Monday, August 13, 2007

to-do lists

ive always had an affinity for to-do lists. i think this started in high school, or even before, when i felt like i had a lot to juggle and needed lists to keep it all straight. my mother is primarily responsible for my obsession with multitasking, as she thought it was important to sign me up for every extracurricular activity available in a 1-hr radius of our little island hometown. if you dont believe me, here is a list of all the activities i participated in as a youngster: taekwondo, ballet, tennis, piano, art, writing, swimming, soccer, t-ball, basketball, community service clubs, tutoring, buddhist school....ah, the list goes on. ever wonder why im so involved (or obsessed with instant messaging while im on the computer)? ask my mom. even as a now-married pseudo-grown-up, ive taken multi-tasking to a whole different level.

i think this multi-tasking will serve me well as an intern, where my life will be filled by to-do lists, check boxes, and (somewhat) predefined tasks. in the past couple weeks, i have felt satisfied at checking off many (large) boxes centered around finishing up requirements for 4th year, applying for internal medicine residencies, and living life. presented in classic sign-out form, here are the highlights for you below:

Work:
[X] Step 2 (my last test of M4 year!)
[X] ERAS (Electronic Residency Application)
[X] Letters of recommendation for ERAS x 2
[X] Dean's letter appt and review (this letter sums up how you did in med school & talks about how cool you are)
[X] Internal medicine appt with Dr. Grum (for the Department letter, since i'm applying in medicine)
[X] CCMU (Critical Care Medicine Unit, or the MICU) - 2 calls down, 5 calls to go. I guess I really shouldn't really check off this box, but it feels good anyway, so I will, for right now.


Play (mostly):
[X] Celebrated our one year anniversary in Western Michigan. Chris and I stayed at a local B&B, ate some good food, and went shopping in Holland. We also got fabulous peach pie from Crane's Pie Pantry in Fennville.
[X] AMSA COC (Chapter Officers Conference). Lots of QT here with my some of my fave AMSA peeps, including Catherine Jones, Dan Murphy, Andrea Knittel, and Rishi Rattan. I also got to visit with Jay Bhatt.
[X] Hanging out with some fellow M5's, M3's, interns, and residents. It's been awesome to meet new people at different levels in the hospital and hang out with them on the outside. (I'm not sure Chris is as thrilled about this new development, but he humors me anyway. I appreciate it!)

Random fun stuff:

[X] I was found by Cooper, an organizer at Blogher, online. She contacted me about BlogHers Act!, an initiative you can read more about here. Women bloggers from all over voted on global health as an issue they want to tackle this year, and cooper asked me to speak at the unveiling of this way exciting topic. Unfortunately, it was the weekend before Step 2, so I couldn't, but I wrote a letter that she read to the assembled bloghers at their national conference. Fun!

[X] Kevin, a former GHAC chair, nominated me to be profiled at this upcoming exhibit at the Ntl Library of Medicine on leaders in global health. I'm still filling out written interview questions for this thing, but I did a phone interview where I talked about AMSA, Thailand stuff, and organizing. The exhibit goes up next spring/summer and will also have an online component. Hopefully, I can convince other people to get involved. It's also humbling (and heartwarming) to have people you work with respect what you do (and think about you when things like this come up.)

Enough signout for now. I've been a slacker about updating, and it's hard to get back into the groove of blogging, so I thought I'd start with what I do best - a checklist. All you intern readers out there - hope you enjoyed :)

NB- For all you non-med people out there, 'sign out' is something you have to do when you leave the hospital everyday if you're on an inpatient service. This consists of a blurb on your patient(s), why they came in, what you've done for them in the hospital, and then a list with little boxes (as above) for things you need your cross-covering intern (the intern on call) to do while you're gone. This usually consists of checking labs or following up on (specialty service) consults you have put in on your patient for a specific problem they might have. It also has fun tidbits on how to handle certain situations should the nurse call in the middle of the night. For example, one of my patients had this on her signout:

Note: Patient's BP falls to the 80's when she sleeps. If this happens and people are concerned, wake her up. Her BP will return to normal.