Intern regrets

I am at the University of Kentucky and on ortho first month (smack in the middle of trauma season.) NO REGRETS!!!! I LOVE THIS PLACE. The only thing that really sucks is the volume of crazy-ass rednecks taking semi trucks head on while riding ATVs, but with the ups come the downs I suppose.
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As another newly minted intern also on orthopedics during trauma heavy times I can whole heartedly agree with Wildcat that I love this. Sure, there are times when that pager goes off in the middle of the night and you think you'd be better served tending bar in the Bahamas, but overall it's great. Even the 4am page about the drunk idiot who tried to beat up a brick wall isn't too bad. Of course one of the other interns in my class is on Vascular, he may have a different take on this...

Another intern here starting out on ortho. I'm often exhausted but I have to agree with Acetabulum that in a twisted sort of way I'm loving it. Last night I reduced my first Colles fracture and postreduction films looked great. I felt like a million bucks. And a few nights ago I reduced a dislocated shoulder with help of a senior resident but I did most of the pulling and tugging and man when I heard that click I felt like a stud. I'm learning so much right now my learning curve is through the roof. You learn pretty fast when you're the first one on your team called to a trauma and have to find your way through a maze of general surg residents and nurses to do an ortho exam in the trauma bay. I love being the consultant and not having to worry about a patient's hemodynamic status. I see gen surg interns and residents putting in lines and a-lines in the SICU...sweating like pigs and I walk in, set up traction, throw a splint on and walk away like the stud that I am. And then there's the 10 second exam during morning rounds. I see medicine interns writing letters on every patient and have horrifying flashbacks of my medicine rotation and Sub-I in med school. I love this stuff. OR time is limited for an intern but I don't mind cause I have to learn floor work and have to pay my dues before getting the previlege of cutting in the OR.

It 's tough many times not knowing what to do...the little time I have to read I'm usually tired and fall asleep. Whenever I get depressed I look at my chiefs...they have so much confidence and a great life outside the hospital...that's what keeps me going. In 4 years that's me.

Let's turn this into an intern b**ching thread.

Mickey said every thing that I'm thinking. I too am starting off on Ortho (was on call AND covering hand on the 4th). I'm Q4 and I don't sleep on call nights. But, those three days in between are lovely. I'm on the sports service and our census is 5 or 6 every day. I'm done every day before 6, and I'm getting to scrub on OR days. And when you feel the crunching of bone beneath your palm when you reduce that first both bone forearm fracture, you realize that it's all worth it. Wouldn't change a thing. And knowing that I'm gonna be taking call from home as a 3rd year. . . . . .that's the light at the end of the tunnel that gets me through my long call nights
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Freakin' Ortho rocks.

Oh yeah, and I had my first drug rep dinner at one of Cleveland's finest steak houses. Life is nice. . . .very niiiiiiiiice.

Bone_Jock, mind if I ask where in the dickens you are serving your ortho assignment? Also wanting to know if anybody else has heard that the drug companies have agreed as a whole to stop giving physicians anything of value such as fancy diners, trips, golf clubs. Pens and post-it notepads will still be fair game. Heard it from a reputable transitional year going into anesthia and I can still hear him cussing up a storm. Thanks for the war stories from you interns. Gives us motivation and enthusiasm to keep up the hard work even if it is psych or ob-gyn. :sick:

I have a friend that is a drug rep. Recently, they did decide as a whole to quit providing non-educational perks other than pens, pads, clocks, and other do-dads that can serve as direct to consumer advertising (they know the patients see the pens, etc...and may ask about the drug. They can still do dinners, but there has to be education during the dinner. There isn't a requirement as to what type of education...it could be handing out a package insert. He did say rounds of golf and vacations, are out, unless the vacation is to a education conference sponsored by the company. They haven't set up anything for regulating this yet, but that is the standards they set.

I'm at CWRU/University hospitals program.

As for the drug rep dinners. We did have a guest speaker from IU give a slide presentation during the dinner. And the drug rep specifically asked us to keep it on the hush, hush because his company "wasn't supposed to be sponsoring dinners and such." That's why I haven't mentioned which drug company it was.

No regrets here in DC.
The hospital has it's quirks but overall the interns, residents and attendings are great, which are the key components to my happiness.
In my opinion, the key to not being MISERABLE as a surgical intern is to KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING YOURSELF INTO. Don't float through medschool reading day and night WITHOUT doing intense surgical rotations (home and/or away) so you know what life as a surgical resident entails. Residency programs don't care what your scores are when it comes to getting work done...AOA, No. 1 or #2 in the class won't mean you'll do less work...You'll be right there with the other interns in other fields...overworked and underpaid.
So, if you're tops in the class, don't like long hours, don't like hard work (not to say we like them...we just tolerate them), consider something more appropriate ie Derm, Rad Onc, etc. as these will all allow people to know that you were smart enough to get into a competitive field without the need for pain & suffering beyond the transitional year. :roll smile: