23T00:12:00.000-05:00

On my very first day of medical school, we were introduced to "the Deans." There is a Dean for EVERYTHING here. Multiculturalism, professionalism, student affairs, academic research, you name it. One of the Deans scared the hell out of me. His speech was, "Congratulations. You are in medical school now. You are privileged enough to enter the grandest profession BLAH BLAH BLAH." It was a lovely speech, and seemed like harmless cheering up of the incoming students, when at the end he said, "Oh by the way. Don't expect to make it to your kid brother's 16th birthday. And get used to it. When you're a doctor you'll miss your own kid's birthday." I was not having it. I vowed then and there I would never put work above the people I loved, and I made it a point to try and be around for my family member's birthdays as much as possible. Turns out, in my family, nobody really celebrates birthdays, because, as my dad says, "YOU'RE JUST ONE YEAR CLOSER TO THE AGE YOU DIE." Happy Birthday! (And what an insightful look into my father's psyche!) So that didn't really matter much. But, there are some things I am actually pretty depressed to have to give up. Ok, these all might seem dumb, but keep in mind, I am FEMALE, and these things are kind of important to me.

1) Attractive footwear. I love shoes so, so much. Shopping for shoes might be my #1 all-time favorite activity. I own over 50 pairs of shoes and love them all dearly. Once I started wards though, my days of wearing attractive footwear were over. I tried for the first week of keeping the dream alive and wearing my pointy-toed stilettos each day but it just didn't work. When your day starts at 5:30 am and doesn't end until 7 pm and you're on your feet for 80% of that time, it's just impossible. My feet would cry when I took my shoes off at night. Nice shoes are of the utmost importance to me, but I realized that no human being can be on her feet that long without them getting a little swollen (YES. Even at the age of 24.) no matter how supportive your stockings are, and it is not worth the pain. I'm all about the ballet flats now, but it's just not the same as having a sassy little heel. I like to wear my pant legs really long, and they sort of drag all over the floor. [Of the HOSPITAL. Where there is DISEASE and INFECTION and BLOOD and PUS. It's so gross.] Also, I realized right away, when I wear heels, I just way too tall for the hospital. What I mean by that is, I'm 5'9" barefoot. When I put on heels, even plain old 2" kitten heels, I tower at 5'11". Bending over patient's beds all day to talk to them and examine them KILLED my back when I was wearing heel. Something about your center of balance is all off when you're sporting the heels when your spine is in flexion and it puts too much strain on your paraspinous muscles.

Also, ladies in medical school (or think they want to attend medical school), you understand that you may NEVER wear open-toed shoes in any location where healthcare is provided in any form, right? It sounds dumb, but to realize that you can never wear anything but full coverage on your feet at the hospital (where you spend 80% of your waking time) was a little sad.

2. Fingernails. Once you enter medicine, your nails have to be clipped supershort at all times. To do otherwise would be really inconsiderate of your patients and unprofessional. Also, you can't wear anything but the most nude or neutral nail polish. I love me some black-red nail polish but I've had to throw out all my bottles of nail polish because they just got old and gunky from neglect.

3. Cute flippy hair styles. I just got a haircut and am now rocking some bangs and some shaggy layers, which I LOVE LOVE LOVE! I did this purposefully a few months before starting residency though, so that it would have time to grow out to a more "professional and practical" length before I hit the wards again. I love this hair but if it's always in my face or can't be pulled back into a fast ponytail with a rubberband it's too impractical for a surgical subspecialty. Plus you run the risk of some old dinosaur attending telling you you look "too damn hippy to be a doctor."

And of course, other sacrifices include, erm, free time, relationships with people not in medicine because we've become boring, consumed by our careers, and run out of things to talk about, quality time with family/friends, and being able to legally claim financial hardship on your taxes as a resident! So fun. Eiighhh..I'm obsessing about residency, can ya'll tell? Rather than obsess about OH GOD I AM IN CHARGE OF PEOPLE'S LIVES AND IT IS NOT FUNNY THIS TIME I am lamenting the fact that I can't do my nails, have bangs, and wear high-heels to work. Is this normal? There is definitely something wrong with me. I am displaying some sort of psychiatric defense mechanism to the anxiety I'm having about starting residency, but I CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT THE NAME OF IT IS. Omigod I can't believe they're going to graduate me.

2007-03-19T19:45:00.000-05:00

I'm currently on Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation rotation. (My LAST ROTATION as a medical student! Good bye, short whitie!!! I am ready for a newer, more cute and flattering white coat. After all, it will be the most expensive accessory I own. And, not to be totally shallow, but there was definitely one program at which I interviewed for residency which I nixed based on the poor quality of their white coats. Like COME ON, I have worked FOUR YEARS to be a doctor, I am NOT wearing some stupid white coat that makes my ass look big. And...we're back.) I'm on the stroke service, which means we head the interdisciplinary teams that work to rehabilitate our stroke patients.

Rehab medicine isn't for me, but I actually think it's a pretty cool and rewarding specialty, which is totally unexpected. All through my internal medicine subI I bitched endlessly about how we saved people's lives even when those lives could no longer possibly be worth living, but I see that Rehab medicine is where people regain their quality of life. We had a very interesting ethics session on the first day of Rehab medicine where we each discussed what had to be taken away fron us in order to make our own lives no longer worth living. The top things on my list were not being able to enjoy the company of my friends and family and not having the independence to make choices for myself and do what I wanted. Therein lay the entire point of Rehab medicine: after people have suffered seemingly insurmountable trauma for whatever reason, they become rehabilitated to get their autonomy back. Many people of course won't be able to walk, or speak, or move one side of their body, or even control their bladder again, but the point of rehab medicine is to teach them a new way to live a full and independent life despite their disability. It's pretty cool. As my attending says, "We don't save lives; we save lifestyles." And honestly, one is just as important as the other.

Also, I've been incredibly inspired by how much these rehab docs are advocates for the disabled. It's refreshing to see doctors not only care about their patients, but about the system that makes it ridiculously difficult for their patients to lead autonomous lives. For instance, we had a lecture of "prejudicial politics," where we discussed why state's won't cover home health care but will cover nursing home stays, despite the fact that having an aide come to a patient's home for a few hours a day to help them with bathing, cleaning and cooking is cheaper than parking that patient in a nursing home and letting them rot. It's just always the way it's been done.

There have been some really hilarious moments on PM&R though. These are patients with brain injury, and...sometimes the cortex that's responsible for appropriate behavior and inhibition of inappropriate behavior gets knocked out. And that's why when I went to go examine a patient today I discovered him proudly offering me his own poop in his hand. (At least he didn't throw it at me.)

