Orthopedics in Nanaimo

• Well, as it turns out, my little Nanaimo rotation in Orthopedics went very well. I had a good chance to practice lots of knee & shoulder exams in particular and made a couple of new friends in the med school roommates I lived with in the trailer that we stayed in on the hospital grounds. Plus, the air conditioning that we discovered during my second week as temperatures climbed to 35 degrees in the evening made for a welcome respite!
• I worked with several doctors in Nanaimo and one really helped me to learn some important things during this rotation. He insisted that I explain x-rays to him, take histories & perform physicals on patients, do emergency consults, put on casts and do joint injections. Much of this happened in a crazy busy day in the cast clinic where patients were scheduled every 5 minutes (!). We were so busy that at one point we were 2 1/2 hours behind schedule. Neither of us had a chance to pee for 9 hours. (The upside is that you usually don't have to go very badly when you don't even drink a glass of water during that time). Anyway, it was a very good week though it was long hours! And here I thought the crazy busy rotations were over. Oh well, only one left for this year - anesthesia.
• The unexpected bonus of Nanaimo was meeting my roommates Chanelle & Ronish and making fast friends with them. By the second night we were already chummy and by the 4th night we all went out for dinner and ice cream to celebrate Ronish's last night and proceeded to laugh our heads off for a couple of hours. Good times! Ronish goes to Queen's med school (thinks he wants to do either general pediatrics or maybe peds intensive care) and Chanelle is in Vancouver at UBC and wants to do either palliative, geriatrics or radiology. I'm hoping she does one of the first two since it would be a shame for her not to have much patient interaction since she's got such a lovely personality. On Friday night, Chanelle and I decided to stay in Nanaimo for our last night, grab some margaritas & tasty fish tacos at a funky little Mexican restaurant on the wharf and go to a movie. It was a great way to bring my 2 weeks in Nanaimo to a close.
• Next up, is my last rotation of third year - anesthesia. I'm not really looking forward to it for a few reasons. The emphasis will be on pharmacology and physiology (neither are my forte) and procedures like intubating people pre-surgery and putting in epidurals. yuk.

• But who knows, I didn't really think I'd like emerg either and that was great, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Right now I'm thinking that it's nice that my rotation will be 2 days shorter than ortho since it's a long weekend this weekend so we start on Tuesday and then our exams for both are next Friday. Then VACATION (for 2 weeks which should be long enough to read some books and catch my breath, I hope). Not long now!