Sunday, March 21, 2010

Gullible's Travels

So I've prepared a little something about my trip to "Nicarawa" (as the locals say). Nothing too formal, very Gospel of Thomas-ish in this blog's composition: it's Mariachi-style, blogging out-loud.

So how about that drive in? I guess that's why they call it "Sin City." Ha, ha, ha, ha...

I had to seriously refrain from introducing myself to patients as "Dr. Gregory House." And no, no matter the symptoms, it's not lupus.

Some things you just can't un-see. Pap smears is one of them.

Twice at the airport, I had white gringos come up and start speaking Spanish to me. Escuchame assholes, solo porque yo soy moreno no significa que no hablan Ingles. Got that? YO HABLO INGLES, PENDEJOS.

I'll miss cheap beer the most; it's been years since I drank that much in one week. $2 for a Tona 40oz? Ridiculous, man.

I'll miss cheap cigarettes, too. It's so easy not to smoke in America, where a pack costs $7. Smh.

One word: pinatas.

Another word: paginas.

Do words in the plural form count as one word?

In all seriousness, clinic was a lot of fun and a great learning experience. Frustrating, too.
- Frustrating that there was only so much we could do
- Frustrating that a lot of the things we saw were easily preventable with life-style changes, albeit maybe not so simple for the patients to do
- Frustrating that even with the medicines we prescribed, it'd be a crap-shoot whether or not the patients would actually take their meds and/or finish them off

I never realized how frustrating the life of a doctor can be from that angle. I think that was the greatest lesson I learned.

It was cool working under the doctoral hierarchy- to get a feel for how doctors work as a team. For the uninitiated out there, basically what we did as VIDA volunteers was do the patient interviews and diagnosis and the doctors we worked with signed off on everything. Thankfully, our "attendings" were cool about everything and were so willing to teach. I learned a lot. Asshole attendings can wait til I officially get into med school and start my rotations, I guess.

The hard part of clinic was "keeping it simple" e.g. instead of thinking "staph pneumonia" think "this patient works in an environment with a lot of smoke and that's why they can't breathe." Which again ties into the environmental/lifestyle-based diagnosis. It was definitely a head-turner in thinking of how to diagnose a patient.

One more thing I learned: pulmo-grip, multivitamins, and albednazol go a long way. Flucanozol and amoxicillin are useful, too, if you're feeling fancy and want to church up your diag a bit.

Honestly, I was a bit worried before the trip started. I wasn't sure (still not sure) if medicine was right for me, and here I was, diving head-first into a potentially difficult situation in rural medicine. On top of that, I was traveling with a bunch of pre-meds whom I'd talked to only sparingly. (No offense, but I don't normally hang out with pre-meds for good reason. I mean have you seen some of the kids who attend AMSA meetings? Face-palm.)

Anyway, the trip was a lot of fun and my worries were unwarranted. I still don't know if medicine is right for me and I'm still not looking forward to a rotation through OB. But at this point, I'm pretty much pot-committed and I'm at least comfortable with the idea of a lifetime in medicine. And you pre-med kids are a bunch of cool cats; I honestly didn't know pre-meddies got down like that. Whaaaat.

Seriously, though, you VIDA cats are a good group and I greatly enjoyed working with yall. I'm glad everyone had a good time; like Lester said, a positive attitude goes a long way and a difficult situation was made amenable. You guys rock.

I think that pretty much covers what I wanted to say. Peace, love, and albednazol.