Monday, August 12

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CAROL!!!**

today, we celebrate the birth of this wonderful girl into this world. she's a fun, energetic, and thoughtful sister: i'm blessed in getting to know her.

she's super-duper competitive, hits hard in touch football (right, jennifer?), and gets steamed up when playing me in anything, like ping-pong or foosball (hey, i can't help it if i'm better than you...HAHA).

but most importantly, she's a gentle heart that loves God. she checks up on me all the time to see how i'm doing, and really shows me Jesus' love. thank you for your friendship, carol. don't worry about being the life and energy everytime there's a gathering; you're loved as you are.

may God bless you this year, many times over!!


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OB/GYN, wk1, day1

getting up at 6am after playing ball last night was not fun. playing ball after being so sore wasn't fun either. i don't know why i do things like this. i'm just hurting all over.

we got our orientation today. turns out that i will be in clinic (that means pelvic exams, folks! yay!!) for the first wk, night float (6pm-6am) for a wk, then on to OB (catching babies, grimacing, then pretending that it's a beautiful child to the parents), and then to gyn surgery.

today, i saw a whirlwind of patients. i definitely didn't develop rapport with them, as i did with my psych patients. i discovered two BIG flaws in me today:

1) i'm male, not a female- this is an immediate strike against me that the female patients can't seem to forgive me for.

2) i can't speak spanish- 4 years of spanish in jh and hs, and what did that do for me? nothing. i can kind of gather some bits and pieces, but for the most part, they are speaking soo fast, i have no idea what they are saying. since a vast chunk of our patient population is spanish-only speaking, this presents some difficulties for me...

this was a rough day, not only for the long hours and being on my feet the entire day and getting pimped non-stop by my resident. (i was getting hammered with questions. i mean, i wasn't even in the ballpark.

resident: "what's this?"
me: "uh....i don't know."

resident: "what's this?"
me: "uh....i don't know."

resident: "what's this?"
me: (for variation) "uh....i have no idea."

resident: "what's this?"
me: "uh....i don't know."

yes, congratulations, my dear resident. you have successfully made me feel like an idiot. i'm sure it wasn't that hard, either. i learned all this stuff before, but it's just a jumble in my head, and i can't seem to draw out the relevant information when a question is given me. honestly, i learned this half-heartedly b/c i was pretty sure then that i wouldn't go into ob/gyn. now, i'm not so sure, but it isn't helping that i know nothing.

i felt so evil today. the pelvic exam is an invasive procedure in many ways, you know? i mean, i remember when i got my check-up, and that doc was examining my genitals, rubbing for abnormalities, and i wasn't exactly smiling about it. i remember thinking, "i can't believe this is happening to me...block it out, block it out...think about basketball...this can't be right...are ALL the guys being checked like this?...dang, what if this is like the episode in friends where joey thought every tailor cupped his customer's crotch for measurement?...is this legal?...this dude better not be smiling..."

i couldn't read their thoughts, but my patients looked like they wanted to be ANYWHERE but where i was. i felt so bad. that it had to be done, that it had to be done by ME.

i'm sorry, but i don't think i can ever be comfortable about this. maybe with someone i love, in different circumstances, etc, etc, but this... there's something about doing something so invasive on a person that doesn't want you to do it... i feel like a criminal.

i think i'm going to purge myself now in scalding hot water for 30 minutes...



yakob at 5:50 PM

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