Reasons to get a roommate besides Teddy

This morning at 3:14 am, my alarm started its mighty wail. I leaped out of bed, unaware of the time or the implications of the alarm going off. I went straight to the wall and turned off the alarm as if I had walked in the door from the garage and nothing was wrong. I finally took in the alarm's unfamiliar phrase as I typed in my code - back door open back door open back door open. I looked at the back door, and it was OPEN. Teddy was hiding under my bed shaking - a very useful watch dog. My phone started to ring as I stepped toward the back door. The alarm company called to verify I was still alive. Talking to the security guy on the phone, I verified my safety code without really considering if I was safe or not. Security guy asked if I need the police. I replied, "I don't think so, nobody's here. I just wonder why the door is open." He said obviously, "maybe you didn't close it all the way." Uh, thanks dude for your insight. I closed the back door, and set the alarm again. Teddy and I sat in my room revved up and wondered what the next step should be. It was very windy and a little rainy outside. It was probably the wind, plus teddy is afraid of rainy weather which explains his persistent shaking. But then I thought, what if an intruder had intimidated Teddy into this fearful behavior. I decided if I ever wanted to sleep, I would have to search the house for intruders. I went to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife I could find. I sleuthed through every room like a detective from Law and Order, my back against the wall sneaking to the doors, then busting though each door knife pointed forward. I was reassured after my search, and I settled back in bed with the knife on the nightstand. I let Teddy climb into bed to help calm him down. Teddy promptly pooped in the bed - parasympathetic rebound is the pathophysiology, an hour long clean up was the result. Now, needless to say, I cannot sleep - though my bed is now in perfect condition to prevent SIDS - no bedding or pillows, just a warm outfit on firm mattress. The washing machine is producing the noise of a large unbalanced centrifuge unaccustomed to the weight of a duvet and pillows. I may just have to invest in a new bedroom set.

This is not the first time Teddy has soiled a bed. Back in our Boulder days, Teddy soiled my sister Sami's bed when he wasn't feeling well. Sami was in Denver that weekend, so I started to clean everything with the hope she wouldn't find out. In another battle of washing machine vs. duvet, her bedding ripped and the washing machine flooded. I started to sew everything together, hoping I could still salvage the situation. The rip was right in the center after repair, and I went to the fabric store looking for something to help. I bought her name in iron on letters and ironed them over the sewn up tear. She got home shortly, and I told her I had a surprise for her. She went up to her room and emerged with an extremely confused look asking why I had labeled her comforter. I hurriedly replied, "Teddy pooped in your bed, your comforter ripped in the clean up, there's a small flood in the bathroom, and I have to go to work now. I'm really sorry! byyyeeee."

--By Farrah, who's sleeeeeepppyy

Stories from Thanksgiving

Our blog has recently been distracted by the long hours of residency and most of our posts are about the woes of internship. I hope this blog will take us back to our blog roots, funny stories about growing up with foreign parents. Recently, I hosted my very first friendsgiving. The night was a rousing success with plenty of food, and traditional board game fun. The party went off without a hitch, especially since I removed the extra bag of entrails I accidentally left in the roasting turkey before most of the guests arrived. It was during this evening I discovered I am turning into my mother by participating in her favorite past time - embarrassing people. I made everybody go around the table and state what they were most thankful for - since we have all only known each other for a few months, it was admittedly awkward. My fellow intern Sarah, who hates awkward situations, went last and was simply thankful that the awkward moment was about to end. However, I did not pull out my mom's awkward and embarrassing piece de resistance, which brings us to the heart of this thanksgiving story. Every year at the thanksgiving dinner table, my mom makes my little sister (by little I mean 1 and 1/2 years younger than me) sing a song with the chorus line "shaniqua don't live here no more.". You may be thinking, "I've never heard of that song, it is clearly made up." The song does exist, and awesomely, my mom thinks it is a hilarious song. A hit in the year 2001, the hip hop duo of Little T and One Track Mike hit it big with their one hit wonder "Shaniqua." Enjoy it yourself below:

Yes, the experience was surreal for us all at the first thanksgiving my mother demanded the song at the dinner table. Even more surreal for my brother-in-law's run of the mill american parents who were spending their first thanksgiving with us. Now it's a regular event, despite my younger sister's insistence every year that she does not remember the words to the song until she eventually gives in and busts a rhyme.

--By Farrah, who wishes you a very happy thanksgiving tomorrow

Things in the movie Babies not recommended by the average pediatrician

Once again a blog brought to you by the random and obscure shit available on Netflix instant watch. Here are some things not recommended when providing infant appropriate anticipatory guidance.

1) Riding a motorcycle while holding your babies

2) Co-sleeping

3) Letting your toddler hold your infant

4) Letting your baby suck on a piece of chicken

5) Letting your baby crawl through a field of cows

6) Giving your baby coca-cola

Overall, a very adorable movie, but there exists a point of adorable overload - this point was reached during the viewing of this film.

