1 rotation down...

Ryan took his internal medicine shelf examination last Friday which marked the ending of his first rotation. Ryan is thrilled!! At first, Ryan really enjoyed internal medicine, but as he got closer to the end, he became more and more anxious to have it over with. Unfortunately, Ryan was not impressed with the teaching capacity of many of the residents and doctors he was working with. He felt like he wasn't learning as much as he should have been while at the hospital, so he was forced to make up for that by hitting the books harder at home. Mid-rotation, Ryan switched from the VA hospital to Creighton. Most of the residents and doctors he worked with there weren't much better, plus Ryan was disappointed to learn that Creighton's organization and facilities are not nearly as nice as they are at the VA. Longer hours also accompanied the switch to Creighton which was a huge bummer. I don't mean to make it sound all bad though. Ryan did enjoy himself some and he learned a lot in the end. He loved interacting with patients. It was fun to get his daily text messages, telling me what exciting thing he got to see that day. Ryan's most exciting experience was when he got to help on a code - he did compressions. Go, babe!

Now that internal medicine is done, Ryan has moved on to his surgery rotation. Monday he learned how to do 4 different kinds of sutures (and got to practice on pigs feet) and Tuesday he got to remove staples from someone's back. Pretty cool! I think that Ryan will find that surgery is a little more up his alley. Now if he can only get over the excruciatingly early mornings and long hours... We'll see!