Also, some patients get confused in the middle of the night and try to climb out of bed, which is dangerous when patients aren't yet stable enough to stand or walk, so instead of getting restraints, which are dehumanizing and uncomfortable, they get these special beds which is like a zipped up canvas net in the manner of a huge tent around the bed. Patient's families don't like it because it kind of seems as though we're keeping their beloved sweet old grandpa in a gorilla cage, but patient's love it because their limbs are free and not restrained but they're still kept safe. Anywho, my patient found a way to escape his open-air restraint (he squeezed himself out under the mattress) and he was later discovered naked trying to use the bathroom in a female patient's bedroom. Rehab medicine!

Square Peg Does the Lou

2007-03-18T21:01:00.000-05:00

Hey ya'll, just wanted to let you know that I matched at my first choice, in St. Louis!! I am super-excited to move to the city known as the "Paris of the Midwest," (well..to me, anyway, as of 2 days ago. Let's spread it around!) and part of my St. Louis assimilation program is to "learn sports," so I've been watching ESPN with Shanmugam for 30 minutes nightly.

Studying for Boards: Part WOO HOO!

2007-03-09T11:06:00.000-06:00

I am SO GLAD that test is over. It's just a long day.

2007-03-05T21:27:00.000-06:00

I'm a total stress-eater, so this past Saturday night, when faced with the prospect of spending an evening in an electrolyte disorders chapter-induced coma, I stopped at the grocery store for some munchies on my way home from the library. (My life is so sad right now.)

Let me pause here a moment to point out that this ALWAYS happens to me. Anytime I get dolled up to go out I never run into ANYONE. But... 1am on a weeknight, me in my sweatpants and sweatshirts with the drool marks from where I fell asleep on it, glasses, and humongous stress-induced nodular acne on my forehead (This thing was huge. I'm not kidding. It changed my profile.) going from the laundry room up to my apartment with a Rubbermaid basket overflowing with my underwear...oh yeah. I will ALWAYS run into that hot plastic surgery resident. It's like, Newton's 4th law.

Anyway, there I was at Treasure Island in the Playboy Building, picking out my essentials for the evening, namely Midol, Double Stuf Oreos, and Acne Eliminating Spot Gel when OF COURSE I ran into this guy from school who I had unfortunately gotten extremely intoxicated around and rather ungracefully hooked up with 2nd year at a posttest party. Not one of the highlights of my medical career thus far, and certainly not who I wanted to run into at the grocery store. To be honest, I'd be happy never seeing this guy at all, after he told people that I "threw" myself at him and furthermore that I threw up on his shoe. Which, by the way, CANNOT be true, because, granted, my memory of the event is pretty hazy, but I definitely remember throwing up on my friend's foot in the cab on the way home. So there. Asshole. (By the way, she was cool with the vomiting and we're still friends. Sometimes friendship means never having to say you're sorry. I did say I was sorry though, like a million times, after I crawled out of my deep dark hole of embarassment and shame. And hungover-ness.)

What was my point? I forgot. Now, pictures!

As I'm wrapping up the Step 2 studying I'm reaching this very familiar point where I'm so saturated with information that I just want to get this stupid test done with before knowledge starts to fall out of my head. Also, you've been looking at everything so much that EVERYTHING around you starts to remind you of medicine, and it's incredibly annoying to people around you but extremely fun to you.

For instance, while I was savoring another Diet Coke (sweet, sweet nectar of the gods), I happened to catch this warning on the back:So...you can't really read it, because my camera sucks. (Or, more likely, it is I that sucks at using said camera.) But it's a warning that this product contains "phenylketones." !!! I know what that is and why that might be important!! Turns out if you have some rare disease called phenylketonuria you're supposed to limit phenylalanine intake because you can't break them down and they're all toxic to your brain and cause bad things like mental retardation. Yes!

Also, I wanted to show off my work space. I had envisioned creating one master sheet of vital but concise tidbits of information that I could review the night before my exam before retiring for a night of a restful 8 hours of slumber . I ended up with a cheat sheet that was OVER NINETY PAGES long, which I'll probably never look at, except to panickedly tear through at 4 am the night before my exam . Please note the aforementioned Oreos nestled amongst my cheatsheets.

Ok, back to leukemia!

Disclaimer

2007-03-04T14:53:00.000-06:00

I'm at the library continuing my serious antisocial Boards studying, when I recognized the sensation of something eating my liver. I have something to say.

I started this blog when I moved out to Iowa for a year to do research as a way to keep in touch with my friends in medical school. I'm surprised and happy that random strangers like to check in, but really I mostly write for myself. (Now that I'm back I'm not even sure if my friends read me anymore.) I kept a journal all through grade school, junior high, and most of high school, and now that I'm doing it again I'm remembering how much fun it is to journal the stupid things that happen during the day, because, somehow.... taking note of the little things in life is what makes life worth living. And for me, writing it down is how I make those things real. And sometimes they're funny. (Actually, they're probably mostly lame, but in my extremely immature brain they're funny. Like the calci-BONE-nin thing? I was chortling to myself for HOURS after that. People at Starbucks probably thought I was a big ol' cup of crazy.)

Also, there's some stuff I'm obnoxiously opinionated about, and sometimes I talk about those things, mostly just to get it out of my system so I don't bore the people around me, and I really like it when people stop by and leave their comments about those things too. I just wanted to say -- I am reading those comments and I do appreciate it and much as I would like to have a nice open discussion about the state of birthing today, 1) I refuse to engage in a medical discussion without all participants (myself included) having done some degree of literature review. I won't claim anything unless it's evidence-based (WOW. I guess I did learn something in med school.) and I don't really have the time to do that right now so I'll just keep my mouth shut, but more importantly 2) That's not really what this blog is about. There are few places on the Internet where birthing politics are discussed ad nauseum and this is so not one of them.

So yeah, I'm just studying testicular cancers tonight (Mmm...my favorite!). I wish I could just take this thing tomorrow and get it over with. I feel like I'm pregnant -- I just want to deliver this thing and be over and done with it already! (Such a lovely prenatal sentiment, I know.)

Calcitonin.

2007-03-03T20:08:00.000-06:00

At the library studying today I ran into Shanmugam studying with one of his friends so I sat with them for some last minute endocrinology review. As I was looking over some bony disorders I had a question.

R: Hey, do you guys remember how calcitonin works?

Shanumam and friend: Simultaneously. CALCIBONIN.

R: What?

S: Keeps calcium in the bone.

R: Oh... ha ha, calci-BONE-in, I get it!

S: If they could teach all of medicine like that, I would never forget anything.

S's friend: Yeah, you'll remember anything once you've boned it.

2007-03-03T11:37:00.000-06:00

I'm taking Step 2 on Thursday so I've been doing serious antisocial study the past few days... wish me luck! My experience with Board Medical Exams is limited to the shelf exams we took after each rotation 3rd year and Step 1, otherwise known as That One Time I Seriously Considered Suicide, but I know that anything other than my Step 1 experience, which involved me wanting to hurl myself out of the window of my 16th floor Prometric testing center during the entire 9 hour affair has to be an improvement. And that all turned out fine, so I'll probably be ok. I do however need to learn some medicine, and stuff, for this test. See you all Thursday!