--By Farrah, who sees adorable kids all day everyday so her standard for cuteness is unattainable by the average child

Lonely Nights in the Baptist

Being on call is not as sexy as Grey's Anatomy makes it seem - well, at least for not anyone I know. There are no call room sexual hijinks, no flirting with cute, single doctors, and no dire emergencies (or at least in psychiatry). Instead, call is really busy and very mundane. I usually wander around the ED, very cranky and irritable, wishing that I had become anything else in the world but a doctor, wearing an old UNC sweatshirt that makes the Wake Forest security guards who are inevitably stationed outside a suicidal/homicidal patient's door, telling me "I don' like yo sweatshirt....I'm a [insert any other shitty ACC team here] fan." At 4 AM, however, no one wants to give a dissertation on why you are a Tarheel fan, no matter how die-hard you are about the Dean Dome, Dean Smith, and Roy Williams.

However, probably what I hate most about call is not the work or the scary/depressed/psychotic patients who have decided that 3 AM would be the time they would come into the ED with their crazy command hallucinations or decide to cut their wrists with that trusty old razor blade, but my loneliness. When I'm on call, I swear I hear the Britney Spears' chorus running through my head as if a soundtrack for my current state of mind - "My loneliness is killing me....baby hit me one more time."

For psychiatry, we do not have team structure call - I am literally the only psych person on call - no on site upper level or attending in sight. So I wander the halls of the Baptist alone in my solitude. I wander into a resident work room and see at least 6 internal medicine residents all hanging out together, joking about patients, having human interaction at 3 AM, and I get jealous of their comraderie. The other night I went to the friendly bagel shop to get their disgusting asparagus omelette bagel contraption, and as I waited in line, I saw 4 handsome internal medicine residents drinking their chai lattes at 3 AM, joking and chatting amiably. I enviously looked in their directions in the hopes that someone would talk to me, but they didn't - cliquish as they were. I grew irritable and thought, "Hey, I have friends! They're just at home...sleeping right now, but when they come back, we talk and joke just like your program." And so, I bravely trudge on through calls, counting down the hours before it ends, because after all, the night eventually does have to end, right?

--By Mariam, who realizes the shitty nature of this blog but was getting tired of Farrah's constant reprimanding, "I am keeping this blog alive since residency started, Mariam." This one is for you, Fars.

Vampire Weeknights

I've started to work the night shift in the emergency department, and I can tell you right now that I would make a horrible vampire doctor (or Dr. Acula). I do not look elegantly disheveled with perfectly tousled hair after sleeping all day like the vampires all the tweens are into these days. I certainly don't have the patience to stare intensely at anybody like that dude from the Twilight movie. I usually describe myself as a night person, but this schedule is really messing with my flow. I perpetually live in sweats transitioning from scrubs to PJs to workout clothes then back to scrubs. The workout clothes are simply prophylactic to encourage me to work out, lest my regular pants not fit after my month of elastic waistbands is over. I could conceivably get out of the house in the afternoon when I wake up, but it doesn't feel right. I feel like I'm living in a dream world where work at night doesn't really count, but I have to work all night, so my days are not terribly productive. I sit around waiting to work all night, and then I work all night. Sleeping during the day is not great either, light always manages to seep through the seams of my blackout curtains and Teddy often barks at the stupid birds chirping outside. This experience brings my complaints about residency up to two:

1) Night Shift
2) Residents who complain about residency

On to the topic of complaints, I know that everybody needs somebody to vent to about the crap you have to deal with during residency, but seriously every resident gets over worked with crap - stop complaining about it! Just get a little attitude adjustment and before you know it your month of torture will be replaced with different month with possibly less torture. I'm a little peeved at myself right now just for complaining about the complaints. But seriously, this is my conversation with any intern in almost any specialty - I have had this interaction on multiple occasions from 3rd year of med school till now.

Me: how was your night?
Other intern (OI): *extreme exacerbation* I had to see (insert any number from 1 to 100) patients last night, and I still have to finish (insert any number from 1 to 100) notes! *prolonged sigh*
Me: Oh, I'm sorry, did you at least get to see anything interesting?
OI: Not really. *lets out loud involuntary groan as something on computer doesn't work*
Me: Well, you at least you get to go home soon?
OI: I'm so tired I can't even function right now *falls asleep in chair*

This is how the interaction should go:

OI: how was your night?
Me: TOTALLY AWESOME!

Ok, so maybe that's a little hypomanic reaction, but when you're sleep deprived you have an excuse to act a little loopy every once in a while (as long as there is no alcohol involved). I will admit Surgery gets worked harder than say Pediatrics, but if you picked Surgery, it's your own fault you're so busy (sorry Abby - I still heart you). At least the night shift slows down around 3 am and affords some free moments for blogging - live from the ED!

