a turd

My attending storms out of the bathroom and looks over at me, “It’s a fucking turd!”
Let’s back up a few minutes.
My patient has been having (if you are squeamish you might as well stop reading now) copious, purulent, pungent discharge coming out of her vagina for two months.  When I say copious, I mean she [...]

emergency room elective: day 1

Day 1: After tossing and turning all night I drag myself out of bed and make it to my new site on time. It’s my first day of an EM elective and I’m nervous as shit. I get there at 8:40 (I have an incredibly annoying habit of arriving anywhere I need to be way too [...]

f-ed by the snake tip

Yesterday my patient said to me, “I got fucked by the snake tip.  It was waving a flag.” He then shifted his head toward me, looked directly into my eyes, and while grinning said, “Yeah that’s right, you know what I mean.  We got fucked by the snake tip. You know what I’m talking about, [...]

three little old ladies

The first little old lady I came across today was my lovely 96 year old patient.  Long story short, she doesn’t function well.  She is disoriented and demented and bedridden.  And every day for the past week the worst part of my day is explaining to her husband of 70+ years that she is not [...]

life with the crazies

When your patient has his privates hanging out and asks you to come and sit on his lap, you learn about focal neurological deficits that result in hypersexuality.  When your patient insists, while in the hospital bed, that he is in a prison in Las Vegas in 1987 and whose urine is positive for nitrates [...]

quick recap

One month and a hundred or so kids, ear infections, and viral exanthems have gone by since my last post.  Not really sure when or how that happened.  
Quick recap on my first clerkship: peds is over, and surprisingly I enjoyed it.  
I do not see myself as a pediatrician. The part of the clerkship that [...]

blunder

Today in the sports medicine clinic we had a dancer-patient.  As the resident was presenting the case to the attending, the attending interrupted, “YES, but I’d really like to know, what KIND of dance does she do?” The resident had a brain fart and looked at me for some help.  
Finally! A question I can [...]

i’m impressed

Speaking of granulomas, this girl’s med school essay has already been written for her: Teen Diagnoses Her Own Disease in Science Class (CNN).
“It’s weird I had to solve my own medical problem,” Terry told CNN affiliate KOMO in Seattle, Washington. “There were just no answers anywhere. … I was always sick.”
Yes, it’s weird you had [...]

from the depths

1. I would like to anterogradely and retrogradely [in the ways of kinesin and dynein, if you will] apologize for a) not answering my phone, b) not listening to my voicemail, c) not reading emails, d) not writing emails, e) spilling honey nut cheerios all over the kitchen because instead of paying attention to how [...]

good morning

I fought with myself for a good thirty minutes before finally dragging myself out of bed.  I sludged upstairs and sank into my morning routine: coffee, honey nut cheerios, the paper.  Awake yet?  Not quite. More honey nut cheerios, more coffee, and how about just a few more honey nut cheerios.  After wasting enough time [...]