2007-02-26T18:09:00.000-06:00

It's still snowing in the Heartland. There has been some form of precipitation in the sky for about 5 days straight now. The silver lining to that cloud was that all flights departing from O'Hare were pretty much cancelled over the weekend, so I got to see my friend Liz as she passed through on her way home from Sweden, which was delightful! Also, she left her Swedish liquor with me for safekeeping. I promised I would protect the liquor from being consumed by Shanmugam. Or myself.

In other news, I have been doing practice questions for Step 2. Did you know there is actually such a thing as a penile fracture? That was NEVER in my spectrum of knowledge. I know that, because there's no way I could forget that such a thing as a penile fracture existed. I would post a picture of this very important surgical emergency here, but this blog is for the kids. I like to keep it clean.

I also did some rheumatology questions and was very surprised to learn that one of the complications of Behcet's disease, an autoimmune disorder characterized by painful mucosal ulcerations, is a "scared vulva." That took a moment of thinking before I realized they were probably talking about a "scarred vulva."

Also, I forget sometimes that my friends (I mean, my real, human friends. Not that you are not also loved, o adorable Internet entities!) read my blog, until last night when I made a homemade pizza (with substantially improved results from my prior attempt, see below) and Garani said she sure hoped it turned out better than the one on my blog.

The Oscars

2007-02-26T10:46:00.000-06:00

I really like Melissa Etheridge's song from An Inconvenient Truth but I have to be honest...I missed "It's Hard Out Here (For A Pimp)." But Martin Scorcese and Three 6 Mafia are now tied in Oscars, No. of Times Won.

Find a happy place.

2007-02-22T17:56:00.000-06:00

I FINALLY found the battery for my digital camera. It's been months since I've taken photos, and I wanted to share the glamour and sophistication of the Peg's world with y'all. Prepare to be dazzled.

The last photos I took before "losing" my battery were of this time in November when Shanmugam and I attempted to make pizza from scratch, dough, sauce and all. It was quite the undertaking. Unfortch, we never got the memo about how handy those darn pizza pans are when your crust is all soft and doughy and liable to fall apart if you attempt to maneuver the pizza without a pan underneath.

Behold our culinary masterpiece:

And the resulting disaster in our oven:

(The part you don't see here is Shanmugam and I thoughtfully contemplating this situation, then deciding the best thing to do would be to deploy the "Self Clean" feature of our oven, thus incinerating any and all remnants of the unfortunate pizza. RIP. And we still haven't figured out how to scrape all the black stuff out of the window.)

Also, when Shanmugan first moved in, I mentioned his incredibly admirable efforts to facilitate our couch potato-ness by affixing a mini-TV guide to the remote:

It cracks me up every time I look at it.

Also, when we were home over Christmas break, I ran across a closet full of stuff in the basement that's been sitting there since the dawn of time. Much to my dismay I discovered God in this closet. I was shocked and appalled at this finding so I brought God to Chicago to give him a proper home in our apartment:

The funny thing is, Natraja has been perched on that barstool ever since we lugged him out of the car trunk and upstairs. I completely forgot that might be seen as a slightly unorthodox place to keep God; y'know, sitting around the TV like the rest of us, just hangin', until Gaya was over and pointed out how weird it looked to keep God on the stool. He's just like another part of the family, involved in our daily activities. THAT'S THE WAY GOD SHOULD BE, PEOPLE.

I would also like to display our humble little foyer. In an act of silent protest I kept my shoes in the hall until Shanmugam put his suitcase away, and now Shanmugam refuses to put his suitcase away until I tidy up and put my shoes neatly away in the closet. Because we're both incredibly mature adults, things will likely stay this way until May when I move out.

And finally, most impressive of all, may I present:

The hybrid double-spork-in-single-packaging-sleeve.

Discovered at Taco Bell yesterday. I will keep this double-spork until such a time arises when 2 sporks are needed. That time might be when Shanmugam brings home a delicious chimichanga but fails to bring home a spork. Or it might be when I make a cottage cheese-pineapple salad and need 2 sporks for the ultimate serving weapon. Or it might be tonight when Shanmugam and I try to eat cereal for dinner and realize there are no clean spoons because we haven't run the dishwasher in 3 weeks. Only time knows.

My Specialty

2007-02-22T01:56:00.000-06:00

I totally stole this from that doctor on the other side of my city, Doctor-Squared, but it cracked me up -- that thing is like a mind reader!

The medical specialty for you is.... OB/GYN

OB/GYN is the best of all specialties. As an OB/GYN, you have chosen one of the most noble fields in medicine. You will work longer hours than a surgeon, but without the high pay. But you will still do it because you have a passion for the field. And after you rush to the hospital at 3 in the morning for the third night in a row to deliver a baby, the parents will turn around and sue you if there were any unforeseeable complications, which is why your insurance rates are so ridiculously high. Come to think of it, OB/GYN?? What were you thinking?

To find out what specialty best fits your unique personality, go to:

What Medical Specialty Is For You?

And, yeah....all that up there? Pretty much the universal reaction when I told people I was doing ob/gyn. Especially that bit about getting slapped with a lawsuit. Oh...yeah, let me concentrate more on losing my entire career, livelihood, and life's work when one bad outcome I had no control over means I get screwed with a debilitating malpractice suit. Um...I'm going to go curl in the fetal position and suck my thumb for a while now.

Lost: I'm officially turning you off.

2007-02-21T22:50:00.000-06:00

Did anyone catch Lost today? During my research year when I had time to burn I got the DVDs and got all hooked on this show. Today, however, I am totally through with this show. Today's episode pretty much sucked. I think the show is clever sometimes and occasionally there are some unexpected revelations; however, I think the writers are in way over their head. They've created elaborate plotlines with dozens of characters who are all supposedly connected somehow, but I really think they have no idea where to take this. In short, this show is kind of a huge tease. To be honest, I'd rather spend my time studying (there are few things that elicit such a strongly negative response from me). Lost will probably just get cancelled before having a chance to resolve any of the storylines; it's really sinking in the ratings...because people like me who love suspense and were addicted to receiving another puzzle piece every week realized there were way too many puzzles and not enough pieces. (I take my TV watching very seriously.)

This was me watching Lost tonight (don't read this if you haven't watched the show yet):

TV: Watch Lost tonight to see the conclusion to the most burning question on this island!

R: Yeah! Lost is so effin' awesome!

TV: Jack blah blah.

R: Dammit! Another gd Jack flashback! I so don't care about this guy. Where are Walt and Michael!? What is the motherfucking Dharma initiative?! HOW CAN ALL THE WOMEN HAVE PERFECTLY COIFFED HAIR AND SHAVED ARMPITS ON THIS ISLAND?!

