Medical school is a great learning experience, and I've enjoyed most of it. There are, however, some significant downsides. Chief among these is extended penury. Some people go to extremes - I remember a few of my classmates selling plasma every two weeks so that they'd have spare money. I'm not afraid of needles (I've donated over 3 gallons of blood), but it's just not worth that.
So I tutor high school students. It's a pretty profitable gig - $40/hr. There's obviously not a gigantic amount of demand at that price, but I have a secret weapon - I'm one of perhaps 2-3 people in the city who tutor physics and calculus. Physics has always been my bread and butter, though I've done well enough with chemistry, algebra, trig, and biology. I'll even do history if need be. (No English. None.)
It's a nice steady flow; I can usually count on about $40-$100 a week average during the school year (but after the first 9 weeks - the first report card is usually the one that scares the parents). I branched out during college and started doing computer work on the side. I managed to score some small but profitable accounts with small businesses and individuals that just need a few hours a year of my time, whether for setting up a new machine or adding a firewall or whatever. Relation between these two subjects? I ended up securing the WiFi setup of a family I'm tutoring in. They had just brought the thing home. I got the daughter's laptop and set it up. Lo and behold, she's installed Firefox, just as I told her to. Furthermore, she's set her home page to her Xanga blog.
I'm pushing 30 (I know, I know, one foot in the grave, other one's on a banana peel). People didn't have cell phones when I was in high school. We occasionally got to borrow one that had free nights/weekends, and it was a bag phone (see #3) at that. Now they have blogs and camera phones.
I love technology. I just wish I had more of it.
Friday, October 29, 2004
So this whole blog thing...
I'm ending a month in the MICU (M=medical, instead of surgical or neuro ICU) today. It's been a good one for the most part. The ICU is one of those places that really separates docs and nurses from the rest of the population, in a way that isn't easy to describe to someone not in the field.
Imagine this: Your uncle just got admitted to the hospital with heart failure - he couldn't breathe. He's had several heart attacks, and he takes about 15 medications. He comes up to a regular patient floor, but he just keeps getting worse despite treatment.
Now he comes to us. He'll need to be intubated (have a breathing tube inserted) and put on a ventilator. He'll get an extra IV or two, just in case we need it, and maybe we'll put in a line to access the major veins right next to his heart. To you, it's Uncle Frank. To us, well, he's an 85 yo WM c/o increasing SOB c h/o MIx4 and CHF, EF 20, sedated and intubated on ACMV 400/14/60% c PEEP 5. We get so that the tubes and the lines don't even exist to us, really; we can see the patient beneath all that, and it doesn't always occur to us that those things would bother someone else. After all, they're commonplace to us. In the OR, nearly everybody looks like this.
You, on the other hand, just see Uncle Frank. We can spout numbers all day, about how his chances of leaving the hospital are vanishingly small - his heart just isn't strong enough. But all you remember is that he was fine last week.
I could say it's sad, but that's not entirely true. It's sad when these people are in their 40s and 50s, but for an 85 year old man who's been fighting a losing battle for 20 years , it seems more like a well-deserved rest. I'm not sure what to think; I became pretty inured to misery, pain, and death, but this is one of the situations where you really treat the family much more than the patient. Rewarding, but still depressing - nobody likes being the bearer of bad news.
A weekend off, and Monday I start in the ER, 3-11pm shift. I've apparently taunted the gods too much, as one of my weekends is when I do the 11pm-7am shift (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday), and another is the 7am-3pm shift (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday). It's not as though I don't have time off, but my wife is a medical student too, and right now she gets regular weekends. At least I'm off for Thanksgiving (nearly a full week, actually; fair compensation, I suppose, for losing two weekends completely).
Imagine this: Your uncle just got admitted to the hospital with heart failure - he couldn't breathe. He's had several heart attacks, and he takes about 15 medications. He comes up to a regular patient floor, but he just keeps getting worse despite treatment.
Now he comes to us. He'll need to be intubated (have a breathing tube inserted) and put on a ventilator. He'll get an extra IV or two, just in case we need it, and maybe we'll put in a line to access the major veins right next to his heart. To you, it's Uncle Frank. To us, well, he's an 85 yo WM c/o increasing SOB c h/o MIx4 and CHF, EF 20, sedated and intubated on ACMV 400/14/60% c PEEP 5. We get so that the tubes and the lines don't even exist to us, really; we can see the patient beneath all that, and it doesn't always occur to us that those things would bother someone else. After all, they're commonplace to us. In the OR, nearly everybody looks like this.
You, on the other hand, just see Uncle Frank. We can spout numbers all day, about how his chances of leaving the hospital are vanishingly small - his heart just isn't strong enough. But all you remember is that he was fine last week.
I could say it's sad, but that's not entirely true. It's sad when these people are in their 40s and 50s, but for an 85 year old man who's been fighting a losing battle for 20 years , it seems more like a well-deserved rest. I'm not sure what to think; I became pretty inured to misery, pain, and death, but this is one of the situations where you really treat the family much more than the patient. Rewarding, but still depressing - nobody likes being the bearer of bad news.
A weekend off, and Monday I start in the ER, 3-11pm shift. I've apparently taunted the gods too much, as one of my weekends is when I do the 11pm-7am shift (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday), and another is the 7am-3pm shift (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday). It's not as though I don't have time off, but my wife is a medical student too, and right now she gets regular weekends. At least I'm off for Thanksgiving (nearly a full week, actually; fair compensation, I suppose, for losing two weekends completely).
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Introduction
The name says it all: I'm Bunny Powered. And when I say I'm bunny powered, I mean me, and not any sick, twisted ideas you might have about what the bunny might be powering in my nightstand drawer. Though he might be powering that, too.
So I'm a medical student, 4th year, in the South, going into anesthesia. That's probably enough personal detail for now.
Theoretically I have all sorts of interesting things to post about. Today will not be that day. Aren't you interested? Email me if you care.
So I'm a medical student, 4th year, in the South, going into anesthesia. That's probably enough personal detail for now.
Theoretically I have all sorts of interesting things to post about. Today will not be that day. Aren't you interested? Email me if you care.
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