to do as much nothing as possible...indigo, md

this is how the year has felt so far. a bit confused and slightly off kilter. now as an anesthesiology resident----aka CA-1----aka clinical anesthesia-1----aka typically a second year resident and a first year anesthesia resident----PGY-2, etc as the acronyms could go on and on. i am training at a county institution in a large urban center----basically this translates into what is better known as the 'knife and gun club' for the ER and trauma services. county has their own terminology for what is known to many in the medical world as a 'trauma'----an 'RB' or 'Red Blanket'. Now i am not well versed in history of county or our armed services medical terms but i do believe this term comes from that in so much as throwing a red blanket on someone who was a trauma victim and required emergent care to survive. so as we go through our days and nights of training that the RB becomes part of our vocabulary. the interesting thing is the abuse of such a system----s...

so after not writing for a long time i am realizing that i should really be writing daily after talking with a good friend. after going back and looking at the past few months so many things have happened and changed both personally and professionally that i don't even know where to start. but i am going to work on that.

At the end of vacation and back to work tomorrow morning. Not super-excited about going back yet am a little excited to keep learning. Sick huh!!! That's what happens when you go to school for your entire life----just keep learning and if you don't for a bit----you want to.

tomorrow is the first day i will be on my own for cases without another resident. of course will always have my attending there if i need them, for induction and emergence....but that is true for all of residency in anesthesiology. i am excited and nervous and at the same time feel like it is just another day.....very strange!!! will keep ya posted on how things go.

No one gets up one day and says, “I want to be an anesthesiologist when I grow up.” I wanted to be a ballerina, or a bookstore-café owner, or an artist of some kind – someone who was required to play close attention to the world, take real notice of it, and take creative and compassionate action. But I am neither a ballerina nor a bookseller. I am an anesthesiologist. Frequently people ask me a version of “What on earth made you choose that?” I try to explain that I love the way anatomy and physiology come alive moment-to-moment in daily practice. Or I try the concrete approach and admit that I actually enjoy placing intravenous lines and breathing tubes. The response I get is usually a glassy-eyed “Uh-huh” or, occasionally, a nose-wrinkling “Eew.” If the conversation progresses beyond “eew,” the more people talk to me about what they think I do – that is, if they think I actually do anything in the first place – the more bewildered I get over how difficult it is to convey to others an...

Took the first half of step 3 today and the other half tomorrow. It is a terribly long day to take one full day of testing....but two.....not only is it long and dreadful but then you have to wait overnight to take the rest of the test. Finally you get the joy of waiting like four to six weeks until you get your test results. At Prometric it is interesting b/c there are people there taking all types of tests----real estate, etc. I probably cannot even begin to guess all the tests they offer. Yet we seem to be the only ones who take a day-long test....let along a two-day test. Oh the good times to be had.

we spend years of our life investing in education and working towards the next step....volunteer to get ready to apply for med school, mcat, stay active in med school, do well to get into a good residency, work for the fellowship, and on and on....it is always forward thinking. i suppose most professionals think in this manner but it is an interesting phenomenon because it changes how you view life and the world in general.