TV: Jack goes to Phuket and meets Bai Ling who, unsuprisingly, kinda looks like a hooker. They fornicate.
***Editorial note: When I first wrote this, I accidentally typed "...and meats Bai Ling." But, that also would have been appropriate. Ha! Ha ha ha!

R: Man, this sex scene is kind of gross. Flips over to Real World. And if Matthew Fox has his shirt off and I'm still willing to change the channel, that is some very poorly done sex. D'you hear me, Lost editors??

TV: Kate & Sawyer blah blah blah. Karl blah blah.

TV: More boring and uninteresting filler crap happens.

TV: Jack: And THAT is what my tattoo means. [Note: I had never even noticed this tattoo before this episode.]

R: Oh. NO. You have GOT to be kidding me. Takes off houseslipper and hurls it at the TV.

This blog is now officially anti-Lost.

Pregnant in America -- Oh I'm not finished yet.

2007-02-20T10:17:00.000-06:00

Let me finish my thesis on C-secs now...

A woman tells us that "A Cesarean is very difficult to recover from." Well YEAH. It's motherfucking MAJOR SURGERY. They are slicing open your abdomen. I mentioned many attributes to elective C-secs last night, but we can't ignore the fact that it's a surgical procedure. And hence the entire controversy around elective cesareans. It really pisses me off when people say things that they think are BRAND NEW INSIGHTS into medicine when they're already issues doctors have been agonizing over for years.

"SURGERY is what it is!" Thanks for the 411.

Now there's a scary painting showing the profile of a wide-eyed woman with her finger to her lips looking at little mothers burning in fires. Hey I have that painting. I plan to hang it in my waiting room when I start my own practice. BECAUSE WE'RE TRYING TO KILL YOU AND YOUR BABIES. You should definitely take what I just said very seriously. Shhh.

Now a slide promises A search for the truth, followed by an image of a slowly turning windmill. Oh...the Dutch have the truth! How dare they.

Now a Dutch obstetrician tells us, "It's a natural thing, and sometimes you need assistance." I don't understand why they had to go to Europe to pay some guy to say this when the above statement is the VERY CRUX OF LOW-RISK OBSTETRICS.

Now a slide beseeches us, "So why are 98% of all US babies born in hospitals?"

A man answers that question for us: "Obviously these have become great machines for making money," followed by a swivel shot of pregnant women sitting around a waiting room. Oh yeah, the same way we try to profit on natural aging, well-child check ups, and routine physicals. It really burns me to think that people think we're just sitting around the hospital eating bonbons and laughing at all the sucker pregnant women who are throwing their money away with us when in actuality if you were to divide my future salary as a resident over the number of hours I'm actually working, it amounts to even less than minimum wage.

Now they're interviews of totally random people walking around Times Square. A man tells us that "Doctors should be more responsible in the actions that they do." Thanks for the tip. Nice do-rag, by the way.

Another woman tells us "There were 22 people in the delivery room with me." Who were they? Did you not know how to get rid of your family? Or did the obstetricians invite their friends in for the party? Or maybe it was a team of highly-trained neonatalogists, pediatric nurses, ob nurses, and your high-risk obstetrician trying to help you and your kid who was living on the edge.

Now set to some mournful wail-y generic Tori Amos knock-off music, a woman tells us, "When you're at the hospital they poke you a lot. They're always around you, giving you shots, taking blood." Yeah!! That SUCKS! I mean, leave me alone!! Stop FUCKING CHECKING ON ME!! And where the hell is room service? I ordered my steak, like HOURS ago. These people keep waking me up to ask me if I'm in pain or bleeding and then they wrap that stupid little velcro thing around my arm and pumping it up all tight. That is NOT how you do a Swedish massage, people! This is like, the WORST HOTEL EVER.

The doleful music continues as another woman warily tells us, "Doctors are very quick to give you antibiotics and pain medication." Those Satanic monsters!! I mean, it's like they think there's a WHOLE BODY OF VERY ELEGANTLY RESEARCHED LITERATURE SHOWING THE BENEFIT OF GIVING ANTIBIOTICS TO WOMEN COLONIZED WITH GROUP B STREP DURING LABOR TO PREVENT NEONATAL SEPSIS. And then they made you take PAINKILLERS? Those sadists.

Another woman looks to be on the verge of tears as she recounts how she "ended up having shoulder dystocia." Wait a minute. Is she implying that somehow the hospital or the obstetrician was responsible for the fact that the infant got stuck in the birth canal? Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. So wrong. In fact, shoulder dystocia is a complication of vaginal delivery you really kind of want to be at the hospital for in case obstetric maneuvers fail to release the baby and you end up needing an emergency section.

After all the doom and gloom, a woman offers a solution: "I think you have to be your own doctor nowadays." I am totally comfortable letting people sort of fry without medical care if they're fully informed of the risks, however, when a baby's involved that might be incredibly irresponsible.

More women chime in and say that midwives are the answer. The Dutch obstetrician gets the final say, "Deliver at home, but within 15 minutes of a hospital."

Wow. Definitely, such a fair and balanced view of contemporary obstetrics is definitely what our field needs now. I mean, it's not like there's ALREADY a crisis of care where small-town obs in states with exorbitantly high premiums (Pennsylvania and Illinois) are driven out of practice, and women needing obstetrical care have to travel hours away to other states to receive their care. Thanks a lot.

Pregnant in America.

2007-02-19T22:38:00.000-06:00

A documentary entitled Pregnant in America is being released later this year. If you're in medicine, or have a brain, or have a decent amount of common sense, check out the preview, and see if you're offended as I was.

I will definitely be seeing this film when it comes out, and I had several knee-jerk reactions to the trailor. I would like to preface the following comments by saying I respect the work that midwives do and I think midwives and obstetricians can make a fine partnership to offer individualized care for each patient's delivery. I also believe it is 100% a woman's right to choose if she wants to give birth at home, as long as she's informed about the risks of delivering at home without immediate access to pediatricians, an emergency cesarean section, or neonatal resuscitation. But if it was me, or my mom, or my friend, or any woman whose life I gave a rat's ass about, I would strongly recommend delivering at a hospital.

This film is apparently about the commodification of prenatal care and childbirth in America. Let's examine the trailer quote by quote, shall we?

SLIDE: In a country where we expect everything to be better...

...the U.S. scores 2nd worst in newborn death rate among all indistrialized nations.

First of all, it's spelled "industrialized." Jackass.

Now there's a shot of a newborn with nasal cannula in place. She looks a little tachypneic. Is the nasal cannula supposed to scare me? You might have my interest if this baby was actually intubated (tube down her throat attached to a mechanical ventilator).This kid looks like she might have transient tachypnea of the newborn, or maybe they stuck it on her because she was born having already produced meconium (baby's first poop) and breathing a little fast and there was concern she might have aspirated some of the poop into her lungs. She looks full term so I'm thinking she's not in fulminant respiratory distress (also because nasal cannula's kind of wimpy...if there was a real concern she'd be intubated). I am not impressed.

