Blog: Cold Girl Fever

Mr. Inmabusiness : Are you married? PGYx: No. Mr. IMB: Why? PGYx: [...] Mr. IMB: Picky Picky!? Ms. Freedom: Are you married? PGYx: No. Ms. Freedom: Good! Stay single! Nurse Sweet: Have you seen that movie, No Strings Attached? PGYx: No, but I heard it's good. What do you think? Nurse Sweet: Yeah, it is, you should watch it!...The thing is, it's about residents and you [...]

Combating Depression With Meditation, Diet : NPR "In his book Spontaneous Happiness, Dr. Andrew Weil writes of an 'integrative' approach to mental health, warding off mild and moderate depression with an anti-inflammatory diet, exercise and activities such as yoga and meditation, rather than antidepressants." You can listen to the audio or read the transcript. Dr. Weil makes some great points about drawbacks of our reflexive tendency to prescribe antidepressants. I think our society would benefit from realizing: 1) Depression isn't cured by a 15 minute office visit and daily [...]

Yesterday I bicycled up Mt. Local near my parents' house out West. I'm on vacation! When I attempted the same ride a few years ago I'd never been on a road bike. I stopped at around the 1000 foot mark and nearly vomited from overexertion before getting hypothermia riding down the mountain. It was...fun. Obviously I hoped for a better outcome this time now that I've earned the nickname, "Dr. Nature," from one of the custodians at work. As it turns out, my n-of-one case study shows regular outdoor exercise leads [...]

Yesterday I bicycled up Mt. Local near my parents' house out West. I'm on vacation! When I attempted the same ride a few years ago I'd never been on a road bike. I stopped at around the 1000 foot mark and nearly vomited from overexertion before getting hypothermia riding down the mountain. It was...fun. Obviously I hoped for a better outcome this time now that I've earned the nickname, "Dr. Nature," from one of the custodians at work. As it turns out, my n-of-one case study shows regular outdoor exercise leads [...]

PGYx : Sir, are you right or left handed? Mr. Literal (adorable old man w/history of schizophrenia) : Left handed. PGYx : Oh, so do you consider yourself to be a creative person? Mr. Literal : No! I'm not creative, not artistic. Not one bit! Why do you ask? PGYx: Well, I've met a lot of left-handed folks who "think outside the box." Mr. Literal: [ without missing a beat ] Well, I am schizophrenic! We both immediately burst into [...]

PGYx : Sir, are you right or left handed? Mr. Literal (adorable old man w/history of schizophrenia) : Left handed. PGYx : Oh, so do you consider yourself to be a creative person? Mr. Literal : No! I'm not creative, not artistic. Not one bit! Why do you ask? PGYx: Well, I've met a lot of left-handed folks who "think outside the box." Mr. Literal: [ without missing a beat ] Well, I am schizophrenic! We both immediately burst into [...]

I made it through a long Hurricane Irene call shift with two nights of minimal sleep on a call-room bed that is more metal springs than fluffy mattress. On my arrival home, I was greeted by my elderly neighbor, whom I have met several times, sweeping her driveway. Mrs. Cataract: So, you gonna start back at college soon? PGYx: (in scrub pants & t-shirt) [ laughing ] I'm a doctor! Mrs. C: Oh! Where you work? In related news, [...]

Texting with mom: Me: [sends photo] My residency class! Mom: Cool picture you r the best looking though Me : You have to say that -- you're my mom. Mom: All I know for sure Ur the best looking compared to the bald guy

Okay, so I became a PGY2 (post-graduate year 2) resident on July 1, but my life has been super busy since then! I had just about the worst move of my life thanks to Lenora's of Philadelphia (they actually get great reviews elsewhere, but here are some poor ones -- if you are at all inclined to use these folks then e-mail me first!). Fortunately, my parents made it all better by putting their noses to the grindstone for most of the next 10 days to get me settled in my new place. They left [...]

Attending: Do you ever get jealous of all the guys looking at your wife? [ Adorable woman in her 80s sits nearby, smiling sweetly ] Mr. Lucky [explains slowly] : No. She's a cougar. [Stunned silence with wide-eyed looks and threatened giggle loop exchanged between the residents & attending] Mrs. Lucky: It's true, I am a month older than he is, haha. [Entire room erupts into extended laughter & guffaws]

After an agonizing search filled with long drives, dead ends, and abundant reminders that descriptive adjectives in apartment ads are open to WIDE interpretation, I'm thrilled to report I have found my next home! My search wasn't all sunshine & roses -- I definitely grew demoralized as I plumbed the deepest recesses of sites like Craigslist, Rent.com, and Zillow into the wee hours of the night. I sent countless e-mails to check availability and introduce myself as a clean, quiet, smoke-free resident with excellent housing and professional references. Finally, I advertised myself on Craigslist -- through a housing [...]

