Unlike other people, my mentor isn't a surgeon. He is an OLD, distinguised hematologist dude who has been in this hospital forever. On the first day he gave me 15 articles and several books that scared the life out of me. I thought my fun time in NYC has just disapparated right in front of my face. Wrong... Being an old doctor is a great thing: very minimal actual hours of operation. I might get a lot of materials for reading, but I get a lot of time out of the hospital as well. Went sight seeing and did a lot of fun things during that time, but also a lot of reading.
Yeah, he makes me write down conditions and drugs during clinics and case reviews as my "homework". Everyone in our program probably misses many of the stuff being discussed--not me, luckily. Being old makes you talk slow, so that was perfect. Yeah, he quizzes me the next day about things we heard about the previous day. (This guy has surprisingly excellent memory and he remembers everything he said the previous day.) By the third day, he introduced me as a doctor and handed me the lab test for blood and JAK2 mutation and ask what kind of myeloproliferative disorders the patient has...in front of the patient. I messed up a few times but got it right for the most part. Was kind of proud, actually, cuz I'm definitely learning something from evening readings :)
There's no fancy gastroschisis or vascular surgeries or brain surgeries or prostatectomy with my guy. But I have gone to some of these surgeries with other people already. I'm very thankful people let me join their surgeries, but I basically saie "ooooh, aaahhh, cool" and that's it. The surgeons are always busy cutting up their patients and you just get to sit and watch. They don't seem to be teaching as much in each day, either, because they are so busy. While some doctors might not care if the students show up, my attending is definitely pacing up and down the hallway waiting for my arrival time! I feel like I am his primary concern as a doctor, in fact, and he seems so proud whenever I make the right diagnosis.
One thing I really hate about my clinical experience is the aspect that medicine is an art and not a science. As an engineer, I determine my threshold level and anything above that line is A and anything below is B--not so in medical practice. A patient could come in with a JAK2 positive and fibrosis in the bone marrow like in polycythemia vera, but yet his phenotype is elevated platelets and red blood cells and anemia like in essential thrombocytosis. What the heck? The point of blood work and gene testing is to determine what disease it is. If we can't just read the test and make a diagnosis, then what's the point? I like it black and white like the engineering way and not gray like in medicine.
Why is every patient in this hospital balling? Even the neonatal babies are balling! Do they only let rich people come here or something?
Sorry for the long read but I like blogging. I guess Dr. Wang is just gonna have to live with it.
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