....76.....83....70....70.5.......77......82.5.....
I've worked 459 hours in the last 6 weeks.
I am looking forward to Thanksgiving break more than anyone can imagine!
~Ashley
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Smashing Pumpkins
I forgot to blog about this back when it happened, but Ryan crossed something off his bucket list. He's always loved the Smashing Pumpkins since he was in high school. The group broke up for a long time and then got back together. About a month ago, they came to preform in Omaha and Ryan was able to go. Tickets sold out in a matter of minutes. They were playing at a smaller venue so Ryan was able to get a close look.
Pretty good seats I would say. Ryan said the performance was just okay. He was slightly disappointed by the song selection but he was happy to see them live in concert.
~Ashley
~Ashley
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
I'm one Step closer....
....to being a full licensed physician!!
I got a little notification in my email inbox a week ago.
I passed my USMLE Step 3 exam!!!
Let's get a closer view...
I got a little notification in my email inbox a week ago.
I passed my USMLE Step 3 exam!!!
I'm now officially done with my general board exams! Woo hoo!!
~Ashley
Sunday, November 13, 2011
What we've been upto lately.
It's been a while since I last posted. I've found myself treading to keep my head above water. Now that I have a moment to breath, I thought I'd update.
The weekend before Halloween, my parents, Kristin and Sophie came down to visit. It was so nice to have them come down here. I was more than ready for a weekend off as I had worked 21 days straight without a day off prior to them coming. We had a weekend of nice weather and a lot of relaxing. Us girls went and got massages....I was in heaven. My poor back needed it. I had been in the OR all week prior retracting in odd positions for varies procedures. Ryan tried his best to rub my back but it literally hurt too much because of all the knots. If I could, I would get a massage every week. After the massages, Ryan and I drove around showing them the medical center and a few other things in Omaha. We ate dinner at Upstream were Kristin and I managed to get odd looks from a fellow sitting at a nearby table by talking maybe a little too loudly about all things medical - hehehe. We taught my parents how to say and spell a slang word ;) and had a good time. After we got home, we all settled into the theater room for a movie while Ryan went to one of his late night hockey games.
Sophie missed us while we were out getting massages. {She's kind of a momma's girls!}
On Sunday of their visit, we cooked up some ribs for lunch prior to them leaving. Sophie got upset with me that I was trying to make her sit still for a picture and refused to look at me regardless of how hard I tired...
I was sad to see everyone leave, but Zoey on the other hand, she was all relaxed and didn't get too excited when they left...
Our house was a busy place the evening of Halloween and I almost missed out. I got an ER consult not long before my shift was going to end, so I ended up getting out of work late. Ryan was holding down the fort taking care of all the trick-or-treaters until I got home. We got a lot of little trick-or-treaters. We didn't keep an official count but we estimate about 150 kids or more. Ryan and I took turns answering the door as I was multi-tasking - reading a journal article for work and handing out candy. We turned our light off around 8:30pm and I was probably in bed by 9:00pm. I'm not a late night party animal anymore. {Who am I kidding, I never really was.}
I can't believe that Halloween was only a couple weeks ago. It feels like ages ago. Ugh, I think I work too much! In the last two weeks alone, I've worked 150 hours, but who's counting {Me! Me! I'm counting!!!} Work and sleep. Work and sleep. Work and sleep. That's all I pretty much do. {Sorry, I just needed to throw myself a little pity party. I'm done now.}
This past week my chief resident was on vacation so I was running the Gyn service and it just so happened that this past week was the busiest of all the past six weeks for us. We had a ton of cases in the OR that it kept me on my toes all week. One of the pleasures of having my chief be gone was that I got to experience case conference. A word on case conference; it is oral board preparation. We keep a list of all the cases from each service and every week the chief from the service has to get up in front of all the residents and all the attending physicians and defend the last weeks' cases. There are normally four different services which have to be defended (OB, Gyn, Gyn Onc and REI) so 15 minutes of question asking and defending per service. But this last week, the person on REI was gone so that meant 20 minutes for each service. Twenty minutes of me standing at the podium in front of everyone answering multiple questions about anything on my case list. Ugh, I get heart palpitations just writing about it on here.
