Residency & sick kids

• Well, it’s been a while and though I don’t feel particularly inspired, I thought I should jot down a few thoughts.

• This weekend I’ve been immersed in residency applications. The whole residency application process requires a lot of documentation including a resume filled in their official online application website (which is very intimidating), letters of reference from several physicians, transcripts and of course, the ever popular “personal statement”. I guess they need to choose us somehow but it’s difficult to differentiate yourself in this process. I remember when a friend of a friend was staying with me in Vancouver and as a resident, he was involved in the selection process of new residents to his program. He was skipping through all parts of their application except the “interests” section because he was looking for someone to mountain bike with. Scary to think that sometimes the "official" selection process can be as random as that. Anyway, these applications are going to consume a fair bit of time for me over the next few weeks, I suspect. And so far, I think I’m going to apply to family medicine at UBC (multiple sites), U of Calgary, U of Manitoba, and Dalhousie (for the Halifax & PEI programs).

• I’ve been spending the last week doing community child and adolescent psychiatry. Not only is the lifestyle d-i-v-i-n-e but the subject is pretty interesting too – much of it involves family dynamics/situations. And sometimes it’s quite depressing – like the 16 year old girl who’s working as a prostitute, is addicted to drugs and becoming psychotic from it and although she’s surrounded by some good people that want to help her (foster family, biological grandmother, street youth workers and psychiatrists) no one can help her until she decides to help herself. If she broke the law however, she could be forced into detox but since she hasn't, she has to choose to do that voluntarily. That’s a pretty hard decision to commit to (and stay committed to) when you’re addicted AND you’re a rebellious teenager to boot. The sad part is that everyone in that room was seriously concerned that she might turn up dead from an overdose or worse within the next several days following the team meeting we had last week. Very sad how powerless you can be to affect change in someone else’s life when they’re compelled to keep making the wrong choices. However, I guess I’d better get used to it, no doubt I’ll be faced with that on an hourly basis in private practice just slightly less extreme situations.

• Kids that are sick are just at the beginning of their mental illness and the quicker you can get it under control, the better the prognosis in many cases. (actually, that goes for adults too) Anyway, I’ve been enjoying it, the pace, the non-grilling/stressful nature of it, and my preceptor who is cool and talented. I’ll be kinda sad to see it end at the end of this week, but it will be a good beginning to my upcoming 2 weeks in pediatrics in Nelson, BC.