Med School Fun!

All in all, I am loving rotations! It's great being back with patients, in the clinics, hospitals, jails, detention centers, group homes, etc...
My 1st two months of rotations were spent in Family Medicine clinics. The first month was at an urgent care/family medicine clinic in Mesa. A good portion of the patients were uninsured and used the clinic as a means to obtain their prescriptions for chronic medical conditions (diabetes, hypertension, back pain), while others were long time patients of the doctors and followed them from different clinics over the years. The doctors I worked with had both been in practice for >30years.
The other clinic I rotated through was at a Family Medicine residency clinic in Phoenix. I really liked this rotation, the residents were fun to work with and it was an acedemic environment with daily teaching meetings and weekly workshops. I got to see and do a lot of things, even got to do prenatal anatomy ultrasounds (where they check the heart/lungs/spine/brain) myself. I got to tell 4 parents that they were having 3 girls and 1 boy! The residency clinic has a high percentage of Spanish speaking patients so that was a whole new learning experience for me, I can understand most of the conversations, but still speak very little...seems that highschool Latin isn't helping me out as much as Spanish would have:) Since the focus was on learning and teaching, the residents were extremely willing to show and let me do as much as I wanted, some of which was "interesting" and not really blog material:) Feel free to ask, I would be happy to share some stories!
I am currently on week 2/4 of my Psychiatry rotation in Apache Junction. Let's just say I am NOT a budding psychiatrist:) I am more than happy that I have 3 education days and a national holiday during this rotation! There are a lot of interesting patients and disorders in a number of different locations. The doctor I am working with treats patients at the inpatient clinic, outpatient clinic, urgent care downtown, adult jail, juvenile jail, a boys reform school, and does telemed with a number of small town clinics southeast of Phoenix. I haven't gone to the adult jail yet, but from what I heard I should have a very "unique" experience there. I have been to the juvenile jail and reform school and seen/heard some pretty crazy stories from some messed up kids, pretty sad. I'm feeling pretty "normal" after all of the pathology I have seen in people the last few weeks:)
The change from classroom/bookwork has been really fun for me. I love being back with patients, even if some of them drive me crazy. I can't believe how quickly the last 2.5 months have gone, I'm sure the next few months/years will fly by just as quickly.