Guest Cartoon: Premed vs. Med School

Contributed by The Health Scout

Weekly Whine: Thank you cards

Being the social butterfly that I am, I go to a lot of parties. Most of which involve buying a present for a small child.

And after, I can always guarantee that I'll get a thank you card, written by "the child" which says:

"Thank you so much for [insert toy name]! I really like playing with it."

It's a nice thought, but I think we can skip the cards. It's a waste of paper and energy. I mean, do I really care if I get a stupid form-letter thank you card? And the whole thing means that I have to keep stacks of blank thank you cards in my bookcase, for fear of offending someone.

And don't get me started on those fancy bags every present has to come with these days.


P.S. Don't forget that if you have an Amazon Prime account, you can borrow The Devil Wears Scrubs free on the Kindle! Not sure how long this promotion will last though.

Guest Cartoon: The truth about doctors

Submitted by Caz

What I won't wear

I was just shopping at a department store and I'm beginning to think my taste veers significantly from the average female. Here's a list of things I will NOT wear:

--Sequins

--Anything that sparkles

--Any colors that do not appear in nature

--Ruffles

--Anything with faux-diamonds or gems glued on

--Floral patterns

But according to what was being sold in that store, this is apparently ALL other women wear.

Dr. Orthochick: Screw

The other day when I was scheduled to take a screw out of a guy I went in to see him before the surgery to make sure the paperwork was filled out and everything.

Patient: Can I have the screw after you take it out?

Me: Uh, sure

Patient: So I can keep it? And take it home?

Me: Yeah, OK...what are you going to do with it?

Patient's wife: We're going to put it on the mantel next to Pa!

I'm guessing they mean Pa's ashes are on the mantel and not Pa himself sitting on the mantel, but I feel like if my soul was hanging out in someone's living room for all eternity, I wouldn't be all that comforted by a syndesmotic screw next to me.

Things I loved as a kid that no longer exist

1. Jello pudding pops

2. Dark meat Chicken McNuggets

3. Pop rocks

4. Twinkies (not really)

Compliments

My latest thing is paying people lots of compliments. To colleagues and to patients.

I think it feels nice to get a compliment, so I'm been making an effort to pay it forward, so to speak. And for the most part, they are genuine compliments. Like if I like someone's shirt, I say, "Hey, I really like your shirt."

On the other hand, if someone gets a haircut, I almost always say, "I love your hair." Whether or not I actually love it. Is that wrong?


Speaking of being nice and paying compliments, today seems like a good day to review The Devil Wears Scrubs...

Weekly Whine: Literally

I was having a conversation with someone at work yesterday and they were literally using the word "literally" in every sentence. I feel like "literally" is a word that is really, really overused.

They were using it properly. They weren't saying things like, "I was literally going out of my mind." But it was still too much.

I mean, you don't need to say, "It literally took me five tries to get the line going." You could just say it took you five tries. Everyone is going to assume that you mean it literally.

Guest Cartoon: Profile of a phlebotomist

Contributed by www.thenurseslockerroom.com

The worst way to dictate

I recently saw a resident named Jimmy dictate in the worst possible way I've ever seen anyone dictate in my whole life.

Before dictating his note, Jimmy types up the HPI so that he can read it for his dictation. So for every single patient, he types the history, then dictates the entire note. Have you ever heard of something like that? You should have seen my face when he told me.

Me: "No way. You don't really do that."

Jimmy: "Yeah, I do."

Me: "No way."

Jimmy: "It's just easier for me."

Me: "Oh my god."

Jimmy: "Yeah."

Me: "You have to stop doing that!"

Tattletale

The first time I ever saw a renal biopsy, I nearly fainted.

I was sort of squeamish when I started med school and this was my very first rotation. What can I say? It was a really big needle.

I really tried to be strong. The first time I started to feel that queasiness, I ran from the room, collected myself, then came back. Then it happened again. And I left and came back. And one more time after that.

Not my finest moment.

Anyway, a few weeks later, I was talking to a fellow med student who had watched a renal biopsy that day. The renal fellow apparently said to her, "Well, you did better than Fizzy."

The bastard TOLD her about me and my embarrassing near-fainting!

I thought that was really wrong. But maybe I'm just oversensitive.

