Surgery Scramble

Nick's first day of his surgery rotation began MUCH differently than he would have liked.

At 9:00AM he received a text from a fellow student saying "we're waiting on you, in the professional building." Well... Nick was still laying in bed with the belief that he didn't have anything until his scrub-in clinic at 1:00PM. Yep, apparently he had missed an email saying that there was an orientation starting at 9:00AM. Oops.

He was up, dressed, and out the door in under 5 minutes. I felt so bad for him. Surgery is an intimidating rotation WITHOUT being "that guy" on the first day. Luckily we live super close and he was there shortly after, but still nothing like starting out behind the 8 ball.

He said when he entered the room everyone just stopped and stared at him and shortly after the resident leading the orientation made a comment like "and be sure to be on time." Wonder who that was aimed at? Poor guy! After that the students were supposed to go meet up with different teams to follow and get a feel for the rotation- Nick didn't have his white coat as he didn't have any idea what to expect so before he could join the team he had to RUN all the out to his car, grab his coat and doctor stuff and RUN all the way back. He said by the time he reached the team he was a sweaty, flustered mess.

Anyone who knows Nick knows he HATES being late and HATES being unprepared. So that whole day from start to finish was his absolute worst nightmare!

Sooo... basically the good news is that it can only go up from there right?


Nick's surgery rotation goes from mid November-mid February. As part of the general surgery rotation it sounds like Nick will be jumping around through all different units, spending a week or so at a time with each group.

My current understanding of his schedule is roughly:

• Day starts early- he's out the door by 5:15AM to report in with his team at 5:30AM
• Tuesday mornings he has surgery clinic
• Days seem to vary a little on length but for the most part he won't be home until 6:00PM or so.
• He has a pager that goes off whenever someone comes in/something big happens (yay...) 
• It doesn't seem like he will work too many weekends- so that's a nice surprise! 

** We also know he will have 1-2 weeks spent on the night shift. This means he will report in around 6-7PM and stay until around 7AM.  And that he may have a handful of on-call shifts as well (still waiting on clarification of this one!)

His attire for the next few months!!! Much preferred to the dress clothes he wore last rotation! AND there is a scrub machine... so less clothes for me to clean... double win! Maybe the one perk to the Surgery rotation!

3rd Year Clinical Schedule

It's been a couple of weeks since we got the official word that Nick would be remaining in Detroit at St. John's Hospital and since then we have been hard on the house hunt and preparing to move into our new (although still unknown) home.

Life post STEP continues to be awesome, but ONE week from today the hubs is back in medstudent mode- this time ready to conquer his 3rd year of medical school and the 6 hospital rotations that come with it!

We got his schedule today which was really exciting! In short, the overview of his year looks like this:

1. Internal Medicine (a 12 week rotation)
2. General Surgery  (a 12 weeks rotation)
3. Family Medicine (a 6 week rotation)
4. Pediatrics (a 6 week rotation)
5. OB/GYN (a 5 week rotation)
6. Psychiatry (and as of right now his schedule says this is a super short 2 week rotation- so we'll see if that is correct or changes.) 

3rd year is filled with all mandatory rotations that every medstudent must take, but in 4th year he will have a little flexibility to pick a few rotations that he is especially interested in (ie: Emergency Medicine)- so that will be fun! This schedule takes him from August 19, 2013 - June 30, 2014! As 3rd year comes to an end in June, Nick will then need to be preparing for his STEP 2 exams and getting ready to begin the residency application process (which from what we've read, heard, and been told- is rather lengthy.)

 His breaks in between each rotation are pretty short, but his schedule within each rotation will definitely vary dramatically- with some being more intense than others. We've heard a little of what to expect from those who have completed 3rd year ahead of us, but we'll see what our own personal impression of each one is!

Nick's definitely not ready to give up the relaxed life yet, but he loves (and thrives) in the hospital setting so I think once he's back in his scrubs and white coat he'll be lovin' all the hands on experience that comes with each clinical rotation!