Pediatrics Research Day

Last Wednesday, my research group had the opportunity to do a poster presentation at the 13th annual Pediatrics Research Day at the Breslin Center in East Lansing, MI. It was a great day, filled with speakers from the NIH, Rainbow Babies Children's Hospital, the University of Iowa and Children's Hospital of Detroit. We had talks on Pediatric Academics in the 21st century, Cardioprotection mechanisms for pediatric cancer treatments, and genetic approaches to restoring CFTR function. We also had 6 wonderful oral presentations by Pediatric residents, an undergraduate researcher, and a veternarian. These oral presentations were fantastic; I especially was intrigued by one resident's work with Serotonin-knock out rats that involved surgical manipulation of the ileum to apply acetic acid and observe wound healing mechanisms with the serotonin knock out v. wild type rats - fascinating! Lastly, there were 62 posters presented at the conference. It was inspiring to be around so many people interested in Pediatrics and conducting new and exciting research to better the field. 

Our project was a collaboration of six students and our research mentor, Dr. Gold. The project is relatively new, as we have only been collecting data for about 8 weeks, but we thought it was still interesting and important enough to make a poster and get our data out there. It was great to talk about our research to attendings, residents and other students and getting feedback about how our next steps should fall with the project. Ultimately, we left with a good idea of where to go and finished the day feeling optimistic about our project's design and future. 

The last portion of the day was the closing remarks and awards ceremony. They would be giving out 1 award for the best oral presentation and five awards for the top poster presentations. They started with oral presentation, awarding the top prize to a deserving resident. Moving on to the posters, they began calling the top 5 names - First was a resident, Second was a a resident, Third was a resident, Fourth was a resident, Fifth....was us! Our group poster had won an award of distinction! It was such an honor, especially with our research having very preliminary data and especially because we were the only students that were recognized with this award. What a great day!

Specialty Search: Family Medicine

CLERKSHIP #4 = FAMILY MEDICINE 

I had mixed feelings going into this rotation. On one hand, it is known as one of the two rotations (along with Psych) that have SUPER awesome hours. Clinics would be 8:00-5:00 M-F, with the occasional 7:30-5:30 thrown in there. There was also only two half-day weekend shifts! So, I knew life would be good! On the other hand, I had done VERY little out-patient work at this point, so I was a little nervous about what to expect.

Our first two days of the clerkship were school records - SNOW DAYS! MSU is notorious for not every calling snow days, but this year we had two snow days in a row. (Thanks, Polar Vortex!) So, while it was incredibly fabulous to have two full unexpected days off, I was definitely ready to get back to the grind by Wednesday.

When Wednesday arrived, we got our schedules and assigned clinics. I would be spending about 1/3 of my time on campus at the "clinical center" where most of the docs we worked with during our pre-clinical education practiced. This was awesome for two reasons - 1) it was literally 3 minutes driving distance from my apartment and 2) the faculty were very used to working with students. I would be also be spending 1/3 of my time in a community clinic in Lansing with a doc who I heard great things about from our coordinator. Lastly, I'd spend 1/3 of my time in the Family Medicine Residency Clinic in Mason, MI. This clinic was about a 20 min driving distance (which was kind of a bummer), but there would be only 2-3 residents at a time with me being the only student. This meant I would get pulled in to all of the cool procedures and all of the cool cases. So, overall I was pretty stoked about all of my placements.

The rotation was a great one. In just 8 weeks, I felt like I learned A TON. Family Medicine requires you to know bits and pieces of all medical specialities - from pediatrics, to geriatrics, to ob/gyn, to orthopedics, to psychiatry. Although it felt like a steep learning curve at times, every doctor I worked with was phenominal. There were also a lot of extra workshops to be a part of during the clerkship - muskuloskeletal exams, suturing/dermatology clinics, and casting workshops - which were all very fun and educational!

I broke both my wrists :( 

...JUST KIDDING!

When the rotation began wrapping to a close, I realized how much I did enjoy it. I never really thought about being a family doctor, but I could totally see the appeal. 

PROS: GREAT hours, diverse patients, diverse disease processes, and continuity of care. Family doctors are literally the happiest people I have ever met in medicine. They get to see patients from birth until adulthood (if you are practicing long enough). You can tailor your practice to your specific interests. The need for family doctors is everywhere! There are 48 family medicine residency programs in california (yes, i looked this up!). I would be able to do Peds/OB work. Lastly, I actually really did like the out-patient setting, which was a definite surprise to me!

CONS: I really really don't like adult medicine...(is that bad to admit?). Also, anytime you get a patient that is complex (meaning...really cool), many docs that I worked with feel like they should refer. Lastly, I felt like a lot of the time docs were just acting as travel agents, coordinating patient care. In several situations, patients would come in to discuss many health conditions with their PCP, but all of these health conditions were managed by specialists around the city. 

So, as you can see - the pros WAY outway the cons, but there is still something missing for me with family medicine. So, while I haven't totally decided against family med, I think OB/GYN or Pediatrics is still higher in the running for my future specialty choice...but only time will tell! 

[Photo Blog] - December/January

Better late than never, right?

Photo blog of my 2-week winter break - including Disneyland, Los Angeles, Van Stavern family Christmas, NYE with the besties and back to LA!