I saw this on Healthy Librarian's wonderfully inspiring, informative, and fun-to-read blog . It sums up how I feel about my internship experience better than anything I could write: "The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile." --Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi I also ran across this similar sentiment in the Dalai Lama's book (on CD), How to Be Compassionate: A Handbook for Creating Inner Peace and a Happier [...]

I just finished my last EVER! Internal Medicine 30-hour call shift. Some of you are aware that I picked my internship program largely based on the number of 30-hour shifts because I correctly suspected these would be internship's most brutalizing feature. Of all my expectations regarding the past year, this one is the only one that was 100% fulfilled. In a National Geographic article published last year about the science of sleep , Harvard sleep authority Dr. Charles Czeisler notes: Going without sleep for 24 hours or getting [...]

• Wye Oak -- Civilian (mp3) » wye-oak-civilian_2011-03-08-193733.128.m....mp3
• Patrick Park - Here We Are

Mr. Heroin : I swear I will NEVER do that again. NEVER again! PGYx: I want you to know that you just almost died. You stopped breathing and if your sister hadn't brought help you'd be dead. Mr. Heroin : I'm never doing that again! PGYx : Ok, so would you be interested in going to rehab? Mr. Heroin: I think I'd do well with AA meetings and things like that. PGYx: What about rehab? Mr. Heroin: Well, I sort of [...]

I have spent 23 of the last 24 days hard at work in the hospital. My last day off was 15 days ago but tomorrow I am FREE! I'm so excited to sleep in, look at apartments, finally fix my malfunctioning toilet, meditate, and tackle the massive accumulation of laundry that has left me with nothing to wear. Ok, so looking at apartments may have to wait until my Golden Weekend (2 days off!) next weekend, but I can at least look at places online. I'd also really like to see this movie that supposedly explores [...]

PGYx ( admitting a very old, very spry woman to the hospital ): It was truly a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for your book recommendations. I hope you feel better and get out of here soon! Mrs. Wise : Oh, I enjoyed talking with you very much. Now be sure to get enough sleep tonight. Don't push yourself to overdo. Some people can handle it, but you don't have the physical constitution for that. How's that for the art of diagnosis?

...I miss this more than I can say. Maybe it's telling that I have never had my hair cut on the East Coast. After nearly 5 years ostensibly comfortably settled here, I've grown weary of the frantic pace and unhealthy lifestyle of nearly everyone I know. I wish I could go home. In other news, I'm so grateful that my family in Tuscaloosa survived the tornado. Two of my cousins lost nearly everything they owned, but they and their families are unhurt. Looks like long hours, lost sleep, and absent life [...]

My last sleepless and eventful overnight call left me feeling pretty drained -- to the tune of a 15-hour long sleep marathon followed by bedtime at 5:30(!) pm after an early day yesterday. Now I'm wide awake (for an intern, anyway) after a semi-disturbing work-inspired dream. I've grown to accept that the only constant in life is change. Five minutes from now, anything I observe will have changed in at least some small way. I'm learning to observe things as they are. But sometimes a moment stands in such stark contrast to the one [...]

Yesterday I was post-call on a 30-hour shift. It is standard humane practice for the team to round on the post-call intern's patients first so that s/he can leave somewhere around the 30-hour mark. When my attending arrived for rounds she asked, " Who's post-call?" (Rests her gaze on me and hesitates) "PGYx, you're not post-call, are you? " "I am!" I said, smiling. " Wow, you look great! You look the same as you did when I left last night! " (Picture the same pony tail I'd [...]

And the hardest part was falling down the stairs gracefully... Sounds a lot like life to me. :-) Check out this beautiful song from Ghosts I've Met posted by the discerning authors of Those Who Dig . The full album drops this Tuesday, April 12. This post is mostly a test of whether my 5-minute effort to embed a music player worked. If I've failed then please pardon my construction efforts and know I'll get back to them some time this summer. Busy times here and ahead. [...]

• Ghosts I've Met - Blackwoods