Hopkins and BostonMed

I finished up my second round of boards this week and have been relaxing all week. I heard about a show called BostonMed, that filmed the lives of attendings, residents, and nurses at Mass General, Brigham and Women's, and Boston Children's. I have always had a love-hate relationship with medical shows on tv. They can be very entertaining but also are frustrating because they freak out about stuff that is very common and don't represent what the hospital is actually like. For instance every time they show an operating room the lights are off. Yes many operations that are done laprascopically do have the lights off but I would say the majority of surgeries I have been in on the lights were on. That being said I have always like the show House M.D. and Scrubs but never really gotten in to shows like Grey's Anatomy.

I watched the entire mini-series of BostonMed in two days. It was really good. Granted I have only been working in the hospital as a medical student for one year and have not gone through residency I think the show depicts life at the hospital very well. The interactions between the staff is spot on, after all the show is real and not scripted. So if you really want to see what life is like and not just get caught up in the DRAMA of Grey's then I highly recommend watching these mini-series'.

As soon as I finished BostonMed I started watching episodes of Hopkins which is really good as well. Hopkins actually came out before BostonMed so you can see how they improved the show. Hopkins basically does the same thing as BostonMed except it follows around attendings, residents and nurses at Johns Hopkins. Watching all these episodes has me extremely pumped about being a resident even though they are extremely tired and worn out. The show also has me pumped about being on the East coast for the next few months. There are beautiful shots of Boston and Baltimore throughout the series. The cities are so beautiful and vibrant, I just can't wait to be in that setting doing what I love.

I start my first official neurosurgery rotation on Monday, I'll let you know how it goes.

Code Blue

I have decided that I want to revive my blog after nine months or so of absence. Reviving might not be the correct term since I am not sure how alive the blog was in the first place. Anyways, I decided to do this because I have been trying to read more at night (I canceled my cable and have little else to do). I have read several of the "must read" medical books this past year such as, House of god. I found reading books like these are quite fun for me and encouraging. I just finished the book Better: A surgeon's notes on performance by Atul Gawande. At the end of the book he shares five tips that he previously gave to a group of medical students and one of them was to write, so here we go.

First, a little up date on what I have been doing. I started my fourth year of medical school about two months ago. My first month was spent doing research, the second month has been an academic medicine month. Academic medicine is the month we get to study for our licensing exams. I took one of them (COMLEX) this past Tuesday and take the second one (USMLE) on Monday. If you actually kept up with my blog you would remember a post about how I had a Meltdown last year.

The next few months should be interesting. I have decided that I want to be a neurosurgeon when I grow up. I have told this to several doctors I work with it is usually followed up with questions such as "Are you crazy?", "Are you married?" Neurosurgery is one of the most demanding specialties in the medical field. There really aren't many neurosurgeons, last I checked there were 3,500 in the US. This shortage along with with fact that many of the surgeries take 6+ creates a lot of strain. If you decide to cover trauma for you respective city you might be taking call several times a week for multiple hospitals when you are in your 40-50's. I have been told by some neurosurgeons I shouldn't do it and they wouldn't do it again. I have not been shaken by this so maybe the answer to the first question is yes, I am crazy.

With deciding to do this I have applied to several residencies and part of getting in to them is doing audition rotations (AKA away rotations or Sub-I's) at the places you apply. Unfortunately for me there are no programs in Texas that I am going to apply to so I will be doing this rotations in other states. Next month I will still be in Fort Worth doing a neurosurgery rotation with a local doctor so he can get me prepared to go "show off" to these other places. I am really excited about starting to do rotations in what I actually want to do. I have spent the first part of the year in thing like OBGYN, Pediatrics, and Psychiatry, all which I had fun because I love medicine but I really like operating and operating on the brain is just so exhilarating. After my last day of my rotation here I will make the trek up to New Jersey for a month, followed by a month in Long Island, then a final month in Philadelphia. Once I finish in Philly it will be Christmas and I will be on my way back home.

Given that I will be in the North East all by my lonesome I hope I can read even more books at night and hopefully blog about the experience.