Gingerbread house making in LA

Christmas in Nor Cal

 Van Stavern family Christmas! 

My precious little niece! 

Kelsey and Nicole

Wine and cheese restaurant!

Mother-Daughter date to BeniHanas

NEW YEARS!

Back to LA

Lunch with the one and only Mel Stern!

Specialty Search: OB/GYN

My 3rd clerkship of the year: OB/GYN.

This is one that I could not WAIT for! Between my first and second year, I did an externship at St. John's Hospital in Grosse Pointe, MI (See here) where we rotated through various sub-specialties and I got my first glimpse of the beauty of OB/GYN, so I couldn't wait to start! On the flip side, Ob/gyn at our hospital doesn't have the best reputation -- its known for being quite catty and for having many residents/doctors who pick favorites. Part of our grading includes evaluations from residents/doctors and this clerkship was known for people getting low evaluations that excluded them from honors (which I know isn't the most important thing, but it was still worrisome). Lastly, I was nervous because of the horrible hours associated with this clerkship. More so than any other clerkship, the amount of night shifts/24 hour shifts during OB/GYN would pretty much take up all of my weekends available in the clerkship to study/stay sane.

On the first day of the clerkship, we were handed our schedules and walked through what would be expected of us. My schedule was as followed: 1 week of orientation/lectures, 2 weeks of Gyn Surgery, 2 weeks of Labor and Delivery, 2 weeks of out-patient clinic,  1 week of oral exam/written exam/random wrap-up things and (of course) the dreaded 24 hour weekend shifts sprinkled in between. Overall, I was very happy with this since it meant I was ending on out-patient clinic (which had super relaxed hours) and I would have plenty of time to study! Also, just talking about the clerkship made me excited - finally something that I was truly interested in!

GYN SURGERY - My two weeks on gyn surg were great! Having just come off of an 8-week surgery clerkship, I was kind of ready for a break from the OR, but it turns out gyn surg and gen surg are totally different! Yes, there are some long procedures (ex: hysterectomies) in gyn surg, but I just loved that a large proportion of the surgeries were 45 minutes long. Get in, get out - get the patient home! I also loved that Gyn Surg is specialized surgery from the start. Learning specialized surgical areas to select body parts is way more interesting to me than learning general surgery. At the end of the two weeks, I was not ready to leave Gyn Surg... I wanted more! That has to be a good sign, right?

LABOR AND DELIVERY - This was definitely a roller coaster of emotions! It was high stress and you really had to put a lot of effort in to know what was going on when. Unlike surgery, live births aren't scheduled...obviously. So, if you weren't waiting outside your patients rooms at the right time, no one would call you and you would miss the delivery. Also, I had several moments where I really thought I screwed up bad, which is such a horrible feeling. Ex: my very first cesarian section (ever) was right when I was coming on at sign-out of my first L&D shift. The resident told me to run and introduce myself to the patient so that I could go in on a Cesarian section secondary to severe pre-eclampsia. So, I did as I was told. I walked into the patient's room and proceeded to say "Hello! My name is Kailyne and I am a medical student. I would like to observe your c-section today." At that moment, the nurse gave me a death stare and stated "She hasn't been told she was having a c-section yet." Worst. Feeling. Ever. In the end, it turned out fine, but still I felt like a piece of bleep. On the other hand, the L&D can be the happiest place in the hospital. What is more beautiful than watching somebody come into this world? I think the highlight of my whole medical school career thus far is doing my first solo delivery, knowing that I just helped a baby successful gain life. So overall, I really really enjoyed these two weeks. Even though its extremely high stress, you adjust. Once I got my footing and felt comfortable in L&D, it was my absolute favorite place to be!

OUT-PATIENT CLINIC - This semester, I have had VERY little time in the outpatient setting. Going from IM to Surgery to OB/GYN, I had maybe 10 clinic days total up until now. So, I really didn't know if I would like this or not. Well, I loved it! I love that ob/gyn clinic is also semi procedural. I love that there is some continuity of care. I love that this element is also so predominant in the field, because of how diverse the field of OB/GYN is. I had a really great experience and got to perfect my ability to do a pap smear, while also being able to rotate through subspecialties. I also wasn't ready for this to end.

FINALS WEEK - After my 7 weeks of the clerkship, it was finally time to face the music and test out what I had learned. This week, we would have both our oral and written exam. Up until now, I had screwed up the written by a few points to not allow me to honor the rotations, so I was ready to finally get that H. Also, I knew if I was really serious about maybe going into OB/GYN, getting that mark would be important....and sure enough...I honored!!! Finally!

What a great rotation. I loved every (well, at least almost every) minute of it! But, like every field, there are definite pros and cons:
1) PROS: Women's health is an interesting and important field, continuity of care potential, procedural field, diversity of patients and diversity of settings to work in, and the incredible rewards of obstetrics. I was never EVER bored and went home every single day with a smile. I looked forward to going to work every day and was very sad when the clerkship ended.
2) CONS: The two most obvious are 1) the unpredictable hours and 2) malpractice insurance. The only other real con is that you really do just have to give the babies away immediately. I will never ever see a pediatric patient, which I don't know if I can handle.

So thats it! It was a great rotation and definitely a possibility for my specialty of choice! :)