On to Rotations!

It’s official. I’m done with the didactic phase of school = no more classwork! Well, we will still have lots of testing and class occasionally, but we won’t be there 8-5 Monday thru Friday. I’m excited for the change of pace, for hands-on learning, for feeling like all of that sitting and studying actually helped me.

This past week off has been absolutely divine—I could get used to this! Too bad my next break isn’t until Christmas…. Jeff and I were able to visit Jason (Jeff’s brother) and Staci over the weekend and we got to spend time with their sons, Axel and Jackson. We went bowling for the first time in probably a couple of years and Jeff actually beat Staci (which never happens: Staci is a pro!)
I finally caught up on recycling, did some deep cleaning (like take apart the fridge, curtains, and move all of the furniture-type of cleaning), did some sewing, made freezer jam, got contacts (special thanks to Kristie for helping me figure out when they are in backwards), and did some shopping (I think I’m on a spending suspension until further notice…). Then we had a girls’ night after the church broadcast at the Cheesecake Factory. The entire week was wonderful.
[I apologize for the lack of pictures: I did bring my camera everywhere this week, but never pulled it out.]


I start rotations tomorrow and I’m a little nervous (that’s a lie: a lot nervous). Excited, but nervous. Surgery is my first rotation. Surgery is well known for its long hours, not-so-nice surgeons, and eating protein bars in the bathroom because that’s the only break you get. Of my many fears, I don’t want pass out in the operating room [Not because the sight of blood makes me dizzy: really it is so plentiful that it seems like red water…. But rumor has it you don’t get meals, so the combination of not eating + standing for long hours under hot lights seems to spell disaster.]


I’ll explain how our rotations work:

-Each rotation is one month, with the exception of rural family medicine which is three consecutive months. We will have a total of 15 months of rotations before graduation. I have 7 months of rotations in the Omaha area and 8 months in other locations. [Others in my class have international rotations as well as rotations all over the nation, including Hawaii and Alaska. But you have to pay for travel expenses and I wouldn’t want to live away from Jeff if I don’t have to!]
-We work with people we call preceptors, who are typically an MD, DO, PA, or NP (Nurse Practitioner). They agree to help train/teach you during your rotation, but they are not paid or reimbursed for their services (so I don’t know where that expensive tuition goes…) All of my preceptors are MDs except one rotation.
-Preceptors do something we call “pimping” in the medical world. They ask you questions. Some of them might be easy, but most of them are either (1) to teach you or (2) to make you feel like an idiot (it all depends on how nice of a preceptor you have). When I expressed my fears of looking dumb to my mom, her response was ‘Just imagine them naked. They’re not any better than you.’ Thanks mom, now I feel a whole lot better. :)
-We are required to work a minimum of 40 hours a week. If your preceptor is working, you are required to be there when he/she is there. You are essentially a slave of the preceptor/clinic: my buddy was putting in 72 hour weeks at the Creighton ER this summer! This also includes weekends and any non-observed holidays (i.e. the day after Thanksgiving). If our preceptor isn’t working, we are still expected to be in the office. If we have events such as weddings that require us to miss a day, we must make up the lost clinic time by working weekends and/or holidays.
-Every two months, we will come back to campus for End Of Clinical (EOC) exams, workshops, and class. We are expected to study and prepare for these exams diligently during our rotations. [The med school equivalent is called Shelf exams. The biggest difference is that their tests are a national standardized test while ours are composed by the University.]
-We are required to record all of our patients from the Pediatric, Geriatric, and Family Medicine rotations on a system called Typhon. We must document all of the patients we see, procedures/surgeries we see, and our role in the patient’s care (shadow vs. doing it all by ourselves without our preceptor’s help). Then when we graduate, we have a mini-resume of our clinical experience.
-We are NOT residents. Residents are med school graduates and are actually getting paid (albeit worse than minimum wage, an income is better than none!). As students we do not have the power to write prescriptions and are far less independent than residents, who essentially function as experienced physicians. PAs can complete a year long residency after graduation, but most do not because it is not required and doing a residency doesn't result in higher pay.

Let me know if you have any questions about rotations: I tried to remember the ones people have asked me about up to this point. I'll write about the OR (Operating Room) soon!