Big week for James - he hit the big 2-5! James would like to point out that a fancy way to say this is that he's now a tetartocentenarian. I feel a bit old since I'll be turning 27 during this calendar year. But James will keep me young! :) We celebrated by inviting a couple of friends over for funfetti cake and homemade cookies and cream ice cream. I have to say that cake decorating is not my calling in life. I wrote "25" with the candles and they were a bit long/looked more like a creepy arrangement of gigantic candles on a hill or something. But all the sweets tasted yummy and definitely spoiled our dinner! We also cooked some fun meals later in the week that James loves (more info below).
This week I started my vocation. However, I did not start my "vocation" according to one of my chief residents...she is a very sweet gal from Russia who ironically ALWAYS spells vacation as vocation. For some reason it has a less appealing ring to it when spelled like this. She also spells holiday "holyday," which I kind of like. Anyway, just a random tidbit from the many emails exchanged this week as I started my residency orientation. Luckily orientation has been pretty chill-mostly just learning about how to use the computer system, how to fill out an I9 (or get a social security to start - lots of foreign med school grads in the program for the 3 year residency. All of the 1-yr program residents like me are US med school grads. But, I like the diversity and the foreign folks are all quite bright and have interesting stories), getting measured for white coats (which we don't get til Sept so I probably have to buy one...ugh. I am not sure why it takes 3 months for a coat to get a name imprinted. Our house will be built in that amount of time).
Anyway, orientation: not too bad. Co-interns seem pretty nice. Today we had a welcome picnic at my program director's house after church, which is really nice. We had yummy food up in the rolling hills north of Baltimore, a hike, some tennis (or for me, watching tennis), foosball, ping pong, and pool, and just plain old chatter. James and all other family members of the residents were invited and he loved speaking Russian with my co-residents. Not sure why, but this residency has many russian speakers. Of the 24 interns, I think 7 or 8 speak Russian (some are from Ukraine, Armenia, other Slavic countries though but also speak Russian). Nice day.
I have one more week of orientation and then...JULY 1. I start off on the most intense internal medicine floor as it has the sickest patients plus the cardiac rule-outs (ie people who come in with chest pain and are observed for 24-48 hours to see if they're having a heart attack/need a stress test/need a cardiac catherization). This makes it especially busy because there are lots of patients coming in and off the floor (read: lots of admission and discharge paperwork), transfer summaries (if they have to go to a different hospital because they are having a heart attack...or if they need to go to the ICU), etc., compared to other floors which are more calm, have more stable cases, and less turnover. You could say that I'll hit the ground running and learn a lot! Luckily I have a good senior resident and co-intern on my team, and luckily the summer months are a little calmer because there is less flu (which causes more hospitalizations for people with COPD or heart failure). Nevertheless, I will be very busy! Most days start at 6ish, end at 5pm. Occasionally I will have 16 hour night shifts (example: July 7 is 7pm-11am on July 8), which is the max number of consecutive hours first-year residents are allowed to work. Luckily I do have the 4th of July itself off (half of interns do) and then I get one "golden weekend" also in July (meaning I get all of Saturday and Sunday off, which usually happens only once per month). Only some of the interns get a golden weekend during any given internal medicine block.
After this first 4 weeks, I managed to sign up for the best rotation at harbor: GI (gastroenterology). Here, this luckily means I am in clinic from 1-5pm just on Tues-Thurs. Super relaxed. As a result, I will probably use my extra time to study for an take my final licensing boards, a two-day exam called Step 3. James and I will also take a few days for vacation and head up to Maine (Acadia National Park, and also probably Camden, Maine, and Freeport) and then to Boston for 1-2 days in mid-August. I am only allowed to take "vocation" during my ambulatory block (which is late Sept-mid Oct for me) and my 3 elective blocks (first is end of July-mid August; the other two are back-to-back starting in late Jan-mid March). Unfortunately only 1 week of all of this time corresponds with James' vacation (in January) but he can work some Saturdays this summer so we can do our Maine trip. I also found out this week that half the interns get 6 days off around Christmas; the other half gets 6 days off for New Years. We'll get to haggle it out, email style, sometime in the fall. Ugh, I miss the simple student life already. One big positive: my first pay day is coming up! Now that is something I'm not used to!
