Monday, March 23, 2009

What Capstone Taught Me

-First, I am even more scared to get sued than I was before. I don't think that is what they were going for with their "Don't worry, you can avoid getting sued" talk.

-By the way, malpractice insurance is frickin' expensive.

-Also, it now seems inevitable that I, or someone I know, will develop a drug or alcohol problem. If it is someone I know, I will be forced to report that person to the Medical Licensing Board and potentially ruin their lives.

-Say what you will about the MD/PhD pathway (Lord knows I have), but at least I am not well into six figures in debt like my classmates, who will have to work just as hard as me (who am I kidding, I'm going in to Derm... they will have to work harder) and be much poorer for a looooooooong time.

-Docs sure do seem to get the s*** end of the stick.

-I figured it would be awful to have to tell the family of a patient that their loved one might die because I screwed up; standardized patient family members have helped me realize that "awful" is the understatement of the year.

-Sometimes, there are patients who have had bad health care experiences who have a lot of valuable things to say. And sometimes, there are patients you want to smack because they clearly think they understand what happened to them, but in reality they got most of their information from qacks and you have to listen to their ridiculous nonsensical ramblings about how awful doctors are.

-Apparently--and this TOTALLY blew my mind--it's a bad idea to have sex with one of your patients, especially if that patient has borderline personality disorder. Holy Cow! I am so glad I sat through an hour long lecture to learn this gem, because otherwise I might have gotten into real trouble!

-Residency is hard. No, seriously.

-You won't have time to take care of yourself, but you owe it to yourself and your patients to take care of yourself. Whatever that means.

-Finally and most importantly: I am completely done with medical school. Holy 8 year training program completion, Batman!

3 comments:

Dragonfly said...

Love it. And congratulations on being a double doctor.

OMDG said...

Re: the debt -- AMEN sister!

DK said...

(Sorry, I'm behind, I'm just getting caught up now...)

Residency is hard. It's both way worse and so much better than things are in med school. You figure it out as you go along, and you make it work. It's quite a ride, but you'll rock it.

Yeah, it concerns me, too, the frequency with which they tell us not to have sex with the patients....in better news, NC has an excellent impaired professionals program for physicians with substance use issues. They have an impressive success rate, and docs who complete the program don't have to report their censure to the licensing board (because the medical board is in charge of it, so, if they say so, I guess it's okay). There aren't any "sex with borderlines" groups, though...