Internal Medicine Recap

Here I am in Roanoke again, starting my Pediatrics rotation.  Which means, as Cameron so kindly pointed out to me tonight, it's time for me to recap my Internal Medicine experience.

Pros:
- I really enjoyed Ambulatory Internal Medicine.  I liked working regular clinic hours, I liked seeing a wide variety of patients each day, and I liked the continuity of care you get as a primary care provider.
- Internal Medicine doctors are so smart!  I guess it is the "bread and butter" of the medical profession, after all.  Or maybe I just lucked out and got the coolest AIM preceptors and inpatient attendings.
- You can basically do anything with a training in Internal Medicine (minus surgery, of course).  I could be like Dr. Powers, who is a GenMed doctor, an Emergency doctor, and a Palliative Care doctor.  So many hats!  Gotta catch 'em all!!

Cons:
- I really hated Inpatient Internal Medicine.  I hated talking about my patients from 8am till noon, I hated putting in orders for them all afternoon, and I hated the fact that we just sat around and pondered their illnesses all day.
- The GenMed service gets dumped on all the time.  We would constantly get bogus transfers from other services [cough ORTHO cough].  It seems like Internal Medicine is just the catch-all at the bottom of the totem pole that gets all of the patients that nobody else wants to take care of.
- Even if I were to become an outpatient clinician, I'd still have to go through the same inpatient residency training.  And did I mention how much I hated rounds??

So yeah, the last two months have been dichotomous, to say the very least.  We'll see what this upcoming month of Inpatient Pediatrics has to offer me.  At least I get to start tomorrow by playing with babies in the Newborn Nursery.  I can't wait to pinch their chubby little cheeks!!