My medicine rotation was going to be a big hurdle, and also a large deciding factor for my career. It's an 8 week inpatient rotation consisting of 6 long days a week caring for your patients and trying to master a lot of clinical material and work on medical reasoning.

The first month I was in the VA hospital, on the inpatient service. My initial team leader started medical school with me, and it is so impressive to see how much my original medical school class now knows. They are leaders in their respective residency programs, and it's really an honor to learn from them. It also decreases the self induced stress, because they know you as a person, and I could focus almost exclusively on learning the medicine.

The VA Hospital has an alternating day call system of short call and long call. So you alternate days when you're at the hospital to admit patients all day long, which is a nice system. However, working at the VA, means you need to learn a whole new medical record system. It took a bit of learning, but I eventually got up to speed. The first few weeks were a big learning experience. I had to pick up patients at all times of the day, write notes and present them to the attending, while on a time crunch. The hardest part was learning to be thorough while not getting overwhelmed by the details. By the last week, I felt that I was starting to get the hang of it, and then it's time to move on to a new hospital and new system.

In between the two blocks we had a golden weekend - meaning we had both Saturday and Sunday off. I packed that weekend full of activities. We went to the zoo, and I enjoyed as much time as possible with my boys. It was a treat. In true two physician family fashion, my golden weekend aligned perfectly with the weekend that Paul worked both days from 7A-7PM. So I had the crew by myself, we walked, rested and enjoyed our time together!

My second Medicine block was at the main UPMC hospital. It was another month of teaching, fast paced learning and trying our best to add to the patient care experience. My teams were excellent, and the other medical student on service also had kids.. I had the pleasure of taking care of some wonderful patients, who will forever leave a lasting impression.

It was a busy, busy month with early mornings and late nights. My parents were kind enough to come out and help us towards the end of the rotation so I could get in a bit of studying and enjoy a few meals. Lovis and my mom helped with meal prep. They brought out steaks from Maplewood Meats to refuel my worn body, and we celebrated Easter together! Drew did an Easter Egg hunt in the basement and loved his basket from the Easter Bunny. He had an epic photo from his time at Frick Park, in the bunny cut out, that will forever be one of my all time favorite Drew photos!! Haha! It's amazing.

I finished my Medicine rotation with the shelf exam, which never feels good when you walk out, but it was a awesome feeling to have crossed this medical school milestone. Medicine is the backbone of plenty rotations, so it was nice to have crossed this bridge! It also reinforced just how fortunate Paul and I are to be surrounded by our family and friends who help us during these crazy periods of medical training. We did it, one more hurdle jumped!

Medicine Months

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