Some old man who wrote a book called Magical Child is now telling me that "Hospitals lose an awful lot of their babies." I'm not sure what this means. Is he talking about pediatric tertiary care centers? Actually, I didn't have too much time to look into his book either, because I'm supposed to be studying for the Boards right now. I.e., learning real medicine.

SLIDE: Is childbirth a medical event?

This KILLS me. I love when people say, "Childbirth is NATURAL," and that "profound" statement is usually followed by, "You don't need to be in a hospital or have a doctor!" Well motherfucking DUH. Childbirth is natural, but you kind of still want someone who knows their way around, in case something goes wrong. Because it's kind of a big deal, and 95% of the time it goes off beautifully without a hitch and you probably could have done it at home in your own bed, but 1/20 is still high risk for some disaster, so I'd kind of want an expert around, especially because the disasters can be devastating. Also, the miracle of life is a beautiful thing, yes of course, but the miracle of life involves a lot of poop, blood, and amniotic fluids and can be somewhat messy. Perhaps not what you'd typically enjoy having in your bed.

Some woman (the founder of "Hypnobabies") now tells me that "Childbirth itself is perfectly normal. Complications are CAUSED because of INTERVENTION." Incredible! TELL ME MORE. (Incidentally, Hypnobabies is a project advocating hypnosis during childbirth in place of epidurals. If that's your cup of tea, cool. Personally, I'm going to go for the epidural. Let me know how the hypnosis works out when you're passing a cantaloupe through your vagina.)

Now there are flashes of some online news articles:

Article #1: Routine epidural turns deadly. I remember when this was on Dateline, and it's totally tragic and I'd be fucking pissed if this was my family member. A woman contracted meningitis from unsterile epidural placement and died shortly after childbirth. That really, inarguably sucks. But..um, it didn't really have anything to do with obstetrics, or bad neonatal care, or some weird American birthing tradition. Any invasive procedure done in an unsterile fashion can cause dramatic infections. I guess the point is she didn't really "need" the epidural to have the child, but the overwhelming majority of the time, the anesthesiologist kinda knows how to keep a sterile field and can place an epidural without complications. It's sort of his job. This one just sounds like he sucks.

Article #2: Dosing error kills 2 premies, 3rd in critical care. Again..wow. Another isolated incident of egregious, horrendous patient care. Anytime an IV (intravenous line ... it's used to draw fluids, or give fluids...very standard in hospitals) line is placed, some heparin is flushed through the tubing to prevent blood from clotting around the tube. It seems that vials filled with the adult dose somehow made it onto the neonatal floor, and the babies received adult doses of the heparin flush. It was a really stupid, irresponsible error. Again....not really something caused by the "American birthing system." [Also, I hate to sound too cavelier about this because it was totally preventable, but I'd like to point out that 6 babies received the adult heparin flush, and only the 3 premature neonates were affected. Because they're really, really tiny....and not to be cavalier but had those babies NOT been born in the hospital where they had access to neonatal resuscitation, they wouldn't have survived at all. AT ALL, because babies born before 28 weeks haven't yet produced enough surfactant, a chemical that decreases the surface tension of the lung's alveoli thus increasing compliance and allowing the lung to stay expanded while breathing and not collapse in on itself.]

So...yeah, both of those articles speak to the incompetence of some healthcare workers and are kind of scary. But really, they deserve more to be in a documentary about stupid hospital mistakes, and not about how obstetrics in the US is practiced wrong.

Now we have an irate man talking about how's been to England, and Germany, and Holland, and how their cesarean section rates are much lower than ours is at 33%. This actually isn't true -- we do C-secs at the drop of a hat here in the states, and many of them are probably unnecessary, for a multitude of reasons, but Europeans actually tend to do MORE sections. And the trend is for women to request C-sections. I have really mixed feelings about this, but a lot of the European literature supports elective C-sections. It's more convenient, more cost-effective, carries less long-term complications (it has the complications of any abdominal surgery -- adhesions, hernias etc but the complications associated with vaginal birth -- like pelvic floor relaxation, incontinence, dyspareunia are nonexistent, and some small European study had shown that impairment of quality of life from these complications was far less with the c-secs. Eh. I don't have a strong opinion yet on this, but I'm sure I will in a year.) Europeans also tend to have less kids, and their obstetricians are more amenable to performing what could be termed medically unnecessary c-sections, because they know they won't be needing to operate on these patients again and are comfortable with causing some adhesions.

Ok, not to go off on a tangent, but this is a subject I've really thought long and hard about. Some might argue the whole "natural process" thing again; ie vag births are how it's supposed to be. On the other hand, if we found an intervention to achieve the same results painlessly and more efficiently with less complication, why would it be wrong to do that just because it's "unnatural?" Some studies have shown that babies delivered by C-sec produce less epinephrine and norepinephrine (adrenaline hormones, ie the "fight or flight" response) than babies born vaginally, thus concluding that these babies experienced less stress during delivery. These babies were followed for a year and were found to be less easily agitated and more socially adapted. Who knows, I'm not really passing judgment one way or the other. Just thinking about myself though, I know I'll probably be super-busy with my career by the time I get around to having kids, and I will probably really appreciate the option of a scheduled C-sec, so I can actually plan my life around my child, instead of being overwhelmed and stressed out and resenting the kid for not showing up on time.

Now the man wishes to know, "Why is that?" Hate to say it, but we live in a litiginous society. People are so quick to bring a malpractice suit against an obstetrician for a suboptimal outcome that no one's going to take a chance and let a mom continue laboring if there's any indication at all that baby's not getting enough oxygen. Isn't it incredible that we use tocometers (they monitor uterine contractions from outside the belly) and fetal heart rate monitors to track the baby's wellbeing and we use these indicators (along with maternal power, and her energy reserves to keep pushing) to decide when to do c-sections? We do way more sections than we used to, but our fetal mortality rate is still exactly the same, despite these advancements. However, we still adopted them, because it's the best we've got right now.

Alright, I'm getting pissed off and need to get back to work. If anybody has any comments I'd actually really like to hear them.

2007-02-18T14:23:00.000-06:00

Also, there's ad on TLC for "Life Lessons," and one of the Life Lessons is that Merlot and email do not mix. SO TRUE. I really credit my friends for forbidding me from drunk emailing last night. Now I need to work on the drunk dialing. Virgin Australia offers a service where certain numbers are banned from your phone from 10pm - 5am. That's perfect. It's exactly what I need.

I did a little drunking last night.

