Med School Wednesday -- Psych

When you are in medical school, the list of tasks required is long.  Which, I suspect, is common among lots of different schools.  One of the things required in medical school is rotations through various different areas of medicine.  In November, my rotation was psychiatry.  Which I did at the local VA hospital.

I know.

Now, this is not to say that I am not incredibly thankful to all of the veterans out there for everything that they have done.  Because I am.  But I was somewhat anxious about doing my psychiatry rotation there, as that entire area of medicine has a different flavor than any other. 

I must admit -- my initial guesses at what it would be like were totally and completely wrong.  It was FABULOUS.  Now, this is not to say that I love psych -- while it is interesting, it isn't something that I could see myself doing on a daily basis.  But the people that I worked with were absolutely AMAZING.  They were so kind and helpful and willing to answer questions...the residents and attending that I was with completely and totally made my month on psych a fantastic experience, and I could not be more thankful for that.  I had one other student with me full time during the rotation and that only served to make the experience even better.  It was so nice to have a partner in crime for the month -- not to mention someone who could help give me advice on all of the things left to do for the next year and a half of medical school!

And it doesn't hurt that the view wasn't too bad either...

Scenes From Family Medicine

I mentioned that my October rotation was in family medicine, but I didn't mention that it was in a small town about 45 minutes north of where I live. In addition to not being used to such a long commute (the hospital that I work at is a whopping 2.5 miles from my house), I am not used to being in a small town. I'm from a big city (although technically the suburb portion of the big city) and I live in a well populated suburb of a medium sized city now.

While I'm only driving 45 minutes from where I live, and less than 20 minutes from the city limits, it still feels like I am entering a whole different world sometimes.

And while I am anxiously awaiting the end of the month and an end to the two hours I am spending in the car every day, I just might miss the beautiful scenery I see on my drive every day.

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Family Medicine

When I started medical school, I was not a fan of family medicine. I had no issue with it for run of the mill care, but I had a very difficult time seeing how one person could know enough to manage complicated issues from such a wide variety of patients. Sore throats, physicals and blood pressure? Okay fine. Pregnancy? Sorry, that's not something that I have an easy time accepting. (Disclaimer: everyone is entitled to their own opinions -- if you want to, you can love family practice and let them deliver your babies. It's just not a choice I would make).

In medical school you are required to do rotations in a large number of specialties, and that includes family medicine. And I have spent the month of October doing, you guessed it, family medicine. Which I have to admit has been a different experience than I was expecting.

I expected to hate it.

And, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that I am not crazy about. But I also have to admit that I don't hate it like I thought I would. The days are easy, low stress and pass (reasonably) quickly. Lunches are catered almost every day (thank you, pharmaceutical reps!), and there are no nights and no weekends.

I still have no idea what I want to do with my life once I am does with school, but if nothing else, not hating this rotation like I thought that I would is helping me keep an open mind about the different options that are out there to pick from...


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