--By Farrah, who's nickname in the ED has been declared to be "Fawcett head"

NOVA special provides terrifying glimpse of the future

I did not buy cable when I moved for residency. So now instead of watching episodes of the Jersey Shore, I am forced to watch the random and obscure shows available on Netflix instant watch. I stumbled on a NOVA special called "Doctors' Diaries" that profiled 7 doctors starting in their first year of medical school at Harvard in 1987. I watched it mostly out of boredom, but also for a glimpse of what school was like for my attendings. The answer was anticlimactic - school was exactly the same for my attendings, except there was a higher incidence of women with shoulder pads and perms. They struggled through the first two years of medical school reading about the basics with little to no connection to clinical work. They arrived in the second half of medical school knowing nothing while they were pimped. One student was aggressively pimped during his neurology rotation, and he replied with "I don't know because it's only my second day of neurology" followed by a nervous chuckle - a response I used in almost every rotation in medical school.

Not only was school the same, the students were the same even inside the ivy-covered, prestigious walls of Haaahrvaard. There was a slightly creepy mustachioed non-traditional student, a few brainy book nerds, a no-nonsense tough girl, and an emotional do-gooder. Every student on the documentary was a foil of a student in my class. Their lives in medical school were pretty boring and simply told me the story of my past 4 years. The second half of the special, about life beyond the first day of internship to the year 2007, is where their stories went from boring to terrifying.

All of the men on the special were divorced at some point - the mustachioed man managed to squeeze in three divorces. Two of the doctors actually mentioned that treating their spouse like an intern led to problems in their marriage. I can't imagine the poor wives given scut work at home, and admonished when it wasn't done correctly. The book nerds went into academics and seemed to genuinely love their jobs (anesthesiology, ophthalmology), but felt bad about spending time away from their families. Dr. Moustache became overweight, started smoking, got asked to leave his job in the emergency department, and grew a new hairstyle to become Dr. Braided Pony-Tail and Beard. I couldn't really see what element of their lives as doctors was so difficult and was starting to get depressed.

Two of the women no longer worked as clinicians. The no-nonsense young woman became a cardiologist and then a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company. She stated she didn't want to worry about her lifestyle doing heart caths until the age of 70, and she was definitely not worried as she pulled her fancy Audi into the driveway of her massive California home. Another woman, the only pediatrician, delayed intern year to work for a non-profit and get her PhD, and eventually ended up running the same non-profit instead of working as a clinician. The overly emotional girl from medical school became the only female clinician, and was my favorite doctor on the documentary. She worked as an internal medicine doctor for an urban population, she focused on public health, and she seemed to be the only doctor that didn't flaunt the fact that she went to Harvard. The only downside to her story is that she didn't get married until age 40, and even though she's now happily married with children, it does seem kinda late.

After watching these stories, I was left with an image of the future with my family left behind unless I left medicine - it's not terribly encouraging. I hope that I don't become as tired and cynical as these doctors that trained before me. I'm not sure if you can win with this career I've chosen, but I'm guessing I will need a supernatural ability to balance the elements of my life. I think I better take up tightrope walking to practice.

--By Farrah, who was recently told by Mariam to be less sarcastic, pretty good, right?

The Five Stages of Accepting Your Pager

I had a pager in medical school, but it rarely made any noise. The nurses, residents, and fellows were far too busy to page a lowly medical student to see a procedure, and so the pager's only assigned tasks were to devour AAA batteries and to beep when it required fresh meat. Now my new residency pager not only devours AA batters (bigger is better), it's buzzer goes off with responsibility. The nurses need to page me for tasks at 3 am like "the patient in room 807 is gassy and could you please order some gas drops." I don't mind getting paged and checking in on the patients, but it did take a few weeks to get to this state of acceptance. I present to you my model: The Five Stages of Accepting Your Pager.

Stage 1: Brief Elation

July 1st is just a blurry memory overcast by my nervousness. There were not only butterflies in my stomach, there were angry giant pterodactyls. I was hyperaware of the weight of my pager on my hip, but with it's first buzz I was kinda excited. A page! For ME! I could now pick up the phone, dial the number, and say "Hi, this is Dr. R. I was paged." (I said Farrah, but still- I could've said Doctor if I wanted to). The cherry on top was they needed me, not the resident above me, not the fellow, not the attending, ME! It's nice to feel needed.

Stage 2: Denial

What is that buzzing noise? ... ... ... hmm, somebody's pager must be going off ... ... ... Oh CRAP! It's my pager.

Stage 3: Anger

At this stage, you start visibly cringing when you feel the first vibration, and your eyes narrow as you lift up the pager to see who needs you now. You start to recognize certain series of numbers and hold grudges against those numbers. For me it was 2811, which meant I had to go to a delivery. I can tell you right now neonatal resuscitation protocol is not enough training to let you handle what goes down in a delivery.

Stage 4: Bargaining

I'll take 500 pages in the next 5 minutes if I just don't get paged between the hours of 1 and 5 am.

Stage 5: Acceptance

At this point, I knew enough to handle simple problems I was paged with - "why yes I will write for some gas drops." I also knew how to reach somebody above me if I needed them. I could better understand the paperwork and how to write most orders. I knew the patients better by this time too so I knew which ones needed to be checked on before I even went to bed. The initial terror and nerves of residency were on longer operating at 100%, they were toned down to maybe 75% of capacity. I know now that no matter who pages me, I have backup and it's going to be okay.

--By Farrah, who's finds herself inadvertently slipping into a Southern accent several dozen times per day