2007-02-18T13:56:00.000-06:00

I didn't realize how absolutely bonkers I go when I'm by myself until Shanmugam decided to take some friends of his down to Centralia for the weekend. So yesterday I studied for a few hours until the evening; then I went home and went a little loopy waiting for my friends to call me back so we could make plans for the night so I finished the better half of a six-pack I had sitting in the fridge and smoked a half pack of cigarettes. When Gaya and Grace finally came over we actually polished off an econo-sized bottle of Bacardi and a fifth of Smirnoff. (I would post pictures of all these empty bottles but I can't move right now.) We were out (seriously doing a lot of nothing) until 3am, then I came home with a whole bunch of energy and online shopped until 5am. It's all fun and games until you wake up the next day feeling like something crawled in your mouth and not only died but started decomposing.

And that's why it's 2pm and I'm in my pajamas on the couch watching Matlock and eating bread and water.

Also, I'm giving serious consideration to the thought of having a roommate when (or I should say "if," in deference to the Match) I move to St. Louis. The only thing is I know I'll be working extremely long hours and if I have the horrendous roommate situation during the 2nd half of my 3rd year when my (medical student) roommate got engaged and moved out to live with her fiance and we found what we thought was a suitable replacement via Craiglist and she actually turned out to be the most irresponsible, laziest piece of shit I'd ever met. And her friends were huge drunks and left huge messes in my apartment. Is there another way to find a roommate? One who isn't a total loser?

2007-02-15T00:19:00.001-06:00

And...I couldn't resist. I had to send back an equally flirty/snarky email with a winky face in return. Despite being duplicitous and sneaky, men are sometimes totally irresistible. Dammit.

2007-02-15T00:13:00.000-06:00

You know what else I hate? MINDFUCKS. (Hello, and welcome! Happy Valentine's Day! Please make yourself at home.) I think mindfuck-age is present when said guy who can't bring up the girlfriend until 6 weeks later is now sending emails with winky faces in them. WINKY. FACES. Yes, I understand that making fun of my poker skillz (or lack thereof) is very funny and joking about how I'm welcome to give you more of my money is cute and deserving of a winky face, however men who are in committed relationships really should not be sending winky faces to other girls.

What's funny is, I sit here and analyze these small gestures to death and back again, and he probably doesn't even remember sending the winky face. Most of the time, I really love being a woman, but sometimes...it just sucks.

Cabin fever.

2007-02-13T23:23:00.000-06:00

The southern Heartland got walloped with an assload of snow today so I couldn't drive back to Chicago, which meant another hyperproductive day at home for me! I set my goals very low: I just wanted to study for 3 hours today. I think between 3 hours of TV, 5 hours spent looking for chocolate/whining about how there was no chocolate/bugging my mom to make me brownies/eating aforementioned brownies, and 2 hours spent doing the laundry from when Reflux urinated on my pajamas and my bedsheets (yes while I was WEARING the pajamas and sleeping in bed on those same bedsheets), I squeezed in a good 45 minutes of studying. [Seriously, I used to be able to study for 16 hours a day. I look back on those days and wish I could bring that intensely nerdy girl back just for a few hours a day.]

So...yes. Being peed on. Not a new experience for me; however no less jarring the second time around. And Reflux is never allowed to sleep with me again.... peeing in bed is kind of a dealbreaker (though I know I have friends who would beg to differ!).

And now for the Reflux update: sadly, his mental status seems to have deteriorated. He's taken to walking around really quickly in circles for hours at a time before getting really dizzy and passing out. We did some research and unfortunately this is how small dogs manifest dementia. After the unfortunate peeing in bed incident my parents and I discussed putting him down again. I just can't do it, and as long as I think he still has some kick in him and finds enjoyment in certain things (like food, and naps; the things we all love) and isn't agitated and upset all the time, he'll stay with us. In the meantime, we'll just deal with the urinary incontinence.
But now he has to sleep in a bed on the floor of my parent's room.

Let's segue to something else now. Y'know what I hate? When guys pull out the "girlfriend" card too soon. Like, I have a girlfriend. CALM DOWN. I just asked you if that seat was taken. I think it might stem from a rather charming trait some men have of assuming that all women want them. On the other hand I recently experienced the exact opposite, which would be when the girlfriend card is up the sleeve and not revealed until well into the game. Which is far more acutely painful. Thinking about it, I guess when things are sort of borderline, there's no good time to show your hand, but on the other hand, did he have to wait SIX WEEKS to trot her out?! *Whew*

My favorite holiday. Bitches.

2007-02-12T17:52:00.000-06:00

There's nothing like Valentine's Day to make you acutely aware of how single you are. No matter how much you've got it GOIN' ON in your life, if you're single, this is the one day of the year where you're made to feel like an utterly worthless pile of shit because you don't have someone to shower you with bland commercialism in celebration of something you may or may not genuinely share. (Not that there's anything wrong with commercialism. I like me some Fannie May.) I don't begrudge people in relationships (one day I hope to be in one myself!) but I despise the fact that singletons are hung out to dry on this holiday. Well NO MORE! I say Take Back the Chocolate! And I will be. Taking back. Lots of chocolate.

In other news, I just finished my medicine subI (PRAISE JEBUS) and the greatest lesson I learned was that picking ob/gyn over internal medicine was the smartest decision I've made in my entire life. I'm back home now in C-town spending some time with the p-units before getting swamped in Boards, MPH thesis etc. I also recently made the decision to rank the program in St. Louis #1 for residency. I've received very nice messages from the residents and the faculty at that program and I think it'll be a good place for me to work hard and maybe have some fun. My parents are obviously psyched that I'll be so close to home - quoth my mother, "We'll have a ball!! You'll call me when you're free and we'll go SHOPPING and watch MOVIES!!" To which my dad replied, "She's doing residency, not joining a sorority." Hee.

Also, is Gmail reading some deep dark secret subconscious corner of my mind?! Check out my new sidebar ads:

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What the??? Especially that last one?

2007-02-05T08:02:00.000-06:00

I was on long call Saturday and post call yesterday, and it was my interns' last day, so our resident took us all out for drinks before the Super Bowl. Then, despite the plans I had to go to Gaya's Super Bowl party, I promptly came home and passed out on the couch. In all honesty though, it was -6F in Chicago last night. Once I got inside and in my sweatpants, it would have taken a crowbar to get me back outside again. Um..so that's my wild Super Bowl story! It resolves with me passing out on the couch during the pre-game, and waking up at 11p when Shanmugam walked in the door and asked me if I had actually seen a single second of the game. The answer is..no.

Also, I'm in the home stretch! This is the last week of my subI...I'm getting a little emotional. (This will happen many times in the coming months. Just a warning.) It's weird to think this is my last rotation as a medical student. I am VERY HAPPY to be getting rid of the short whitey (that length makes everyone's butt looks big), but the thought of being a real doctor scares the living shit out of me.

I'm not done yet.

