And then there were six

Days of vacation that is.

Tonight is my last shift on the ambulance before school starts up again and has been full of the typical nonsense, so no great excitement there. The upside to working during the break has been the small influx of cash (good because I'm not convinced I have the appropriate shoes or clothing for the weeks ahead) but more importantly the time to reconnect with people I miss getting to hang out with.  People with personality and a life outside of medicine. Not that medical students aren't fun people, but sometimes the accumulation of Type A personalities in a single building can really suck the fun out of everything.

The arrival of an actual schedule for my first clinical rotation has made the reality of 3rd year hit home and I'm beginning to realize that there will shortly be a physician looking at me and wondering if I know the difference between elbows and rectums.  Fingers crossed that the routine of orientation will settle me down enough so that I can remember the difference when asked.

Vacation

Whew - boards are over (for now!) and summer is rampaging by my windows.  This is the "last" vacation I'm supposed to have as a medical student, 5 weeks between boards and hospital orientation for clinical rotations.  Others in my class are going on fantastic trips, getting married, moving to their clinical sites, or doing any number of fun things.  I am not doing those things.  Someone at K's fire department asked me how my summer was going and I told him vacation was great! He pointed out that I may be the only person he's ever met who classified working 24-36h a week on the ambulance and doing an unpaid research project as "vacation".  I replied that if I didn't have to memorize any information, it counts as vacation. Waiting on board scores, reading for fun, seeing actual patients, doing a little data mining - ahhh, vacation.