James also had an exciting first week at his job. He'll be working with two biostatisticians at Hopkins and will be looking at physicians' reads of different types of imaging and how accurately they diagnose tumors on those different imaging modalities. Both mentors seem really nice so far and as James says, "he's got his work cut out for him" in making a model that can be used for this analysis. He'll learn a lot, though, and he's really excited. It's nice that he has flexible hours, though, so he can make phone calls if needed, start early some days and end late some days if needed as well.
It was also nice this week to have our evenings together. I'm still working on some research and we have lots of things post-wedding to tie up, but I love not having assignments due for either of us. We cooked some fun food this week - we made our yummy meatball dish again on Friday and then went to a free ballroom dancing night at the undergrad ROTC. On Saturday, we met up for some shopping with my cousin, Nichole (so fun having family close by!) and caught some killer deals. We went home for our first run in a couple weeks (my fault) and cooled off in our pool before making James' special meal he's been craving for weeks - a New Orleans bbq shrimp recipe. I have to say, he's a pretty good cook! Nom nom!
A sad update: my car is in the shop for brake repairs. Waaahh. I suppose it earned repairs after I've put on 20k in miles since getting it 18mo ago. It won't be ready til after work tomorrow so James gets to drive me to work (learning to drive a stick through downtown Baltimore is beyond me at this stage in life). James' check engine light, on the other hand, just went away so maybe that's something to be glad about...?
Some photos-I thought this one was cute, even if a week late. Sienna has her usual "I guess I'll put up with people if I have to" expression and James is in his favorite hat.
The creepy "25" cake.
James is not deterred by the creepy candles and blows them out in one breath!
James' culinary masterpiece: BBQ shrimp with a yummy reduction/sauce over black rice and delectable summer salad on the side!
This week I started my vocation. However, I did not start my "vocation" according to one of my chief residents...she is a very sweet gal from Russia who ironically ALWAYS spells vacation as vocation. For some reason it has a less appealing ring to it when spelled like this. She also spells holiday "holyday," which I kind of like. Anyway, just a random tidbit from the many emails exchanged this week as I started my residency orientation. Luckily orientation has been pretty chill-mostly just learning about how to use the computer system, how to fill out an I9 (or get a social security to start - lots of foreign med school grads in the program for the 3 year residency. All of the 1-yr program residents like me are US med school grads. But, I like the diversity and the foreign folks are all quite bright and have interesting stories), getting measured for white coats (which we don't get til Sept so I probably have to buy one...ugh. I am not sure why it takes 3 months for a coat to get a name imprinted. Our house will be built in that amount of time).
Anyway, orientation: not too bad. Co-interns seem pretty nice. Today we had a welcome picnic at my program director's house after church, which is really nice. We had yummy food up in the rolling hills north of Baltimore, a hike, some tennis (or for me, watching tennis), foosball, ping pong, and pool, and just plain old chatter. James and all other family members of the residents were invited and he loved speaking Russian with my co-residents. Not sure why, but this residency has many russian speakers. Of the 24 interns, I think 7 or 8 speak Russian (some are from Ukraine, Armenia, other Slavic countries though but also speak Russian). Nice day.