Case conference is on Wednesday from 9-10am. I had an awful week leading up to case conference. No chief resident, me trying to keep on top of all the OR cases, me trying to make sure the med students were busy and me trying to study when all I wanted to do was sleep. All I wanted to do was sleep! The intern on the gyn service {this is me} also has to present at pre-op conference, which is Wednesday morning from 7-8am. Pre-op conference is going through all of the next week's cases, making sure they had appropriate work-up and were scheduled for appropriate procedures, etc. It's not super high stress {certainly nothing compared to case conference} but it requires a fair amount of prep time. Luckily, my attending was okay with moving pre-op conference back to the afternoon.
Anyways, I was a nervous wreck prior to case conference. I'm usually fairly cold, but not Wednesday morning, my hands were so sweaty - I was one sweaty mess! I honestly had never been more nervous in my life! I wasn't even this nervous prior to residency interviews. My anxiety was through the roof. I was absolutely terrified of case conference {and still am!}. I was scared for what I call a "public pimping session" but most of all I was scared of looking like an idiot. I didn't want to be "that resident" that they let into the program who doesn't know anything. Residency is not a confidence boosting experience by any stretch of the imagination.
Anyways, enough prelude. Wednesday morning, 9:00am rolled around. All of the med students were leaving the room after ground rounds. Everyone was settling back into their spots and the department chair called out "OB" as the OB chief made her way to the front. I'm was glad I wasn't first but that meant I have another 20 minutes of heart palpitations before it could possibly be my turn. As time pressed on, the OB chief answered her last question and the department chair call out "Ok, Gyn." I got that sinking feeling in my stomach. The residents sitting around me were wishing me good luck as I made my way up front. I kept telling myself "Deep breath. I can do this. Just take your time and think before answering any question." There is always a delay after someone gets to the podium while the attending physicians look over the list and come up with questions to ask. I stood there, with my hands firmly planted in my white coat pockets. I knew if I took my hands out, they'd be shaking like crazy and I'd be fidgeting with things. So they stayed in my pocket. The first question, "Case 428, can you tell me how you would manage a patient presenting to the emergency room with..." and my twenty minutes of my first case conference was under way. It continued, "This patient's pathology showed no chorionic villi, now what are you concerned about...." And continued "How are you going to manage a patient with a possible ectopic pregnancy versus a ruptured corpus luteum...." And continued "You said you are going to use progesterone, why.... and how long are you going to use it in this situation...." And continued "So you used the term discriminatory zone, define discriminatory zone" "Case #430....." "Case #434, tell me the contraindications to..." "What are the overall success rates of...." "How do you know your endometrial cavity is intact and that you didn't perforate the uterus..." "What is your first step in evaluating..." "What is your first imaging modality..." "And if that doesn't show you anything, then what..." Case conference was going well. I was answering questions confidently, feeling pretty good about things, the questions ceased and I felt I was about to hear "Let's go to Gyn Onc." but instead the department chair said "One last question.." {OMG, my stomach sank} "On case ###, what is the final weight of the uterus." silence.... Me: "um, I don't know that answer." {Since interns normally do NOT do case conference, my chief that was on vacation put the list together for me the Friday before she left, so I had no idea.} "Just for your information, you need the uterine weights on your case list because....X.....Y....Z." Then I heard the words I'd been waiting for "Let's go to Gyn Onc."
I survived! I survived my first case conference! My first public pimping session! And I didn't feel like an idiot! I felt really good about my performance! While the Gyn Onc chief was at the podium, I got a couple texts from fellow residents congratulating me and telling me I did an awesome job. I felt pretty good about things. I was so relieved it was over and that I won't have to do this again for at least another 8 months. *HUGE* sigh of relief! I got home Wednesday evening and crashed. I was sleeping by 7:30pm. Oh man was I tired or what?!
I'm glad this week is over. I'm done with gyn for a while now. I'm onto L&D from the next three months. Friday night I was able to just relax. I didn't do anything. I didn't want to do anything. I sat on the couch and watched TV and felt like a normal person so the first time in nearly two weeks. Yesterday, I slept and took a couple naps. Then Ryan and I went to the movies {I love popcorn!}. After the movie, we met up with some undergrad friends from Mankato who were in town. We went out for drinks at the Crescent Moon and had a good time. Ryan had an old man's league hockey game at 11:00pm last night. Yes, 11:00 PM - who plays hockey at 11:00 at night?! I went to his game and then we hung out with a couple of his teammates until 1:00am-ish before I insisted on going home and going to bed. I'm not used to late nights, I'm more used to early mornings these days. At least I slept in this morning until 10:30 which it was later than my normal 5:00 am wake up call. I work the night shift tonight and tomorrow so sleeping in was likely good for me.
