One Week

I've come to the realization that I kind of suck at this. I am bumbling around like a headless chicken and I feel like I am mostly just getting in the way.

I think my main problem is my very-short-term memory. I've always been more of a conceptual person and when it comes to remembering names, numbers etc I tend to forget crap like that within seconds of being told.

I will go to a computer, read up on a couple of lab values, write them down, have it straight in my mind what I want to say and what the relevance of each value is, but as soon as I have to report to anyone my findings I lose track of what I wanted to say, I forget key points and I talk all jumbled and garbled. I'll have one or two simple questions I want to ask a patient but after getting through the small talk I'll forget what they were.

I think I'm just not very good at following directions or ordered tasks. If I give myself or someone else gives me a couple of tasks to do I have to keep reminding myself what the next task and I'm terribly inefficient.

I'm not very good at doing evaluating physical signs (still mostly going through the motions), I can't keep up with all of the clinical jargon and drug regiments and crap flying left and right...

I think my only real strength is my understanding of organ system pathophysiology. The only problem is, when someone asks me a question directly I turn into a complete freaking moron- my mind blanks out. I was asked how to identify a-fib at the bedside (DUH- irregular irregular rhythm) and for some reason I started reasoning out heart block instead. god I felt like such a tool.

When he asks someone else or asks the group a question, I can almost always come up with good answers first but Im too timid to blurt out answers until there's a silence. I'm always coming up with very intelligent questions but I very rarely ask them on rounds because there's so many patients to get through and I don't want to annoy our interns.

So basically I think to any objective observer I'm performing about average or below. I'm most definitely not standing out.

Dammit, this has to change. I need to figure out a way to get myself, my thoughts and my huge overfreaking crowded pockets organized. I need to stop staying up so late for no good reasons and showing up tired without enough time to keep myself from panicking collecting data during prerounds. I need to start reading like a fiend. I probably need to stop blogging...

...

So far I don't like 3rd year all that much. Too tiring and I feel like I don't learn much in a day. People are too busy to teach you stuff and it's mostly learning through osmosis, which is pretty inefficient. Talking to patients is fun and all but you don't learn much medicine from them. I get home and I'm tired and I soo don't feel like opening up a book so I end up watching more episodes of how i met your mother or something.

And everyone is so busy. You can only hang out with people for like 30 minute intervals. Don't even bother asking any surgery friends to hang out, their bedtime is like 8:30 pm.

Ok maybe if I stop whining I can actually get some reading in today. Hopefully I can turn a corner this week. It's probably better this way... don't want to set the bar high, you start off slow so they can see more improvement.