Monday, January 31, 2011

from the vault

So I was digging around in my archives looking for old pictures (about which more later) when I found this mini-comic from the archives--October 2004, to be precise. I was on a PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) rotation at the time and I had a Sub-I (basically, a fourth year medical student doing an elective rotation) on the unit with me who was very, very annoying. Also he thought he knew more than me and was constantly and subversively trying to one-up me, which is a sure way for a medical student ingratiate himself to his supervising resident, a person who happens to be GRADING HIS PERFORMANCE. (Med students, take note!) Click the image to see bigger.




And also, this crude schematic of the sleeping situation in the resident call room, elucidating why you should always, always try to get the bottom bunk.




Thanks, way back machine! You have both amused and depressed me!

Speaking of pictures from the vault, I am starting to pull up old pictures for my book website to sort of flesh out and give a little extra color to some of the stories I tell in the book. This is a big project, as I have more than ten years of archives, but at least I got something started. Check back again soon, though, because this is a larger undertaking than I had originally alloted time for (see: the length of Mack's nap, plus or minus one episode of "Dino Dan"), and I'm just going to have to chip away at for a while.

12 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:02 PM

    We had the most ridiculous call room for the NICU. It was literally the size of a broom closet with 2 single mattresses and a telephone on the ground. You had to steal linens from the floor and make your own bed. Housekeeping would sometimes forget that the room existed and dirty linens would pile up in the corner. Imagine the smell...

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  2. Anonymous4:17 PM

    My favorite call room was one that stored hospital beds with labels like "spiders".

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  3. Anonymous5:27 PM

    When I was an intern, one of the other interns found a homeless guy squatting in a rarely-used call room. Gross.

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  4. Libby5:55 PM

    So - I have too much time on my hands - (unemployed is a bitch) - and I like looking through your archives from time to time - what are you looking for - I can help.

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  5. Oh, thanks for the offer! I think it has to be on me, though--I'm just pulling pictures from the blog that relate to things that I wrote about in the book. I think I'm doing OK, I got as far as Cal being born before I got demoralized and put off the rest for another day.

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  6. That B-cell development diagram gave me palpitations. And I'm a hem/onc fellow!

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  7. I know, I just looked through it in detail myself and it's horrifying.

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  8. Love, love, LOVE the new cover!

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  9. Anonymous2:46 AM

    hilarious! we have also recently had a med student hanging around in a weird annoying fashion. i mean we used to be one, so why is it that some of them can be so annoying!?

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  10. I had a student like that. Male and older also. Didn't correct the patients when they assumed he was the doctor, not me. Sigh.

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  11. Anonymous12:19 PM

    i had a call room which actually had bed-bugs. instead of getting phantom pager sensations it was bites. doh.

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  12. I have a confession, I use your site as a pick me up whenever the medschool burnout hits me. Its always nice to see that there is something to look forward to after this mess is over (a life, kids, the whole shabang). I especially liked the old pictures link you had above, made me smile and really hopeful at the same time. Now its time to return to ye olde pathology book...

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