Here's to no more case conferences for a while!
~Ashley
The weekend before Halloween, my parents, Kristin and Sophie came down to visit. It was so nice to have them come down here. I was more than ready for a weekend off as I had worked 21 days straight without a day off prior to them coming. We had a weekend of nice weather and a lot of relaxing. Us girls went and got massages....I was in heaven. My poor back needed it. I had been in the OR all week prior retracting in odd positions for varies procedures. Ryan tried his best to rub my back but it literally hurt too much because of all the knots. If I could, I would get a massage every week. After the massages, Ryan and I drove around showing them the medical center and a few other things in Omaha. We ate dinner at Upstream were Kristin and I managed to get odd looks from a fellow sitting at a nearby table by talking maybe a little too loudly about all things medical - hehehe. We taught my parents how to say and spell a slang word ;) and had a good time. After we got home, we all settled into the theater room for a movie while Ryan went to one of his late night hockey games.
Sophie missed us while we were out getting massages. {She's kind of a momma's girls!}
On Sunday of their visit, we cooked up some ribs for lunch prior to them leaving. Sophie got upset with me that I was trying to make her sit still for a picture and refused to look at me regardless of how hard I tired...
I was sad to see everyone leave, but Zoey on the other hand, she was all relaxed and didn't get too excited when they left...
Our house was a busy place the evening of Halloween and I almost missed out. I got an ER consult not long before my shift was going to end, so I ended up getting out of work late. Ryan was holding down the fort taking care of all the trick-or-treaters until I got home. We got a lot of little trick-or-treaters. We didn't keep an official count but we estimate about 150 kids or more. Ryan and I took turns answering the door as I was multi-tasking - reading a journal article for work and handing out candy. We turned our light off around 8:30pm and I was probably in bed by 9:00pm. I'm not a late night party animal anymore. {Who am I kidding, I never really was.}
I can't believe that Halloween was only a couple weeks ago. It feels like ages ago. Ugh, I think I work too much! In the last two weeks alone, I've worked 150 hours, but who's counting {Me! Me! I'm counting!!!} Work and sleep. Work and sleep. Work and sleep. That's all I pretty much do. {Sorry, I just needed to throw myself a little pity party. I'm done now.}
This past week my chief resident was on vacation so I was running the Gyn service and it just so happened that this past week was the busiest of all the past six weeks for us. We had a ton of cases in the OR that it kept me on my toes all week. One of the pleasures of having my chief be gone was that I got to experience case conference. A word on case conference; it is oral board preparation. We keep a list of all the cases from each service and every week the chief from the service has to get up in front of all the residents and all the attending physicians and defend the last weeks' cases. There are normally four different services which have to be defended (OB, Gyn, Gyn Onc and REI) so 15 minutes of question asking and defending per service. But this last week, the person on REI was gone so that meant 20 minutes for each service. Twenty minutes of me standing at the podium in front of everyone answering multiple questions about anything on my case list. Ugh, I get heart palpitations just writing about it on here.
Case conference is on Wednesday from 9-10am. I had an awful week leading up to case conference. No chief resident, me trying to keep on top of all the OR cases, me trying to make sure the med students were busy and me trying to study when all I wanted to do was sleep. All I wanted to do was sleep! The intern on the gyn service {this is me} also has to present at pre-op conference, which is Wednesday morning from 7-8am. Pre-op conference is going through all of the next week's cases, making sure they had appropriate work-up and were scheduled for appropriate procedures, etc. It's not super high stress {certainly nothing compared to case conference} but it requires a fair amount of prep time. Luckily, my attending was okay with moving pre-op conference back to the afternoon.