2007-01-28T18:03:00.000-06:00

I've been really distracted by this whole being fired thing. My friends tell me it's no big deal but to be honest, I've never had such a bad experience with a patient. There's a really good quote by Gabrial Garcia Marquez: Anger is just guilt turned inward. (well, ok, I can't remember it verbatim, but that's the gestault. JEEZ PEOPLE.)

Which had me thinking...do I just feel guilty? I reflected back on how I treated this patient and tried to see if I had done anything I felt guilty about. Ok, maybe I was a little aggressive explaining the team's plan to him, especially when he yelled at me about how he felt he needed to stay in the hospital for 3 more days to receive physical therapy even after I very patiently explained that he was medically clear, and no, physical therapy is not a reason to stay in the hospital. I am kind of an authoritative person. Some might say bossy.

In the spirit of learning a lesson when dumb things happen, I've come up with my lesson from this experience: I will be more empathetic to my patient's emotional needs. Even when those needs are totally. Fucking. Senseless. I ended up signing this patient out to one of the interns on my team, who later remarked, "Peg was trying to do the right thing. I'm just giving this guy whatever he wants."

2007-01-28T14:39:00.001-06:00

Ok!! So I thought for a while there that my blog was down...I couldn't log in to at all, and I had tried to post the video a few times and it sort of broke my blog, but then it seems like a few days later it sorted itself out, so we're back in business! Thanggod...who knows what would happen if the Internet lost my wisdom.

I'm still on my medicine subI. I was really loving it at the beginning, but now I'm just sick of all the bullshit. Medicine wards has made me think a lot about healthcare in America and where all our money is actually going. I'm starting to realize I'm a huge cynic. I love helping sick people, and I think everyone is worth the effort to treat. When you can actually figure out what is causing someone's illness and help make it better, it's the best feeling in the world. Unfortunately, so much of what we treat for is chronic illness. And when your patients feel great, you're their biggest hero.

Unfortunately, 3 days in the hospital can't undo the consequences of a lifetime of bad habits, like smoking, drinking, eating poorly, and not exercising. There's no medication to fix someone's congestive heart failure. We can just give them medicine to help them pee out excess fluids so their heart doesn't get overburdened by volume and more medicine to help their heart beat a little harder to push that fluid out. We practice medicine, we don't work magic.

Like I said, I love medicine when you're actually practicing it. Making the diagnosis of a medical mystery is the most heady feeling in the world. There's no greater privilege than taking care of someone who's actually sick -- key word there being ACTUALLY.

Anyway, the long and short of this is, I can't do internal medicine. Give me a surgical subspecialty any day. I get frustrated having to deal with the unretractable results of people's bad habits when they can't take care of themselves, and it pisses me off even more when they hold it against US that we can't fix their bullshit. Clearly, I'm far too judgmental to make a good primary care doctor.

I'm bringing this up because I got fired by a patient for the first time 2 days ago. He was upset because I dared to suggest that he could go home because we were doing nothing for him at the hospital that he wasn't doing at home. He got all pissy and said, "Do I look like I can go home?" Um, well, no, I think you're the perfect candidate for subacute rehab but you refuse to go. You are, however, inappropriate for the hospital. We take care of acute illness here; we don't kee people here for physical therapy, which is basically what he wanted. He's a good friend of some hospital administrator though, so he got to stay here for a few extra days, after threatening to have me "dealt with." Um, ok. I'll be upstairs waitin' for my whuppin'.

I don't get it. Do people LIKE being in the hospital? I can barely stand it and I work there. To be sick enough to be admitted to the hospital means you are REALLY FUCKIN' SICK. Eh, whatever. This is actually nothing. When I was a 3rd year we got fired as a team by 2 separate patients.

2007-01-23T20:54:00.000-06:00

Ok, ok, I'm sorry I've been MIA for so long! I interviewed in Philly and loved their program, which, if I decide to leave the midwest, I'll rank it #1. Ok...ENOUGH!! I'm not going to think about the match for at least another 3 weeks.

So let's see..I've been on my medicine subI, so busy with the SAVING OF LIVES and QUALITY PATIENT CARE. In all seriousness, a few days ago I was discharging a patient who had just gotten cathed and needed stents for 2 separate coronary vessels. I was trying to explain the importance of taking your medicine and following up with your doctor in reducing the chances of dropping dead, all leaning on the bedrails, trying to make good contact and being earnest. After nodding gravely throughout my sermon, when asked if he understood exactly what I was saying, his response was, "Doctor, you're very pretty." Hard to be mad under the circumstances, but pay attention!!

Also, the medical school variety show was a couple of days ago. Shanmugam and his friends put together a video, which I have linked here. It's a parody of The Office, my favorite TV show, and is actually pretty funny. (That's him playing Michael Scott...he won the Golden Glove award for best actor!) Enjoy!

2007-01-23T20:52:00.000-06:00

The Doctor's Office

I've been MIA for a while ya'll, sorry! (SO BUSY, what with the VITAL PATIENT CARE and SAVING OF LIVES) Anyway, at my med school there's a variety show every year and this year Shanmugam and his friends submitted a video, which I thought was pretty f'in hilarious. That's him there playing Michael Scott.

2007-01-10T18:31:00.000-06:00

I just figured out how to text page from outside the hospital, and I just sent the website to my parents "For use in EMERGENCIES only, ie someone is dead and the house is on fire." My parents have a hard time with the concept of "emergencies," for instance when I worked nights on ER and on obstetrics I asked my parents to please not call during the day except in case of EMERGENCY because I kind of needed to sleep and then my mom would call me to say that her orchids were blooming and my dad ran over a snake in the driveway. [But I still like keeping my phone on when I'm around because I like being available to people, and also because Shanmugam tends to lock himself out of the apartment quite a bit.]

Anyway, my mom showed great restraint and instead left me a voicemail saying how much she wanted to text me today but didn't want to violate my silly "emergencies only" rule so she thought she'd just call and tell me how cute Reflux was looking in the little doggy golf shirt she got him at Walmart.

And...please validate my existence!

2007-01-09T23:25:00.000-06:00

I was just making the rounds on some of my favorite blogs and Punchberry alerts us to the fact that it's the blogger holiday known as De-Lurking Week. So if you read my blog and would like to say hi, please feel free! And if you don't, that'd be ok too. [But dammit, why the hell not?! It makes me feel so special.]

Happy New Year! Yeah, I know, I'm like 3 weeks late.

2007-01-09T22:56:00.000-06:00

Hello!!! Ok, sorry, so first I panicked because I was supposed to take Boards on Dec. 27th, then I got supermotivated and studied really hard for like THREE DAYS STRAIGHT (and people, it was a CHALLENGE. I cried myself to sleep on Reflux's smelly confused back every night.), then I stopped caring and rescheduled my test for sometime in march, then I started my medicine subI and got all excited about medicine again, then I got sort of lazy and really sick of manually disimpacting all the rectums around me, and now I'm back to blogging again! 2007 ROCKS!

