the glory and the horror

I have five days of medical school left. I should have scheduled my rotations earlier to get them over with, but oh well. We’ve made an offer on a house, had it accepted, and are working on paperwork and various logistical things to make it happen. We are very excited about this new house, and overwhelmed at the same time by all the things that are still going on right now. There are things that just seem to be urgent, but not all that important. At least that’s what I’m feeling like. For example, why do I need that stupid experience checklist card dealy for neuro? I mean, I spent my time at the VA and a children’s hospital. I’m only going to see so much. Seriously.

Perhaps I just want to be done.

Perhaps I just want the time to sort through all the stuff that we have in our apartment – papers, clothes, wedding presents, books, half of a desk in pieces, the other half still intact as the hutch that it used to be.

I am amazed at how much has changed in the last four years.

According to this BBC article, a highly placed cardinal is flexing on the use of artificial birth control methods to prevent the transmission of HIV between spouses.

This is quite the departure from the party line, and may signal a certain degree of internal discussion of the nature of modern birth control methods and how they play into the the RCC’s theology of marriage, sex, and procreation. It is an admission, at least, that the use of artificial birth control methods may not be entirely evil given some of the things that it can and does protect against, such as incurable STDs.

Today, I was very glad to tell a patient that he had a benign tremor that would hopefully be fixed with a single medication. I was personally relieved when my attending backed me up in deciding it was not concerning for Parkinson’s.

I like the VA neurology clinics, at least when they’re not running HOURS overtime. I know some of my colleagues think it’s a chore even when it’s on time, but really, it’s a great chance to do some good talking and educating (as well as commiserating about the bureaucracy of the system) with my patients. Rarely do I feel like I have the luxury of taking as much time as I want and covering as much as I want with my patients. I know it doesn’t happen in private practice.

If I decide to leave clinical medicine, I think that is what I will miss the most.

If it weren’t for that dreadful first year class, I think I might have thought of neurology in a totally different light. The rotation itself is quite interesting, and there’s a lot of things that sort of converge in neurology – internal medicine, surgery, preventive medicine, patient education, palliative medicine, OT/ST/PT. It seems like a good mix of everything. I guess one major drawback is that it’s still in that stage of development as a medical specialty were there’s less treatment available, and we’re still just working on understanding pathophysiology. That’s difficult, because that often means we can diagnose things, but don’t have many treatment options. Or if we do, as in migraines, we often have to try several different things since one drug isn’t necessarily going to work in even a majority of the patients.

It also makes me think of the movie, Murderball. It’s a fascinating movie. Well worth your time.

I wonder what some of my Christian Hispanic brothers and sisters think about the immigration brouhaha. I wonder what my grandfather thinks.

A pregnant blonde was just days away from giving birth to her fourth child when a friend asked if she knew what her baby would be. “Sure,” she said, “One out of four babies is Chinese.”

In response to Sam’s recent post about race, I will attempt to answer at least 2 of his 3 questions.

1. What is the place of the ethnic church in America today?
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There was a fascinating interview with Rod Dreher on the local Dallas NPR station. Rod is on the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News and wrote a book called Crunchy Cons, which I’m considering picking up. With a subtitle like “How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party),” how could one not?