Dr. Orthochick: Ankle Injury

Me: So how did you hurt your ankle?
Patient: I was making sweet love to my woman.
Me: ...
Patient: If I had known it was going to hurt so much, I wouldn't have had all that sex. I like pain, but this was just a little too much.

If you can think of something to say in response to that, you're doing better than me. I just sort of nodded and wondered how a 40 year old guy could say that with his mother right there in the room. And his woman, whoever she was. She didn't appear embarrassed, although she did show me her new tattoo and the patient said I could get a discount on tattoos at his friend's place if I mentioned his name.

Me: He said I could get a tattoo for $70.
Dr. Innocuous: Is that a good price?
Me: I have no idea
Dr. Innocuous: I think it might actually be pretty cheap.

I seriously have no clue how much a tattoo would cost. And I didn't bother to write down the name of the store so now I missed my opportunity to get a cheap one.

The 11 Types of Physicians

Dedicated to Dr. Grumpy. Thinking of you.

Review my book day!

If you bought a copy of The Devil Wears Scrubs and have read and enjoyed it, please take a minute to review it today on Amazon!

Weekly Whine: Lazy Liars

Scenario:

I suggested a playdate next Wednesday morning with a mom from my mom's group and she emailed me a couple of days ago to tell me she's busy that day.

Then about 24 hours later, someone in the mom's group suggested a playdate at a farm on Wednesday morning and she immediately emailed "Count me in!"

Fine, she lied to me. She doesn't want to have a playdate. But couldn't she at least have sent a private reply to spare my feelings?

Also, I recently asked an online acquaintance for advice on a topic. She said she had no advice. Five minutes of browsing later, I discovered she'd written a "book" on the topic on Amazon.

So the question is, was she lying to me or to all the people who purchase the book?

Guest Cartoon: Before and after

Contributed by The Health Scout

Dang college

After ignoring the whole "how are we going to pay for college" problem for years, we recently started ufund accounts for our kids.

It's safe to say we have no idea what we're doing. We're trying to add $10K each per year, which is an amount I totally just made up. And probably won't be enough, since I expect college will cost one million dollars per year by the time they're ready to attend.

How are you saving for college?

When did you decide to apply to med school?

I know for a lot of people, this decision is a process that occurs over years. For me, I guess it was.

But probably the real moment it crystallized was when I took the MCATs and got a decent score and realized at that moment there was nothing else I really wanted to do. I applied to med school because I could and no other exciting options presented itself.

I hope somebody has a better story than that...

Dr. Orthochick: Code M

I admitted a guy the other day with a hip fracture who had a really serious traumatic brain injury. He could talk, but we weren't really talking to each other and I don't think he really understood much of what I was asking him.

Anyway, the following morning I went in to see him before surgery and he was lying in bed masturbating. He had a Foley in but somehow he still managed to have an erection and was really going at it. He didn't even stop when I walked in, although he did glance at me.

Me: [turns red] Uh, I can come back
Patient: Hi!
Me: How's your, uh, hip?
Patient: It hurts
Me: Uh, that's why we're going to fix it.

I scurried out of the room like a dung beetle. I mean, I get that it's not the guy's fault that he didn't realize that it's a little inappropriate to lie in your hospital bed masturbating in front of the resident, but that didn't mean it didn't make me a tad uncomfortable. Also, if you masturbate with a Foley in, where does the semen go to, exactly? I mean, the tube's in the bladder, not the seminal vesicles, so I can't imagine sperm are going to start swimming out the Foley and into the leg bag, but do they get clogged? Do I have to worry that he has that thing that guys with vasectomies get where they have a clot of semen that hardens and then you form an inflammatory response to it? (pretty sure I read about that somewhere, presumably in the anti-vasectomy literature) I don't want to start having to fish crap out of his urethra here.

Also, you'd think whacking off with a tube coming out of your schlong would be really uncomfortable. Maybe it's just because I've never had to have anything snaked up myself, but I can think of few things in life that are less sexy. I'm not usually feeling it with the airplane bathroom since there's not enough room for one person and you're constantly at risk of getting sucked into the toilet, but given the choice, I'd go for airplane bathroom over Foley catheter. Hell, I think I'd go for port-a-potty nookie over Foley nookie.

Help/Opportunity

Thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of The Devil Wears Scrubs! Have I mentioned how much you guys rock?

If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon and/or let people know via Facebook/Twitter. If you didn't enjoy it, you can just keep that to yourself....

