Neuroradiology Rotation

Neuroradiology is just radiology of the brain and spine. Now that we're all on the same page ... what's up with this field?

I have been on this rotation for 5 days and have worked a total of 8 hours ... and by "worked" I mean sat in a chair and listened to the radiologists talk to each other. I show up (although I guarantee they wouldn't notice if I was absent) and listen to the attending and resident read films. All I do is I sit behind them and try to stay awake. Every once in awhile I provide my two cents, but only on non-medical topics (e.g. the war in Iraq, the Daily Show, or combinations of the two). I feel like I'm in high school again, shadowing doctors and contributing nothing.

With that said, I love this rotation! In case you missed it, I've been on this rotation for 5 days and have only worked 8 hours! That's less than 2 hours a day. I don't know if my interactions with these radiologists are representative of their profession, but if so, I'm entering the wrong field. Why work 10 hours a day when you can work 2 (and make more money too)? Working 2 hours per day is something with which I have absolutely no problem. I am really curious what the radiologists do the rest of their day, though ... procedures? scans? Either brain and spine scans are easy to read or there aren't that many performed each day.

Either way, I don't know ... and for once, I don't care. I'm enjoying my free time.

Thanksgiving Travel

It being Thanksgiving and all, I have come home to Northern California for several days. Normally I drive, but since I will only be gone for 3 nights I decided instead to fly here. (Yes, I was just here last week for my sub-I.)

My flight was scheduled for 9pm, and I figured I should be at the airport at 8pm. But after hearing about a big-rig flipping over on the 405 freeway and clogging up traffic for miles, and also every news station reporting unusually long lines at airports, I chose to leave for the airport even earlier ... as in, I left for the airport at 6pm (and it normally takes about 30 minutes to reach the airport).

Not only did I not hit traffic, but I flew through the security line. It also helped that I wasn't checking in luggage and that I printed my boarding pass at home. So I ended up at my gate at 6:45pm. For a 9pm flight. Talk about unnecessary precautions.

To top things off, I was also an idiot. I sat in line at Gate 7 (since Southwest seats on a first-come-first-served basis) until 9pm, reading, staring, twiddling my thumbs, when I realized how strange it was that we hadn't boarded yet. I then heard an announcement overhead saying, "Passenger Axis, please come to the counter". Not sure if that was really my name I heard (even though I have a distinctive last name) I waited, and sure enough they announced it again. I went to the counter and the woman said that I should board the plane at Gate 7 now, as my flight was about to take off. I looked up and noticed that I was actually at Gate 6. I had been sitting for 2 hours in front of Gate 6!

I rushed onto the plane and noticed the plane was full of passengers ... with luggage packed away, seated, and listening to the flight attendant explain where the exit rows were. So apparently I single-handedly held up the entire flight for a few minutes. How many people can do that (non-violently, at least)?

Anyway, I'm home for Thanksgiving now. Will be flying back to Southern California in a few days. Enjoy your turkeys everybody!

Next Rotation

Tomorrow will be the start of my next rotation: neuroradiology. As far as I can tell, this simply means radiology of the head.

I (as well as many other students) schedule this rotation during the winter months in anticipation of being absent during interview season, since this rotation is supposed to be very easy and not at all time-consuming. Regular radiology is supposed to be an easy rotation, where you work only several hours per day ... and neuroradiology supposedly makes radiology look like hard work.

I am definitely looking forward to the free time, to say the least ...

Back to SoCal

Subject says it all.

The sub-I is over (it actually ended Saturday when I was post-call) and I am driving back to southern California tomorrow. The month went very quickly, and I cannot believe I am heading back already. Now let's see if this month of work has gained me anything ... in terms of earning me an interview at this program (I doubt it).

In any case, will be writing next from sunny southern California ... till then.

Call Room Funk

I'm on call right now. It's 1:30 in the morning, and I'm about to take a little nap in this call room. All I want is some sleep, but unfortunately this call room smells like ass. Seriously, no seriously. It smells like a homeless person lived here for a week and left. Either that or someone took a piss in here.

This ain't fair ...

Random Thoughts

• Residency interview offers are finally starting to trickle in. I have a few offers from some of the programs I have slightly less interest in, but they are interviews nonetheless. I'm still waiting around for some of the big guns to get back to me (with good news, I hope).


• I'm quickly getting tired of people who only talk about their kids. I completely understand the excitement of fatherhood and motherhood, and I fully expect to have kids in the future myself, but the behavior of these new parents is just irritating. As long as a topic relates remotely to their kids or children in general (e.g. Halloween) they jump at the opportunity to bring up pictures and stories of their children. So now, to prevent them from dominating conversations, I have started showing pictures of my dog to everyone.


• Being on call q4 (medical speak for "every 4 nights") is not as bad as I thought it would be. Granted it's no breeze either, since there are only 2 days where I am neither on- or post-call, but I'm holding up better than I expected. I have been lucky, however, to get about 2 hours of sleep per call night. It is also easier knowing that this schedule will end soon ... which scares me a little since I know fully well that the bulk of next year will involve such a call schedule.


• On a related note, my time here is almost up. Three weeks down, one to go. Funny how my first week here seemed to drag on, as I was learning the ins and outs of this new hospital and system, and now all of a sudden I have only one week to go before I return to Southern California.


• In other news: being up here is definitely clearing my head of the friend situation from back home. The flip side is that whenever I receive a phone call or text message from friend I get even more excited than normal, which I'll admit is probably not a healthy sign. Case in point: I woke up at 3am recently to the sound of my phone receiving a text message -- from her -- which made me so excited I couldn't fall asleep afterwards.


• P.S. Go see Borat!