Practicum

Since last Wednesday I've been in practicum. It's basically like doing a mini-rotation with a particular hospital service. This one lasts ten days and has me on the medicine service, while the other two last fourteen and seventeen days. Since we haven't learned physical exam or had much pathology or pathophysiology yet, our skill set is pretty limited. We're pretty much just taking histories. Sounds kinda lame, but it's actually harder than it seems to take a good, complete history. Any and all practice is appreciated, especially when there's a lot of it for an extended period of time. I feel like I'm improving pretty markedly if I do say so myself...plus it's starting to feel less awkward.

On top of getting to work with patients, the hospital itself is great. The facilities are ridiculously nice, on par with Northwestern's hospital. And that's saying something since I'm in a community hospital out in the burbs, not a major academic hospital in the city. That said, the hospital's neighborhood is all sorts of fancy - homes are easily in the seven digit range. The wards and hospital are nice, yes. But even better is the fact that the residents and attendings are insanely nice and helpful - they're legitimately excited to work with us. Random docs and nurses are the same way too.

So yeah, I'm enjoying practicum so far. The work is still interesting , I really like the environment, and it's not that bad of a commute. Plus, I get free nights and weekends. Having class start back up is gonna suck, but then again that always does. One thing I'm definitely *not* looking forward to is a clinical workshop. Of the male genital/rectal variety. Uncool. On top of that, it's at 830 on a Saturday morning. Doubly weak. At least this is one clinical exam workshop where we don't practice on each other. That'd be weird(er).