Also, I want to present an opportunity:

I am trying to get more reviews of the book out there. For those of you with a blog or site that you are looking to promote, if you will put up an honest** review of my book with a link to buy it, I will give you a mention at the end of one of my posts or on my Facebook page (your choice). I think this is a really good opportunity for anyone looking for free promotion.

In other words:

Please review my book!

---

Also, I want to mention that the book was proofed by my good friend Jenica. If you write your own book, you really must have someone look it over, and Jenica was both professional and fast. I highly recommend her services.


**I don't want you to lie and say you loved the book if you hated it. Be honest. That said, if you say on your website that it sucks ass, I reserve the right not to link to you.

Things I hated as a kid and still hate

1. Learning history

2. Seaweed (to eat)

3. Raw tomato

4. Running

5. Cole slaw

Weekly Whine: Middle Finger

There are certain people who always gesture at things with their middle finger.

I know there was a whole Seinfeld about that, but I genuinely don't think it's purposeful. I've seen people who will be having a formal meeting and point at a document with their middle finger. And it makes me uncomfortable, to be honest.

What's up with that?

Organs I wouldn't mind losing

In discussion of the Whipple procedure, my husband and I got to talking about organs you wouldn't mind losing. This is the order in which I wouldn't mind losing the following internal organs, where #1 is the organ I'd most like to keep (fairly obvious from the list).

16. tonsils
15. appendix
14. gallbladder
13. spleen
12. one kidney
11. large bowel
10. small bowel
9. bladder
8. one lung
7. pancreas
6. both kidneys
5. stomach
4. liver
3. both lungs
2. heart
1. brain

Yes, I'm aware I can't live without some of the higher ranking organs. That's why I ranked them so high... duh.

The Devil Wears Scrubs

I did it! I wrote that book about my intern year!

It's fiction. But it kind of isn't. You know? In any case, if you enjoy reading this blog, I feel certain you'll really enjoy reading it. Here's the blurb:

Newly minted doctor Jane McGill is in hell.

Not literally, of course. But between her drug addict patients, sleepless nights on call, and battling wits with the sadistic yet charming Sexy Surgeon, Jane can’t imagine an afterlife much worse than her first month of medical internship at County Hospital.

And then there’s the devil herself: Jane’s senior resident Dr. Alyssa Morgan. When Alyssa becomes absolutely hell-bent on making her new interns pay tenfold for the deadly sin of incompetence, Jane starts to worry that she may not make it through the year with her soul or her sanity still intact.

Please buy it!

It's available for the Kindle. For now, I've kept it at the low, low price of only $2.99, although that is subject to increase in the future.

Also, you can get it in paperback!

It's short, it's fun, it's deliciously evil, and if you buy it, you'll make me really happy. What other incentive do you need?? :P

If you're not sure, you can read an excerpt.

Dr. Orthochick: Back to normal

Seen in a clinic dictation:

The patient is doing very well. In fact, his mother reports he kicked the dog very hard yesterday without injuring himself.

No word on whether the dog is doing OK.

Unisex

A friend of mine wants to name her unborn son Madison. She insists this is a unisex name and she likes it for a boy. I think naming a boy a name that is unisex but more common in women (Dana, Leslie, etc.) is just asking to be teased constantly during childhood. I know dozens of Madisons and they are all little girls.

What do you think?

Forgetful

Last night, I needed olive oil to cook dinner and I was exhausted, so my husband volunteered to go to the supermarket and get it. While he was there, he figured we should get a few other things too, like bread and cereal. I'm usually a little hesitant to send him to do our shopping because I’m a little anal about my shopping, but I was really really tired and I needed olive oil.

He came back half an hour later with two bags of groceries. The first thing I said was, "OK, where's the olive oil?"

He pulled out this minuscule little container of oil that contained maybe five drops of oil.

"Why didn't you get more?" I asked him.

"Because I got a different brand than usual and I wasn't sure if you'd like it," he explained.

"Well, why didn't you get my usual brand?"

"Because...." He hesitated. "I actually forgot to get the olive oil at the grocery store.... so I had to stop at a drug store on the way back to get it."

"But the only reason you went to the grocery store was to get the olive oil!"

"I know, it's ironic." He hung his head. "You were right, you never should have trusted me to get groceries."

But it's all okay, because I didn't need that much olive oil and I need to go to the grocery store to get meat soon anyway.