How we at the hospital feel about safety...

Successfully blocking a consult...

How abscesses are handled in the ED...

The first thing I say to my wife after two straight weeks of not being home before 9PM...

Driving to east campus following a call shift...

When the ED says at 2AM that there's a bad open fracture, and they're going to page my attending...

During each indications talk...

When the attending I'm with today operated all night last night...

How I must look to a patient when preparing to do a reduction...

How I think I look when preparing to do a reduction...

How I must look to a patient when preparing to do a spine exam...

Every year we have to take something called the OITE.  It's basically a bunch of stuff that you don't have to know throughout the year, but they need to be able to regurgitate on a test.  The experience is something like this.

You study so much your brain feels like:

You then realize the night before that you're basically screwed:

You start the test and within 5 questions:

But of course you can't run, so the test does this to you:

And around question 175:

After it's done, you discuss answers with your colleagues, to which most of them do this to your reasoning:

And then you go home and check your notes:












And you await the inevitable call into the program directors office:

Sigh.

Studying at home with 3 kids...

How my seniors usually responds to my indications talk...

When a I'm double scrubbing with a senior...

When a guy had grade 3 open tib/fib, and I missed a hairline patella fracture...

I didn't believe the ED when they said that there was an arterial lac, so I let down the arm tourniquet.  It went something like this...

When I watch sports on sunday and realize most of the professional athletes and commentators are younger than me...

The proposition of passing the OITE when my program director gives a 'high yield' review right before the test...

This sums up hand conference for me.

Whenever a patient waves at me out in public...

When the patient says that she's allergic to generic vicodin, but brand name vicodin is fine...

When my attending who rarely gives out compliments tells me that the last case 'didn't go too bad'...

When the senior asks my attending if they can scrub in for an interesting case i was supposed to do...

When an attending asks me late at night if I want to stay and do a case that I don't really want to do...

The entire hospital is switching to a new computer system next week.  It's going to be like this...

When discussing a spine fracture surgical approach, and my attending says we should probably 'Do her from the back'...

When I have to go #2, and my co-resident tells me to just use the main hospital bathroom...

Life as a second year in the hospital:

Life as a second year at home...

When the ED asks if they should just take care of a fracture...

The back of the room when one of the residents corrects an attending...

When I find a well written review article for my indications talk...

When I watch the clock strike 1800 without a consult all day...

When the ED consults us by saying that they think the joints septic, so went ahead and gave antibiotics...

When I've studied chapters 34-36, and am informed at that start of hand conference that it's over chapters 24-26...

I'm pretty sure this is how the other physicians think us orthopods greet each other...

This is how we actually greet each other...

When I'm being pimped, how my attendings respond to most of answers...

After the surgery, when anesthesia starts talking about post-op nausea medications...

When I'm looking over last night's consults 10 minutes before signout, and realize I didn't see/splint a non-displaced ankle fracture...

When an intern uses a splint technique I haven't seen before...

When a trauma and ortho attending actually round and agree on a patient plan...