Update on FP... I mean FM

So thus far, I've had three days of family medicine, and I must say it's been a most unusual FM experience. I've witnessed an adult circumcision and a vasectomy, I've injected steroids into a knee and a foot, I've done my first two Pap smears and pelvic exams, I found a breast lump, and I almost saw a third nipple removal. Sadly, the girl was resistant to lidocaine, and never achieved analgesia, so we had to refer her to general surgery for general anesthesia. All for a tiny third nipple, about an inch across. It even expressed a tiny bit of milk (she showed me). Woo!

I have seen my share of diabetes, hypertension, upper respiratory infection, and even MRSA skin infection this week, in addition to interesting procedures.

Most of my friends are working 8-5 or 8-6 with tiny short lunch breaks, seeing the same three problems every day: DM, HTN, URI. in other words, they're doing more traditional FM. At my clinic, I arrive around 8:30, see patients until 11:30, take a 2-hour lunch break with the rest of the clinic staff, work 1:30 until around 4, sometimes 5, then head home. In other words, it's pretty cush. AND, cool procedures! PROCEDURES! One of the FM docs at my clinic was a surgeon in his home country, so even though he practices FM here, he does a ton of outpatient procedures. To most of the other docs in my clinic, "procedures" means "pap smear" and, rarely, "IUD placement".

In other words, I could give a crap about FM, I just like the procedures. Somebody hand me a scalpel, I'm gonna be a surgeon!