Thursday, July 23, 2009

Internal Medicine, or a Crash Course in Ultrasound Interpretation

I've been released from the DOD rotation (daytime emergencies) and have spent the last 10 days or so with one of the internal medicine services. This one is called Akron Veterinary Internal Medicine and Oncology Practice (shortened to AVIMP for obvious reasons) and it has been a positive experience so far. The doctors (one oncologist, one boarded internist, two "practice limted to internal medicine" vets, and a resident) are very easy and fun to work with. They all seem to have a well-developed sense of humor, so I'm fitting in pretty well. That said, they are very, very good at what they do and I'm amazed on a daily basis at how much they know and how thorough their understanding of physiology and disease processes is.

Most of my time is spent assisting (read: holding the patients) for ultrasounds. Abdominal ultrasonography is performed on almost every patient and, seeing the changes, both subtle and not so, in all of these pets is both fascinating and a little scary because I worry about what all I was missing by not ultrasounding this much. Routinely, definitive diagnoses are reached in patients that, in general practice, I'd have been left guessing on. I find this to be highly rewarding and satisfying. Again, it helps that most of the clients don't balk at the $600-$800 work ups, but medicine is a little easier when one is allowed to gather all the information at hand.

The other nice thing about the AVIMP rotation is slightly better hours than before. I tend to get to work earlier, because part of my responsibilities is "TPRing" the patients and walking them in the morning before rounds; however, we are usually done and leaving by 6 pm, as opposed to 9 or 10 like a couple of weeks ago. The weekends, as well, are a little better. This is a welcome change as it allows more opportunity to spend some time with Cindy. The distance is wearing on me a little bit, especially if something is amiss at home and I can't do anything to help. Luckily, Cindy has been great and our friends have been extremely helpful in maintaining my peace of mind.

Unfortunately, due to the way my internship is scheduled, I'll be moving to a new service (specialty surgery) on Monday. The upside is there's always something new to look forward to, the bad part is I move on just as I'm getting into the groove of the routine. Oh well, just the nature of the beast, I suppose.

So, one month down, 11 to go and, so far, it has been pretty much what I expected. I'm tired, but dealing okay, and I really think I'll look back on this as a positive experience. Stay tuned for more updates.

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