Rotations

So I began rotations September 4, 2007. They didn’t start well. My family practice rotation was with a doctor who liked to make his employees and students feel like crap. I wasn’t a fan of the rotation. One of the last days of the rotation the schedule was changed but the PA Melissa didn’t tell me. So I show up at the office at the time I usually did and the secretary informs me that I should’ve been as the office hours earlier and that the office is now closed. I informed her that I wasn’t told of any such changes. Luckily enough I lived only five minutes from the office, but still…I was pissed. I was even more pissed to find out that the PA complained to the doctor that I didn’t show up even though she suspected I wasn’t aware of the change in the schedule. This incident was brought up during my evaluation at the end of the rotation by the doctor. It kind of pissed me off and wasn’t the best way to end the rotation. He gave me a really good grade, but still…it wasn’t a positive experience.

My second rotation was actually worse. I had pediatrics at Winthrop, which ended up being a complete waste of time. The residents and doctors didn’t even know that PA students were coming and didn’t assign us any work to do. We were expected to pull 5 12-our shifts, just like the medical students, but did absolutely nothing with us. I found out from a classmate that she went down to the peds ER and worked with some Pas down there. The Pas were nice enough, but I was basically politely ignored. After all, they didn’t sign up to be my preceptor…I wasn’t allowed to write in charts or see patients on my own. It was just a general waste of time and I ended up working maybe 2 8-hour shifts a week.

The third rotation in long term care was slightly better, but not by much. The doctor I was with was nicer than the first doctor I worked with, only this doctor was much much weirder. He practiced psychiatry more than internal medicine. When I mentioned to him that my blood pressure always jumps up a little bit before going into seeing a patient (as it should, as a newly minted student on rotations), he told me I should consider anti-depressants. That, and the other offices I was sent to during the rotation were a complete waste of my time. I didn’t show up to them after awhile because I was so sick of rotations that were completely worthless.

Finally, my fourth rotation was a rotation I actually enjoyed going to…It was my ER rotation, and one of the ones I was most afraid of. The doctors I worked with were for the most part really nice and I learned a lot in terms of procedures. I was with two classmates and a Hofstra student, which made the rotation a lot of fun. I found out that NUMC also takes students from my school for surgery rotations. Since I was really dreading going back to Winthrop for surgery, I made plans with the head PA to let me come to NUMC for surgery. One of the students at my school was doing her surgery rotation at NUMC while I was in ER, and she made the rotation sound great. Since I was having a pretty good time in the ER I figured surgery would be much of the same.

After leaving surgery I did my OB/GYN rotation with one of the students I was in in my ER rotation. This rotation was a lot less fun. I didn’t see any deliveries, some of the residents were downright rude, most of the patients didn’t speak English, and one of the doctors kept spouting out comments like “You can’t live on LI and raise a family for less than 150k.” Well, that’s a real fucking problem for me, since Pas generally don’t make 150k…There was another resident who worked in pediatrics there who also made stupid fucking comments. She married a hedge funds manager, and felt compelled to constantly talk about how much money they had. It was pretty stressful to listen to her. I mean, I’m praying Mike can find a job that pays him 60k and she’s busy talking about her husband who “only makes in the low millions.” In terms of hours, the rotation couldn’t be beat, which is probably why I didn’t hate it as much as I could have.

Then I went into surgery..