O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Hard to believe it is already almost Christmastime!!!! A couple weekends ago we got to have some holiday season fun and help the family find the perfect Christmas Tree!

We've been going to the same Christmas Tree Farm for years and each year is a different experience. Some years it's snowing, some years it is muddy, some years it is bitter bitter cold with intense winds, and occasionally- there is some sun.

This year there was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining the entire time! I honestly do not remember ever going with so much sun and glare out! Despite the deceiving sun however, it was quite chilly and when the wind blew... it was brutal. However, there was NO snow. Not a single flake.

In typical fashion we ran around the lot each trying to find the best tree until (drumroll please) I found the winner! Go me!

I love this holiday tradition and it was so fun having Nick there to join us this year! He has not cut down a Christmas Tree in YEARS so he was so excited about the whole process and got to do the honors of the first cut :)

Christmas is going to be here before we know it and I can't even believe it! Next year we will have a little babe in tow- which is so exciting to think about!

Family minus Mags :( So sad she wasn't able to come this year but she is in the midst of a super ridiculous finals week! I definitely DO NOT miss those days.

So many choices!

Taking turns helping to cut down our perfect tree!!

A few cute randoms from the day

Santa was there!!! Of course we had to stop for a picture.... this is our last year before Baby Leo steals the limelight and looks far more cute sitting on Santa's lap!

You know you're married to a med student when...

....you spend your Saturday night watching a holiday trauma in the ER show for hours. And not just watching... also listening to your husband yell out diagnosis, procedures, etc the entire time.

Nerd alert? Yes.

The man loves the ER. Even on a show that re-enacts ER traumas with the worst actors ever.

4th year rotations

In typical medschool fashion the schedule and list of things to do continues to move full speed ahead. Nick is currently 1 1/2 rotations into his 3rd year (aka about a little under halfway through with his 3rd year) and already it is time to submit his choices for 4th year rotation electives. Crazy!

There are a couple mandatory rotations each student must take but for the most part students have a lot more freedom to "choose" their 4th year rotations.  However, there are only a limited number of slots available per rotation (with SGU students being offered the fewest number of spots compared to other schools in the area) so as per the usual- it's competitive and a bit stressful trying to lock down the electives that will best help him be successful later with matching a Residency.

Basically right now Nick needs to pick his first part of 4th year rotations now and then will place the second part of the year very early in January. It's more or less first come first serve, so there is no guarentee they get each elective they want, but the hope is they will get as many as possible.

Residency applications/interviews begin fairly early into 4th year so the biggest scramble is trying to get the most imporant ones done in the first 2 rotations or so of 4th year so they can be part of his Residency application packet. No pressure or stress right? Wouldn't be medschool (esp as an SGU student) if they didn't make you fight tooth and nail for every inch!

Nick's ideal schedule that he is requesting is more or less this:

• EM at St John's (September)
• EM at Genysis (October)
• Medicine sub at St. John's (November)
• Cardiology at St. John's (December)
• Infectious Disease at St. John's (January)
• Pediatric Cardiology at St. John's (February)
• Critical care at St. John's (March)
• Trauma Surgery at St. John's (April)

Fingers crossed his final schedule looks SOMETHING like this (esp on the EM rotation front) but stay tuned to hear how all this ends up turning out ;)

Surgery Adventures of Student Doctor Nick

To the surprise of no one, Nick is mostly diggin' his surgery rotation so far. The days are long (approximately 5:30AM- 6-8PM) with a lot standing through surgeries and very little time to eat, but since his first real day he has been in the OR assisting with surgeries! So far I don't think he's stayed awake past 8:30PM and it's been a struggle to get there... man, is he beat by the end of the day!!  Some of his rotations have been busier/more hands on than others, with some of the teams being more accommodating to students/teaching than others, but all in all things are going well for him and he has survived his first month of surgery! 

Obviously most of his jobs are on the smaller end but still he is right there in the thick of things helping out which is really cool! Here are just a few of the experiences I remember hearing Student Doctor Nick (as he is often called in the hospital these days) talk about over the past couple of weeks! Ha... Student Doctor Nick... that  sounds like a step up from Doctor-In-Training doesn't it?! Baby steps.

• Hernia repair- a 5 hour surgery he was able to be scrub in on in which he got to hold back fat flaps and cut the sutures.
• Perforated stomach ulcer- 4 hour surgery where there was basically a hole in a woman's stomach that needed to be repaired and re-attached to a new part of the colon (or maybe I am wrong... I try and keep up but don't always succeed.) 
• LOTS of gun shot wounds (Oh Detroit)
• A sad case of an attempted suicide that resulted in someone's face being split in half and needing reconstruction. He says it is crazy the things they can do to repair damage.
• Breast clinic where he learned all the ins and outs of breast cancer and got to spend 2 days  hands on with patients of all stages of breast cancer.
• He has been able to close up a few surgeries! AKA he is quickly becoming the suture king!! 
• A number of really interesting orthopedic cases- broken wrists, broken knee caps... all sorts of hammering, sawing, and crazy stuff on people's bones. Seriously, it sounds brutal and from the sound of it looks like a tool shed in that OR!

 He also consulted on an older man who was riding his bike and was hit by a car and broke his collar bone and fractured his vertebra. We just so happen to have an older man who rides his bike by our house every day so now I am very worried it could be the same guy!!! Hopefully not, I feel like we are friends since I literally see him go by everyday!! But the weather is now really, really cold so I am thinking he may just not be down with biking in the freezing cold and that is why he has not been by lately rather than jumping to the conclusion that MY biker guy is the same as the injured one!

The good thing about surgery is that when he isn't consulting on patients/in clinic/in surgery he gets to study until his pager goes off or he is needed for something. Depending on the surgery rotation he gets more of this "study time" than others, but when he does get it, it's awesome because then he doesn't have to do much extra studying when he gets home!!!

One more week before a couple weeks off for Christmas! Then we hit the ground running after break with 2 out of his first 3 weeks or so being on the night shift! Wooo.... not. However, crazy things happen in the D at night, so I'm sure it will be anything but boring for him! :)