Family Medicine, “Dirty 30” Celebrations, and Another Board Exam Completed

I can’t believe it has been more than a month since my last post!!!! Life has been ridiculously busy and there has been so much I wanted to share with you all, but not enough time to sit down and do so! I’m even super behind on emails and comments, but I'll make it a priority to get through everything by the end of the week. Tonight, I’ll try my best to do a quick recap of everything that you all might have missed, and include what I consider to be the most important highlights :-)

Best Birthday Cake Ever!!!! (Yep, it even tops my 27th cake)

For starters, I recently celebrated my birthday and officially joined the “Dirty 30” club. I think I celebrated every night the entire week of my birthday, which was rough considering I started a new rotation, but sooo worth it! I partied alongside Cam Newton (technically he was just sitting in the same section as me in the club, but I’m still counting it LOL), was surprised with the most amazing cake ever, and even got a chance to enjoy a Sips Under the Sea event one evening at the Georgia Aquarium. Thirty feels awesome and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the decade has in store!

Sips Under the Sea at the Georgia Aquarium...Drinks, fish, and no kids!

As for rotations, I finished my family medicine rotation last month, and I really enjoyed the experience. It made me feel a lot better about writing notes and presenting patients, and it was nice being a part of a dually accredited MD/DO program with some residents who had graduated from my school. I also got the chance to do and observe a couple of procedures, so that made me happy.

Having fun with the FM residents and attendings

This month I am on my Family Medicine / Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (FM/OMM) rotation, but my preceptor doesn’t really do any OMM, so it is basically a repeat of family medicine in the outpatient setting. I’m definitely not complaining though, because we see at least twenty patients per day, the pace is non-stop, and I am learning a ton! Plus, I had the chance to do OMM during my rotation last month, so I don’t feel like I am missing out on anything. The cases have a lot of variety, I am constantly looking things up, and I am pretty sure I have a solid list of ICD-10 codes memorized at this point. Today, he even let me do two I&D procedures back-to-back since he is fully aware of my love of surgery, which definitely makes up for the 10+ hour work days with only five minute lunches with the drug reps if I’m lucky.  

COMLEX Level 2 PE = Complete!

I think the final update on my list is the completion of my COMLEX Level 2 PE medical board exam. This is the physical exam portion of our boards where we get eight hours to see 12 patients, do their physical exams, and write up SOAP notes on them. This is a requirement for graduation, and for osteopathic medical students, the exam is only offered in Philadelphia or Chicago, so I made my way up to Philly a couple of weeks ago and took my exam. I won’t know the results for a few months, but I’m hoping it went well. I immediately starting thinking about all the mistakes I made after taking the exam, but hopefully I passed and now I'm ready to move on to the next one. The bright side is I only have one more board exam to go during my medical school career, and I got the chance to explore my school’s main campus and FINALLY eat a philly cheesesteak!

Visiting PCOM's main campus for the first time

I think that sums everything up! Right now, I’m finishing up the last week of my FM/OMM rotation and then next week I start my Internal Medicine Ambulatory rotation. Right now, I need to go study for Friday’s OMM COMAT exam, but I hope everyone reading this is having a great week! I’ll try my best to not go so long without posting next time, but you can always keep up with me through my Instagram pics and stories (@LSUsweetheart). Until next time!