I have one more week of orientation and then...JULY 1. I start off on the most intense internal medicine floor as it has the sickest patients plus the cardiac rule-outs (ie people who come in with chest pain and are observed for 24-48 hours to see if they're having a heart attack/need a stress test/need a cardiac catherization). This makes it especially busy because there are lots of patients coming in and off the floor (read: lots of admission and discharge paperwork), transfer summaries (if they have to go to a different hospital because they are having a heart attack...or if they need to go to the ICU), etc., compared to other floors which are more calm, have more stable cases, and less turnover. You could say that I'll hit the ground running and learn a lot! Luckily I have a good senior resident and co-intern on my team, and luckily the summer months are a little calmer because there is less flu (which causes more hospitalizations for people with COPD or heart failure). Nevertheless, I will be very busy! Most days start at 6ish, end at 5pm. Occasionally I will have 16 hour night shifts (example: July 7 is 7pm-11am on July 8), which is the max number of consecutive hours first-year residents are allowed to work. Luckily I do have the 4th of July itself off (half of interns do) and then I get one "golden weekend" also in July (meaning I get all of Saturday and Sunday off, which usually happens only once per month). Only some of the interns get a golden weekend during any given internal medicine block.
After this first 4 weeks, I managed to sign up for the best rotation at harbor: GI (gastroenterology). Here, this luckily means I am in clinic from 1-5pm just on Tues-Thurs. Super relaxed. As a result, I will probably use my extra time to study for an take my final licensing boards, a two-day exam called Step 3. James and I will also take a few days for vacation and head up to Maine (Acadia National Park, and also probably Camden, Maine, and Freeport) and then to Boston for 1-2 days in mid-August. I am only allowed to take "vocation" during my ambulatory block (which is late Sept-mid Oct for me) and my 3 elective blocks (first is end of July-mid August; the other two are back-to-back starting in late Jan-mid March). Unfortunately only 1 week of all of this time corresponds with James' vacation (in January) but he can work some Saturdays this summer so we can do our Maine trip. I also found out this week that half the interns get 6 days off around Christmas; the other half gets 6 days off for New Years. We'll get to haggle it out, email style, sometime in the fall. Ugh, I miss the simple student life already. One big positive: my first pay day is coming up! Now that is something I'm not used to!
James also had an exciting first week at his job. He'll be working with two biostatisticians at Hopkins and will be looking at physicians' reads of different types of imaging and how accurately they diagnose tumors on those different imaging modalities. Both mentors seem really nice so far and as James says, "he's got his work cut out for him" in making a model that can be used for this analysis. He'll learn a lot, though, and he's really excited. It's nice that he has flexible hours, though, so he can make phone calls if needed, start early some days and end late some days if needed as well.
It was also nice this week to have our evenings together. I'm still working on some research and we have lots of things post-wedding to tie up, but I love not having assignments due for either of us. We cooked some fun food this week - we made our yummy meatball dish again on Friday and then went to a free ballroom dancing night at the undergrad ROTC. On Saturday, we met up for some shopping with my cousin, Nichole (so fun having family close by!) and caught some killer deals. We went home for our first run in a couple weeks (my fault) and cooled off in our pool before making James' special meal he's been craving for weeks - a New Orleans bbq shrimp recipe. I have to say, he's a pretty good cook! Nom nom!
A sad update: my car is in the shop for brake repairs. Waaahh. I suppose it earned repairs after I've put on 20k in miles since getting it 18mo ago. It won't be ready til after work tomorrow so James gets to drive me to work (learning to drive a stick through downtown Baltimore is beyond me at this stage in life). James' check engine light, on the other hand, just went away so maybe that's something to be glad about...?
Some photos-I thought this one was cute, even if a week late. Sienna has her usual "I guess I'll put up with people if I have to" expression and James is in his favorite hat.
The creepy "25" cake.
James' culinary masterpiece: BBQ shrimp with a yummy reduction/sauce over black rice and delectable summer salad on the side!
2 comments:
Thanks for the update. As usual, you both sound very busy. Do you like your new Ward?? I know you think you will be there just a short time but new houses have a habit of being finished later than planned. Have a good summer! Love from Grandma Hanni
That cake is surprisingly creepy haha. I thought you were the artistic one! It sounds like you have a kind of crazy schedule, so it is nice that James can plan his to match yours so you can still have some time together. It sounds like the craziness will not prevent you from having some fun though! Hope all goes well as you start doing medicine instead of just paperwork!
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