Oddities

It's 10:32 pm, do you know where your children are?

• Somehow, my blog got set to post in Pacific Standard Time. I fixed it, but I don't know why Blogger ever decided I was in California (or was it Oregon?).


• Why does this Office Depot "We Can Lend You a Hand" commercial creep me out so much?? It's like they took the Staples "Easy Button" commercial, added Cousin It and a bad song, and voila!


• On this "Take on Orbitz" commercial, the announcer says "It's that easy" at the end, and I keep thinking he's going to add "It's that cheesy." It would certainly be appropriate.


• This Mythbusters Pirate Special is cracking me up. They're currently showing a fake infomercial for the cannon they built. Just remember, when you call the Piratical Institute to purchase your air cannon, that they advertise "Balls not included", "Slaves not included", and "Don't aim at face." Arr!


• I made pot roast yesterday, so when I came home from a rather crappy afternoon, the whole apartment smelled like pot roast. I used this recipe from Recipezaar, but I added a good splash of Worcestershire sauce and a lot of garlic. I love garlic. I also just stuck the whole thing in my handy Crockpot before I left for work, so the only real work I did was to chop the veggies. When I'm post-call Friday, I'll be making chili.


• I'm on call tomorrow, so I'm post-call Friday, and I'm taking the whole weekend off since I haven't had a day off since Sunday the 7th. It's a truly Golden Weekend! It's also my fourth Neuro call, out of four, so I'm done with call on Friday!
  


• One of the MS-4's on our team is matching tomorrow in Ophtho. This means two things: a) we're all bringing food-type items tomorrow to celebrate, and take the edge off his nerves until he receives his page and b) his medical school experience is essentially over tomorrow. Lucky bastard.


• I think one reason this rotation is so hard for me (other than that I hate neuro) is that I knew going into this rotation that I wasn't going to do neurology. I figured out quickly that I didn't want to do peds, but I didn't enter the rotation making that assumption. It actually surprised me greatly. I haven't entirely given up on internal medicine, so I didn't feel like taking a rotation in IM was a waste of my time (the time-wasting came from attendings and residents). This rotation, however...


• I just bit the bullet and emailed the urology residency coordinator about meeting to discuss research and/or residency. I'd put it off till today, because I kept trying to convince myself that I was more interested in ENT. Perhaps it's just easier to tell people you see ears all day instead of perineums? Here are some of the final numbers: residency in urology, 5-6 years; residency in OB/Gyn, 4 years; fellowship in uro/gyn surgery, 3 years; residency in ENT, 5 years (2nd most competitive match). For a surgical specialty, the hours in urology are not too bad (and almost certainly better than OB, especially after residency). I'm prepared for residency to suck, especially intern year; I just want a little more control of my life after those 5+ years.


• Why is it that I'm now less frightened by 5-6 years of residency? I used to think 3-4 was my max. I guess the difference came when I started considering specializing.
  


• Advantages to urology: I doubt it will be a common occurrence to answer "curbside" consults during cocktail parties. "Oh, I have this troublesome incontinence issue, what do you think?" For some reason, dermatologists seem to have a problem with this. After a pathology lecture in derm, our poor lecturer was mobbed by students asking "What is this mole? Is this cancer? See my rash? It's gross huh?"

And that is all for Wednesday, January 17, 2007. Good night.