Monday, September 17, 2012

Family Medicine Elective

My first months of 4th year have already come and gone.  I took the boards a month and a half ago and promptly went on vacation.  I had a blast spending time with my family and catching up with a few friends.

On returning, I started my Family Medicine elective.  I designed the month with the help of the lovely Family Med department at my school.  The first two weeks were spent in a private practice in the 'burbs.  I wanted to work with an energetic, young female so that I could try and imagine myself in their shoes.  It worked!  I had a blast and could almost imagine myself 5 years down the road in my shiny new practice.  I spent the second two weeks at the local Family Medicine residency program.  I worked with each of the attendings and several of the residents, attended lunch lectures, and even visited a couple of their other sites like the nursing home and OB clinic.  I got a better feel for what residency will be like and really liked all the people I worked with.  It was a great month in that it affirmed my decision to enter the field of Family Medicine.

Luckily this was a pretty laid back month, which allowed me to work on my residency applications!  It wasn't all that hard really, but there are a lot of pieces to put together like getting a headshot, writing a personal statement, choosing which programs to apply to, making sure you have all your letters of recommendation from faculty members.  And finally this past weekend I got to submit the thing.  It felt like a lot of weight lifted off my shoulders.

Now I am back in the hospital working in the ICU.  Today was my first day and I have to admit it was overwhelming seeing such incredibly sick people and not really understanding a lot of the interventions being used to treat them (ie, ventilators).  Lots of learning to be had this month!

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