attempt at optimism

i'm currently on my OB/GYN clerkship, 3 weeks in. my first two weeks were pretty cush -- i was on REI (reproductive endocrinology and infertility). as my resident simply put: it was our task to knock people up. the hours were awesome.

starting week 3, i am now on Gyn-Onc surgery (gynecological cancer). we operate on & treat vaginal/cervical/uterine/ovarian cancer. the hours suck. get there at 4am - usually leave around 5:30pm. this rotation is something of a UAB med school rite of passage. we stay incredibly busy all day long, have very sick patients (1 died today), and work with intimidating attendings.

3 days down, 11 to go. in an attempt to keep my morale up, i am dedicating the rest of this post to all the positives i can come up with about Gyn-Onc:

1. no AM traffic & ideal parking spot: getting there before 4am everyday means i have literally no competition for commute or parking.

2. crazy awesome surgery: yesterday i helped take a tumor out of a lady's belly that was the same shape as a football but about 1.5x its size. holy cow. my attending was on a high; it was insane. today i got to watch an operation with "the robot" - the da vinci robot surgery. it's wicked.

3. potential weight loss: it's hard to eat breakfast at 3am when i wake up, and often there is not time throughout the day for a proper lunch. we are on our feet a lot. burned calories > consumed calories? time will tell.

4. fellow students: i'm working with 3 brand new MS3s. they're awesome. i am trying to get them oriented to wards. it is delightfully refreshing how not-jaded they are (and kind of scary how far i've come in that department).

5. perspective & conditioning: nursing shift changes twice while i am on duty and hearing all three sets of nurses complain about their tiredness/workload/etc has rendered me much less likely to complain. lame of them. win for me.

6. it's only 2 weeks. i can do anything for 2 weeks, right?

and because i can't stop singing it (to myself, my residents aren't amused) every time i think about the da vinci robot surgery:

domo arigato, mr. roboto, domo arigato mr. roboto ::incredibly convincing robot dance::