Where Did I Match?

UNITY HOSPITAL, ROCHESTER NEW YORK IT IS!!

And the suspense ends. Rather, it ended about 5 days back. I'll be flying into a beautiful city with some really friendly citizens and I shall look forward to about 6 months of 3 feet of snow :-)

Now that I have had 5 days to breath through and make myself believe that this is actually happening, I'm delighted. I'm a part of a distinguished and delighted group of to-be interns who matched this year. I am one of the few who can look back at Match Week with a fond smile and pat myself on my back and say," Mission Accomplished". I can look at the past two years and say, "Successful Journey". Whoever said that its the journey that matters and not the destination basically never reached the destination. I can't imagine feeling so at peace and satisfied about this journey if I hadn't matched.

But, back to where I matched. Rochester. have I mentioned that I have a thing for everything British except their cricket team? I love their accent, I love the names that they give places, I love their authors, I love their Royalty but I can't imagine wanting to live in England. Eureka!! I get to go to Rochester! Where every name is British, where the houses are so far apart, I get a good rural English feel, where I can stay in a place called Carriage Glenn and behave like I'm so English Royal myself and still get my dose of the USA :-)

I probably chose the worst month to go to Rochester during my interview season - January. But I had to see how bad the snow can get! They say the city blooms in the summer. Guess it is my turn to find out. I'm already excited, nervous, scared, happy, confident yet not so much....it's a myriad of emotions and feelings. One thing I know for certain, I'm actually glad I did not match into a Prelim position. I know I probably would not have said this 2 months ago when I was so intent on wanting Surgery. But the peace I'm getting by knowing that I am in this wonderful program for 3 years and will get out with an Internal Medicine degree under my belt, makes me sleep well at night and makes me calm. Really really calm :-)

I've actually been going through all my interview conversations with the faculty in my head since Friday. I'm glad i had the chance to tell them everything about myself - academics, personal, professional....everything! I can proudly say that they liked me enough to consider me for their program :-) what a confidence boost!!

I'm doubly excited because I even have a friend who matched at Unity. I mean, how cool is that? On Saturday, I just got this message saying,"So guess we have Unity in common, huh?" and I couldn't stop hoping against hope that it really meant what I thought it did.

And it did :-) ha ha!!! I think these three years are going to change me for the better. I can already see myself become more sure about myself. Being in a place like that, not too much city, not too much village, is going to be so great. And I'm so going to become an outdoorsy person. I promise. I'll only be able to utilise 3-4 months for that, so I'm going to make the best of it. No more lazying around :-)

Whew!! Lots of documentation to do, a family trip to be scheduled, packing to begin, house-hunting to start and an international drivers' licence to be applied for. USA baby, here I come!!

Laparoscopy

On this weekend, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop on Basic and Advanced Laparoscopy. We were taught everything about Laparoscopy from the very beginning - how to hold the instruments, what the instruments are, how to suture stuff inside the abdomen, working the instrument with what you see on the camera in front of you, hand-eye co-ordination, where and how to put the ports in....all the stuff that you want to know before you just plunge into Laparoscopic surgeries.
Thing is, I've always watched Laparoscopies. Easiest surgery to watch actually. It is an Air-conditioned OR (yeah, I guess I've started using a lot of American terminologies now. If I plan on doing my residency there, makes sense to use their words instead of ours), you can sit on a comfy stool to watch and you have as good a view of the organs as the operating Surgeon. It's pretty damn amazing. After all, it is tiring to watch a 5 hour surgery standing tiptoed, in a crowd, straining your neck from here to there to get a better view.
So back to the workshop. We started with the Endo Trainer. Its a plastic box with holes for the ports. They keep stuff like plates of peanuts, sugar cubes, Polo pills, match sticks and plastic gloves in it. The instruments go in through the holes. You can get really good training in picking those peanuts up, moving them from one plate to the other. The sugar cubes are a little tougher. You have to stack them on one another. The 2-D image in front of you doesn't help a lot in that. The match sticks and Polo pills are the worst. You have to pick a pill and then loop it into the match stick that's stuck down on the rubber padding. Not as easy as it looks! We also got to learn and practice intracorporeal suturing on the same. I, apparently did not have great instruments. But, wow, was that tough!
The key to good Laparoscopy is to stop working with your hands in your head. This is just my thought. I'm just a beginner. But, from what I saw and did, I realised this. When you learn a new language, for example, you always tend to think in the language you know well. And then, you translate that thought into your new language. It's only when you start thinking in that new language that you actually learn. That's the same principle with Laparoscopy too. You can't keep thinking of how you'd separate tissue or suture an incision with your bare hands and then use those methods with that instrument. You have to allow that instrument to be your hand. The needle-holder is not going to be this 20 inch long instrument that you directly hold and just plunge inside. It's going to have a long handle, a different grip and, most importantly, a really small area to move in. Unless and until you can think in terms of moving the needle holder and picture it as a part of your working hand, you can never get good with Laparoscopy. That needs patience, practice and perseverance.
I personally had a great time. I realised yet again, how much I LOVE surgery, love being inside an OR. I also learnt that I am good at this. Day to day practice and I could make myself really really proud. I like looking back at things I've done and marvel at them. I like saying stuff like, "Wow!! You go girl!". I can do that in Surgery or any surgical field. It's great to know that the love I'd felt during my Casualty posting was not a one time thing. I know I love this and I get a feeling I can get really good at it too.
I thank my luck that I had this opportunity so early on. Experiences like these help mould the clay of my confused mind into a beautiful pot. There is a long way to go, but I'm taking small steps. And, I get a feeling that the beautiful piece of art is not very far off :-)

20 more days to go....

I just can't wait to get to the US. We've started making the plans for everything, what we have to see, how we'll be seeing it all, and its so exciting I can hardly wait. College seems so boring because of it all.
But with the trip to get on to, I've got a lot of homework to do, and for the first time in all of my small college life, I feel like studying every day and feel like listening to the lectures and paying attention to them. Its strange, but I'm under the pressure of having to finish a lot in less time and, as usual, it works! We're working on that poster. A little weird to work with so many people, but I guess I can manage it all.
And the localites in my batch will be given a Tea-Party ( read: ragging outside the college premises) by our immediate seniors. Its on the 12th but I still dunno the venue. I don't like our seniors much, so may be they'll give me the opportunity to like them a little more. They're truly the ONLY people excited about it all. We aren't even interested much. Who cares about them any way! We're doing great on our own.
Today's lectures were good. I like the respiratory system, I've always liked it. Its fun to read about it all. And I like Biochem any way, so Wednesday can definitely be labelled as good day.
And I repeat again, 20 more days to go!!!!