(And seriously why do all my patients have constipation? Why has my finger been up so many butts in the last 3 days? And in all seriousness, actually, one of my patients is a paraplegic and was admitted SOLELY so she could be manually disimpacted by my expert fingers 3 times a day, and this morning on rounds she told my attending that I, the square peg, yes, who has forgotten to order meals for every single patient she's admitted so far such that they're starving and pissed off at her by the time she comes to round on them at buttcrack o'clock, was the only doctor she liked. Because I, apparently, am the only one that "knows shit from shinola." And she would know.)

In other news, I haven't been on an interview in 3 weeks and I'm sad! I miss it! It's true that I'm all out of fake interest, but on the other hand, being schmoozed is kind of fun! Anyway, I have my last one this Saturday in Philly, and it'll just be fun to run into some of the other girls I've met on the interview trail.

Also, I really love internal medicine! Taking care of the whole patient and not just their uterus is kind of fun! The chronic untreatable stuff really depresses me though; I felt this way after I did medicine as a 3rd year too. It was just too depressing by the end to be a serious career choice. And medicine residents, I'm sorry, but they're huge nerds. Just...NERDS. I can't even describe it any better than that. They get excited about making fun of the ED residents for their "lame" admits and how the ortho residents don't know the insulin drip protocol.

It might also just be that I like being an intern WAY more than I like being a medical student. You tend to feel like less of a redundant asshole when YOU are the one that comes up with the plan and are solely in charge of the patient. And..when your patients are getting better, they love you! When they're still not pooping and miserable, they make you feel like the biggest idiot in the world you sometimes secretly feel like on the inside. On the whole, though, major upgrade. My only peeve is that without an MD by my name (which I'm starting to realize more and more is totally f'in arbitrary...what am I going to know in 6 months when I have the degree in my hand that I don't know now?) I can't sign any of my own orders. Which is fine for, like, anti-arrhythmics, and anti-coagulants, and you know, stuff that's kind of a huge fucking deal. On the other hand, when I have to page my resident 3 times so she can cosign my order for Tylenol for my patient's headache or a plastic bucket to be put in my other patient's toilet so we can measure her urine output, it feels pretty dumb. Often I'll just find the plastic bucket in the supply closet and put it in the toilet myself. It's much faster.

TCL and I are over. We hung out one night a few weeks ago and he just came on a little strong. Ok, Internet, prepare yourself. He was breathing on me. It was so gross. Also, I don't like people stroking my hair, because people, I DON'T WAKE UP LOOKING LIKE THIS. It took a flat iron and several grooming products and dammit, I don't want some dude's greasy fingers fucking it up. Well, ok, I just didn't want TCL's greasy fingers on it. I'm just trying to find the right greasy fingers, ok? And they definitely weren't TCL's.

Ok, Shanmugam just came in with some girl and a bag of 40s (sometimes I REALLY miss being a first year) which is....romantic, but he also brought me a Subway sandwich and my favoritest greasy potato chips in the world!! I lurve him. I almost want to match in Chicago just so I can live with him again, but then I would be pretty much guaranteeing that I would put a big motherly damper on his mack.

Alright, well, good night! I just admitted 2 patients today so I should read up on methadone overdose and aortic dissection.

Smell my finger.

2006-12-21T22:47:00.000-06:00

Today Jagdish and I manually disimpacted Reflux.

Let that soak in for a moment. My older brother, a bona fide MD, and myself, 6 mo. away from my own degree, synergized our medical know-how to de-constipate my dog, in a dignified manner culminating in my inserting my pinky finger into my poor 7 lb. dog's anus.

Despite Reflux's blindness, deafness, senile dementia, and general ancient broke down-edness, that guy sure had a lot of fight in him. He fought so much that we had to recruit my mom to hold his thorax still, while Jagdish held his legs so I could lift up his tail for the impending activity in and around his ass. Of course, while my mom held him, he took a humongous anger-fueled piss that unfortunately dripped down her shirt sleeve and all the way down her waist. Actually, everyone needed a shower afterwards, because the minute I lifted up his tail to figure out exactly what was going on down there, Reflux emitted a barrage of defensive farts, extremely wet and stinky. After the pre-emptive strike, Jagdish and I, anticipating some explosive fecal matter headed our way, decided to move the operation out of the laundry room and into the garage.

What prompted me to practice medical maneuvers on my own dog? Well, to be frank, according to my mom, he hadn't taken a dump in 3 days, and I walked him myself 3 or 4 times today, and he would assume the hunchback pre-poopy posture and stand there and just strain and strain and strain until his poor little tail and hind legs were all trembly with effort, and nothing would come out. I, unable to keep my mouth shut, pointed out that he was "probably impacted with loads of dry hard stool in his rectal vault." My mom took this as me volunteering to manually disimpact said stool, a task which I unsuccessfully tried to pawn off on Jagdish, saying he was the only one with a medical degree to actually back the performance of such a procedure. In the end, it was a group effort. And now, Reflux is mad at all of us.

Diary of a Mad Brown Woman

MY LIFE IS SO GLAMOROUS

Clutching my pearls

Moobs

Because this is way more fun than writing about 1st trimester aneuploidy screening

Dancing through LIIIIIIIIIFE

Hey!! Yeah you!! Come back -- I'll try to be funnier!!!

Oh. There you are.

Welcome aboard, BEEYOTCH.

It's Over!!

Be the doctor your mother always wanted you to marry.

One more. I swear. Then I'm over it.

Square Goes Celibate

He HOHOPISsed me off.

Pillow Angel

Nursing a Hangover

Presenting a Thesis: Part WOO HOO

Biodata

DQ: We do NOT treat you right

Multifunctional VaJayJay

You're Really Starting to Look Desperate

SWEEEEEET DUUUUUDE

IT SUCKS

I'm done with my thesis!

Progress Update. Or, PU.

This was really the best you could come up with?

HOT! HOT! HOT!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

My problems are so effin' dumb.

Tonight at the Gym

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

I Can Play the Guitar Like a Motherfuckin' Riot

Big Truck Balls

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Big Truck Balls

The Creative Process: Prepare to Be Dazzled

I lied.

This Post is Dripping in Estrogen.

Planet Earth

WHAT AM I GETTING MYSELF INTO

Square Peg Does the Lou

Studying for Boards: Part WOO HOO!

Disclaimer

Calcitonin.

The Oscars

Find a happy place.

My Specialty

Lost: I'm officially turning you off.

Pregnant in America -- Oh I'm not finished yet.

Pregnant in America.

I did a little drunking last night.

Cabin fever.

My favorite holiday. Bitches.

I'm not done yet.

And...please validate my existence!

Happy New Year! Yeah, I know, I'm like 3 weeks late.

Smell my finger.