This past week consisted of a lot of routine in terms of the academic rhythm, day in, day out. Yet, there were some wonderful highlights that inspired me and have left me feeling very very jazzed about the path I am upon.
Tuesday night, after getting out of anatomy early (yay for dissecting the pancreas!), I studied more, had dinner with Lindsey and then attended a welcome reception for new medical school candidates. Wow! So much fun to talk to the prospective students and answer the questions about Stanford and the interview process. It is still very weird to be on the other side of the medical school interview odyssey, let alone be speaking with aspiring med students who are highly qualified and impressive people that genuinely want my perspective on what makes Stanford Medical School unique. Alex joined me for the event and he was able to chit chat with a variety of applicants.
Alex has really become a part of the med school community. Of all of the significant others amongst my classmates, Alex has met and bonded with more people and attended more events. One of my classmates remarked about how great it is to see Alex around often and she said that she had told him that he is practically a first year, to which he replied that he is, he just doesn't have to do the homework and doesn't have the prestige. I think he is starting to feel connected to a good, enriching community here, just like I am.
On Friday, Alex and I hung out with Megan, Leo, and Liana, playing pictionary, watching movies, and eating DELICIOUS deep dish Chicago style pizza. Such a fun, fun night. We all crashed at Megan's place and then got up early n Saturday for the early bird's Basic Life Support class. The session only lasted a few hours, then the we went out for brunch and picked up ingredients for a chili bake and pumpkin squares before heading back to our house for an afternoon/evening of college football. Alex had a tutoring appointment so Liana and I made our way to our house earlier and started all of the cooking!
Liana is a huge football fan. She helped me with prep work for the meal and then positioned herself comfortably in front of the tv to thoroughly monitor the day's progress. As everything cooked, I worked on homework with the football in the background. The focus of the evening was th Stanford-USC game. In the fourth quarter, when things were getting really close, I stopped doing homework and joined Alex, Aaron (our football crazy housemate), and Liana to watch the events unfold. What a game! What a game! The game went into triple overtime and Stanford pulled it off. They are now 8-0 and we have good odds of being in the PAC-12 championships. So cool.
I spent Sunday at the free clinic, working at the musculoskeletal specialty clinic, and then tutored all afternoon. However, the best part of my Sunday reminded me of the special moments throughout this past week that have served as wonderful reminders as to why I am in the right place and pursuing the right career.
Back on Wednesday, I had a doctor's appointment at a Stanford clinic and after the nurse did the intake, I was greeted by a cheerful fourth year medical student. I told her that I am a medical student also and found out that she is actually going to school in Georgia, but she is here on an elective rotation. She already interviewed at Stanford for a residency program and she was describing the kind of experience she was having. She was excited, inspired, and she was taking advantage of every moment. More than that, she interviewed me with great pose and ease, and that in itself was very inspiring to me. Some day I will be there - on the cusp of residency, at a point where patients will do a double take, wondering whether I'm a student or a doctor, because it is hard to tell.
Then, on Friday, we had a Psychiatry lecture about addition and dependence. As a part of that lecture, we were fortunate enough to have a patient come in and speak with us about the conditions she was being treated for in the hospital. The psychiatrist leading our session interviewed the patient for about 30 minutes as a model of motivational interviewing. Watching the interview was very powerful, but it was a wonderful contrast to the sometimes dull lectures we seem to have on Friday afternoon. No one was dozing off, that's for sure and I feel badly for people who skipped lecture, because it was a great window into a realm of patient care that we have not been exposed to much (as of yet).
Immediately following the psychiatry session, we went off to practice our own motivational interviewing. I had a standardized patient who had tried to quit smoking when she started to notice asthmatic symptoms and subsequently has relapsed somewhat. She was seeking advice about what to do and how to address her worsening symptoms. I only had 10 minutes to talk with her, but it went very well. The whole encounter felt very smooth and questions just seemed to flow naturally. I think I even able to empower my patient a bit which is great! I felt really happy and confident after that interview. I received wonderfully encouraging feedback from my TA, the standardized patient, and my peers about my ability to connect with patient, maintain very attentive listening such that my questions stem directly from information the patient has given me, and that I enable the patient to both trust me and feel very comfortable. Yay! What an incredible end to the week.
Sunday was the icing on the cake! I volunteered at the musculoskeletal clinic and interview 'real' patients ON MY OWN for the FIRST TIME! I had a generous 20-30 minutes to interview the patients and I was completely on my own to do that. I was so nervous beforehand, but it turns out that in just a few short months I have gathered a nice collection of interviewing skills. In addition to interviewing for the first time, I also presented to an attending physician for the first time. Both aspects of my work at the clinic went really well. I was able to gather a lot of information and I communicated it back effectively and in an organized manner. The physicians were all very complimentary of my thoroughness in taking a history and my mannerisms with the patients.
One unique aspect of my time in clinic yesterday was my second patient encounter where my patient spoke only Cantonese and Mandarin and her daughter accompanied her as an interpreter. I had never experienced that before, but it went well and, at the end of the interview, they both thanked me for being so kind to them throughout their visit.
I mentioned that I felt pretty jazzed after Friday's standardized patient encounter, but that sense of enthusiasm pales in comparison to my time in clinic. All of I sudden, I had this image of my future career and the kind of physician and advocate I can be for my patients. The interviewing experience at Arbor was the perfect reminder that I am taking real steps towards becoming a physician and that I am learning a LOT, FAST!
So, even though my weekend went by quickly, I had a great one! I think my heart still races a bit when I think about how empowered I felt after seeing patients and truly contributing to their care.
In closing, I'll leave you all with a quote I heard this week (by Marcel Proust):
"The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new vistas, but in having new eyes."
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