Names

We had a patient today who was having her second child in as many years. After he was washed up and taken to the nursery, and the mother was cleaned up and getting ready to go to her room, we asked her what her first child's name was. She told us it was "Stephan" (the second syllable being stressed in her pronunciation). Then we asked her what she wanted to name her second son, and she replied "Steven" (the stress being on the first syllable this time but not sure of the spelling). This is what we said in response, "No. Absolutely not. You can't do that. That is too close to your first son's name. I'm sorry, but you are going to have to think of something else. He is a cute baby though. Congratulations!"

That is when it hit me, being a doctor is more than just providing medical care. It is also about helping people to just make better choices, whether they agree or not.

Another world

Have you ever had the feeling that there is another world just out of sight. I saw the preview for The Spiderwick Chronicles, and it reminds me of that. I'm on my OB/GYN rotation and we were in a C-section this morning. After they clean the patient's belly, they put a sheet up between their face and the rest of their body (I don't know too many people who really want to see or could handle seeing themselves with an 8 inch incision in their belly). They are numb from the waist down and are just waiting for the baby's cry. When the baby is born it cries, thy clean it off and give it to the pediatricians in the room who clean it off, the father is taking pictures, they bring the baby back to the mom to look at and...we're still down there trying to close up this gaping hole in her abdomen. Today this was all going on while the woman was losing lots of blood (like 1.5 liters worth of blood).
Them - Oh look how cute this baby is. He's got my chin
Us - clamp this down there, maybe it's coming from there
Them - Oh he is a fighter, look at him cry
Us - No, you're not sewing fast enough
Them - Can you believe that we have a baby. This is great
Us - There isn't time to make it look perfect, just sew here to stop all this blood.

And so on. It was a very surreal experience. It was like to different worlds right next to each other and (because I wasn't really doing anything important) I was able to see both of them in this weird juxtaposition.

Family Medicine

I have 2 weeks 3 days and 18 hours until I'm officially done with my 3rd year of medical school. For those of you who don't know what exactly takes place third year here's a brief explanation. You do a series of rotations in the major areas of medicine (Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, Psychiatry, General Surgery, Pediatrics, and OB/GYN) with the idea that you will use this time to learn a lot about medicine and ultimately choose what you want to do for the rest of your life. I have picked Family Medicine for my career and I am very happy with it. It has been interesting, however, to note other peoples' responses to me when I tell them this decision. "Oh, that's...nice" or "Really?!? Why?" or my personal favorite, "Don't do that!!"
Some of the reasons people disparage the General Practicioner are
1) It is a very non-competetive field to get into which unfortunately means that some people go into it because they can't get into anything else.
2) As with most primary care fields (fields where most families have this type of doctor - family doctor, pediatrician, etc.) get paid much less than other fields
3) Some people view Family Medicine doctors as knowing a little bit of everything, but not master of any.
There may be some validity to these arguments, but here are some of the reasons that I want to go into it.
1) As a family medicine doctor you can go almost anywhere in the world and be of use to people. I would love to test this theory and travel to some of these places and/or live in a small town.
2) You can have a fantastic affect on people's health over the course of their lives. I know many people won't change their ways, but I believe that there are many out there who will given the right opportunity
3) There is a lot of face-to-face time with patients and I really like spending time with people.
There are others, of course, but they are harder to define. The best way I can describe it is that it fits my personality and lifestyle.
(Though I curse my luck that I'm not interested in radiology. Man, great lifestyle)