Then end of third year and a look ahead

Ladies and gentlemen, it has been a good while since my last post. I've spent the last month at Union Memorial Hospital (a community hospital in Baltimore City) doing my Internal medicine rotation which is my last third year rotation. I just took the shelf exams (a National Medical exam for 3rd yr medical students to access their competency at the end of each rotation). The shelf exam is not obligatory and as such, only certain schools subscribe for their students to take it and in each school some rotations don't offer shelf exams. For instance at the University of Maryland SOM, Family Medicine and Neurology do not offer Shelf exams. They have an "in-house" exam instead.

With that said, the Medicine Shelf exam went really well and I expect to perform well. Eventhough I'll be going into Surgery, I'm a strong believer that a solid foundation in Medicine sets the stage for whatever field you're interested in. I'll be managing patients on the floor pre- and post op moreso as an intern than ever and these medicine skills will come in very handy. I'll be called for consults to the ER or to see pts admitted by the medicine service and in order to rule in any case as a surgery case, I'll need to r/o potential issues that could be managed by medicine first because Surgery is usually called in, most of the times, when medical management fails or isn't the best route to take in a particular situation.

I really enjoyed my last month of third year and will as of July 6, be a 4th year, officially! I'm excited to take on my new role as a Sub-Intern in Cardiothoracic Surgery. I KNOW that it'll be hard work. It'll require getting up really early in the morning, 5AM or so, and getting to the hospital early to have an early start. I feel like my background has really set the stage for me as far as having work ethics, being hard working, resilient and a "no whinner" which are definite qualities expected of a student of Surgery. As young as I can remember, where I grew up in Cameroon, W. Africa, I and the rest of my family would get very early not later than 5Am and get ready to start treking to far away bushes and farms. We would trake at times for over an hour to get to the farm and then start working. I and my brother would clear the bush while my sisters and mom would tilt the soil. Once in a while I would visit my uncle in the village during summer vacations (in Lewoh) where we'll build fences out of sticks that we would cut from the forests. We would go to far away farms and carry cocoyams on our barehead and trake hours upon hours to get home. Well, Surgery doesn't require any building fences, no treking for long distances, no clearing of bushes BUT it DOES require you to stand for long hours, use your hands all day long and above all, you have to be READY AT ALL TIMES to GET THE JOB DONE. My background sets my ready for this already. I do not have to force myself, push myself, set my mind ready for this since it's more or less part of me and I just need to be a student of surgery and learn from many wonderful surgeons on how to be the best surgeon. All what I want from any surgery program that I end up with is that I be thought EVERYTHING that the surgeons know so that in the future, whenever I decide on "cutting" on someone I will know without any doubt that the patient is getting the best care.

For the couple of days that I have left to begin 4th year, I have a couple of things to complete.
1- I'm currently working with Dr. Turner, the Program Director for Surgery at the University of Maryland on a research project. Our abstract was appected for presentation at the National Medical Association annual meeting. I should complete my poster for that presentation in a couple of days; already started on that.
2- I'll tie the loose ends that I have on another manuscript that we're working on.
3- Reading towards my Sub-internship. I've got to read up on Anatomy especially pulmonary and Cardiac, different types of Ventilation machines and their settings, LVAD (Left Ventricular Assisted Device) which are machines that help the Left Ventricle pump blood to the Aorta - it's used in End Stage heart Failure and for some, it helps "buy time" while they're waiting for a heart transplantation. Also I'll have to look at Chest tubes and Cardiac drips (medicines given to patients who undergo cardiac surgeries).

and then in August I'll be doing an away rotation at Mayo clinic. I'm so excited about the opportunity to spend a month in a world class institution of medicine. Can't wait!

I'll keep you posted and thanks for visiting the site. Again, feel free to share your experiences be it in 1st, 2nd or any other year of medical school. Together, we can learn from each other, make ourselves better and subsequently make the people around us feel better and thus the world.

There's that place deep within each and everyone of us that we may never discover. You do not want to leave this earth without reaching deep down within you, deep in that place to pull out what you can offer to your patients (neighbors, strangers, community and friends). You will know it when you are close or deep in that place ... but you must make allowance for challenges and criticisms from within and without because it is only through pushing yourself beyond your domain, beyond what makes you cozy that you will be able to reach that place; deep within and you'll know it.