End of Outpatient Medicine

We had another P/CP today on gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). It's a lot easier participating in these talks as part of the audience instead of one of the speakers, but it's a lot less fun. Basically, this was another surgical treatment versus medical treatment case. After the debate, we had a seminar on dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) and hematemesis (throwing up blood). It's not the most appetizing discussion to have right before lunch, but it was a pretty good seminar. In the afternoon, we had an FCM session on empathy. We were asked to read a couple of articles about doctors who had become patients and found themselves treated without much empathy. We also had to write a brief essay about an example we saw from our rotations where a doctor did not treat the patient with empathy. I wrote about the GI doctor I worked with last week who wouldn't stop to answer any of the patient's husband's questions.

I'm done now with outpatient medicine. Cards was a lot better than GI, but I still am glad that this rotation is over and ready to start something new. Monday I start surgery. I will have a week of outpatient clinics, then four weeks of inpatient surgery on the colorectal team. This is with the same surgeon who evaluated my P/CP debate last week. The word is that she loves to teach, and the med students get to do a lot on her service. I hope that's true!