Anyways, I was a nervous wreck prior to case conference. I'm usually fairly cold, but not Wednesday morning, my hands were so sweaty - I was one sweaty mess! I honestly had never been more nervous in my life! I wasn't even this nervous prior to residency interviews. My anxiety was through the roof. I was absolutely terrified of case conference {and still am!}. I was scared for what I call a "public pimping session" but most of all I was scared of looking like an idiot. I didn't want to be "that resident" that they let into the program who doesn't know anything. Residency is not a confidence boosting experience by any stretch of the imagination.
Anyways, enough prelude. Wednesday morning, 9:00am rolled around. All of the med students were leaving the room after ground rounds. Everyone was settling back into their spots and the department chair called out "OB" as the OB chief made her way to the front. I'm was glad I wasn't first but that meant I have another 20 minutes of heart palpitations before it could possibly be my turn. As time pressed on, the OB chief answered her last question and the department chair call out "Ok, Gyn." I got that sinking feeling in my stomach. The residents sitting around me were wishing me good luck as I made my way up front. I kept telling myself "Deep breath. I can do this. Just take your time and think before answering any question." There is always a delay after someone gets to the podium while the attending physicians look over the list and come up with questions to ask. I stood there, with my hands firmly planted in my white coat pockets. I knew if I took my hands out, they'd be shaking like crazy and I'd be fidgeting with things. So they stayed in my pocket. The first question, "Case 428, can you tell me how you would manage a patient presenting to the emergency room with..." and my twenty minutes of my first case conference was under way. It continued, "This patient's pathology showed no chorionic villi, now what are you concerned about...." And continued "How are you going to manage a patient with a possible ectopic pregnancy versus a ruptured corpus luteum...." And continued "You said you are going to use progesterone, why.... and how long are you going to use it in this situation...." And continued "So you used the term discriminatory zone, define discriminatory zone" "Case #430....." "Case #434, tell me the contraindications to..." "What are the overall success rates of...." "How do you know your endometrial cavity is intact and that you didn't perforate the uterus..." "What is your first step in evaluating..." "What is your first imaging modality..." "And if that doesn't show you anything, then what..." Case conference was going well. I was answering questions confidently, feeling pretty good about things, the questions ceased and I felt I was about to hear "Let's go to Gyn Onc." but instead the department chair said "One last question.." {OMG, my stomach sank} "On case ###, what is the final weight of the uterus." silence.... Me: "um, I don't know that answer." {Since interns normally do NOT do case conference, my chief that was on vacation put the list together for me the Friday before she left, so I had no idea.} "Just for your information, you need the uterine weights on your case list because....X.....Y....Z." Then I heard the words I'd been waiting for "Let's go to Gyn Onc."
I survived! I survived my first case conference! My first public pimping session! And I didn't feel like an idiot! I felt really good about my performance! While the Gyn Onc chief was at the podium, I got a couple texts from fellow residents congratulating me and telling me I did an awesome job. I felt pretty good about things. I was so relieved it was over and that I won't have to do this again for at least another 8 months. *HUGE* sigh of relief! I got home Wednesday evening and crashed. I was sleeping by 7:30pm. Oh man was I tired or what?!
I'm glad this week is over. I'm done with gyn for a while now. I'm onto L&D from the next three months. Friday night I was able to just relax. I didn't do anything. I didn't want to do anything. I sat on the couch and watched TV and felt like a normal person so the first time in nearly two weeks. Yesterday, I slept and took a couple naps. Then Ryan and I went to the movies {I love popcorn!}. After the movie, we met up with some undergrad friends from Mankato who were in town. We went out for drinks at the Crescent Moon and had a good time. Ryan had an old man's league hockey game at 11:00pm last night. Yes, 11:00 PM - who plays hockey at 11:00 at night?! I went to his game and then we hung out with a couple of his teammates until 1:00am-ish before I insisted on going home and going to bed. I'm not used to late nights, I'm more used to early mornings these days. At least I slept in this morning until 10:30 which it was later than my normal 5:00 am wake up call. I work the night shift tonight and tomorrow so sleeping in was likely good for me.
Here's to no more case conferences for a while!
~Ashley
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
First Snow of the Season!
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!!!
 |
| Laura and I hanging out in clinic, enjoying the snow! |
The snow didn't last long, but the flakes were big and beautiful. It was the perfect 'Christmas Snow.' Too bad Christmas is nearly two months away.
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