dear imaginary reader, how patient you have been with me in my protracted absence. but here it is, nudging on towards the end of january and it's 4:39 in the morning and i'm awake. and i'm supposed to be. so what should i do with my late night time but re-dedicate myself to this blog. after all, there are no babies waiting to be popped out, no patients screaming for attention from the beleagured medical student and just a few hours left until the end of my second night shift. i'm on my penultimate week of my ob/gyn rotation and thus far, i can honestly say that i've loved it.

i think hooha is cool.

the cases are interesting, the vast majority of the patients are healthy, the residents aren't nearly as bad as lore would have it and i get to do a whole lot that closely resembles actual medicine. what's not to love?

part of the ob/gyn experience is doing a week of night float; five consecutive 14-15 hour shifts. and one of those shifts is followed by four and a half hours of lecture. but never fear, they let you come in two hours late the following evening because heaven forbid we would be here too much.

oh jeepers, that paragraph made it sound like i'm complaining and honestly, even though we are in the absolute wee hours of the morning, i'm not at all complaining about being here. so far this evening, i've seen four deliveries, five babies draw their first breaths and so many opportunities to be a part of one of the most sacred episodes in people's lives. and they are complete strangers! and they trust me to be in the room! and maybe even guide their baby's head out into the world for the first time! how is it that human beings can be so trustful sometimes?

but here's what's really on my mind...can a medical student ever get something just right? like right enough not to be constantly corrected for any action they make, whether involuntary or not. grip the needle like this, hold the needle-driver like that, don't touch the patient there, why are you not touching the patient there, why would you make your stitch that way, why wouldn't you make your stitch that way, ask questions, don't ask me that...it's all too much to process sometimes. and every attending and senior resident is entirely convinced that whatever they were doing is the best and only way of doing something so coming around to their opinion is not a matter of preference but rather just a matter of time.

but what it all comes down to is that everyone has their own personal preferences and what medical school and residency are all about is learning those personal quirks from scores of different mentors and somehow finding a way to mash all of those opinions into a somewhat coherent and individual style. so that one day, when i'm mentoring some tiny little med student, i can order them to do exactly as i say. because i'll be right.

anyway, i'm back into blogging so look out world! i've got to find something else to do with these long hours that stretch out before me during the night. lord knows i've already spent enough time doing other things and i've been completely inspired to return to my blog by someone i've never met, whose blog i read with voyeuristic pleasure. her blog can be found at theunderweardrawer.blogspot.com. it's amazing and i feel like maybe if i did know her, we would be friends. we're alike in many ways, both chinese but thoroughly american, both involved with whitey men, both in medicine; to add to it all, she's moving to atlanta and i spent so much of my childhood there. god bless the internets and all its glory, it makes imaginary friendships so much easier to cultivate...