Cardiology

Today I managed to study the three main types of myocardiopathy and revise cardiac valves. I know this doesn't mean anything to any of the people who read my blog (being writer types and all that), but studying all this in one day means:

1. I hauled ass
2. I study from a rather abridged manual.

Just wanted to share my exasperation. Now, I'm off to finish those valves and hopefully start with "shock".

Hospital Smell-- a bad day

The following entry is unrelated to writing. It deals with the Hospital I study at and is pretty depressing. You might want to stop reading here.





Today was "worst-news" day at the Hospital. By some incredible quirk of statistics, today there were four patients with serious conditions to be explained. I'm a student, so my job is mainly to shut up and listen and never never bother or be underfoot. I'm so glad about that.

I don't know why, but this has hit me particularly hard. I've seen sad things in the four years I've been going to the Hospital. Three out of four of today's sad cases were very old people dying of cancer for whom aggressive treatment wasn't an option. I marvel at the way their relatives took the news. Dignified comes to mind. On films you see grief acted out to the max, milked for every ounce of melodrama it can hold and thrown into the audience face in tears, screams and anger. Real life is a lot more contained. Sober. Real life is real.

I'm trying to figure out why this has hit me so hard. Maybe I'm just starting to realize that this time next year it will be me giving those news, me offering patients and relatives options, me having to tell people when there are no options. This is an aspect of the job that is rarely talked about, even within the medical profession. When it is addressed, it usually is in a conference, classroom... formal settings, places where you can talk about feelings with the strict aseptic terminology of medical psychology. Outside the classroom and in the privacy of their offices, doctors will sometimes mutter "a pity", nod encouragingly at an intern analyzing the way to give bad news, uphold each other with a web of pregnant looks and light conversation.

Today I feel like shit, but in a few hours my mood will lift. Unlike the patients I saw this morning, I can go home and forget.

Sorry about the rant and I hope I haven't disturbed you.

Non-writing related good news

I'm getting published (as a co-author) and it's not in a fiction venue.

Last year when I was in France I worked on a very interesting case (Medicine, guts and all that). My teachers said that it would be difficult to put my name on the paper because there were too many doctors who had participated and I was only a student. Well, turns out they have managed to put me up there as a co-author.

This is so cool. I think I'll get points for this for my internship exam and it'll sure look cool in a CV.

I'm really grateful to these people for giving me the opportunity not only to work with them, but also for giving me all that credit (which, quite frankly, I'm not sure I deserve). Not to mention taking the trouble to track me down after I'd left the country in order to have me send them my full name and signature.

I would have never managed to get my name on a scientific paper in Spain. I'm so glad I made the decision to spend a year in France.