Good riddance, January!

This month has not been kind to me. I'm glad it's over in 3 hours.

But, at least I remembered where I put my metaphorical balls.

Bret and Jemaine get how I feel.

They also give good advice.

Louis Vuitton bags, shoes with the fur.

Here are three instances of mind-blowing absurdity that occurred on Monday morning during outpatient pediatrics clinic.

1. A 7 year old female comes in because of an ear infection. I notice that she's carrying a Louis Vuitton Speedy 25 bag. A real one. I compliment the bag, and little girl brags about how mommy bought it for her for Christmas. Mom subsequently refuses a flu shot because they "can't afford it".

2. Teenage parents bring in their 2 year old son because he has Chicken Pox, meaning that he hasn't been vaccinated properly. Dad's excuse is that they never found his records and they just assumed he had everything. He tells me this story while wearing custom Nike sneakers with faux-fur trim and a pair of True Religion jeans. The baby is on Medicaid.

3. Mom brings in her 9 year old son because of a 3 month history of a swollen lymph node. She yells at me because she had to wait 20 minutes in the exam room before she was seen. She yells at the doctor because she feels ignored and misunderstood. Every possible lab study has been done on her son. Because she doesn't believe anything anyone tells her, she's making him go through an uncomfortable surgery to have the benign lymph node removed. It should also be noted that she's never once brought her son in for an annual physical or preventative heath care.

I'm trying to come up with the right way to explain how this makes me feel. How priorities and personal responsibility aren't in style anymore.

This is the best I can do: I don't get it.

Sad Panda

I haven't talked to my best friend in almost two weeks. I've been compiling a list of stories and it just keeps getting longer and I have no idea when I'll be able to tell them.

Sometimes ambition isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

Dr. Sunglasses

I bought some new and admittedly ridiculous sunglasses last week. The lenses are about 2.5" square and the frames are a classy and subtle purple leopard print motif. Unfortunately they set me back a cool $12.99, but I think they were worth the investment.

I debuted these shades professionally on Wednesday while accompanying my peds pulmonary attending on our short commute to the children's hospital. Honestly, I didn't think much about the decision at the time; this is Florida... it's sunny... I wanted to protect my eyes and 3/4 of my face from harmful UV rays. I didn't get any feedback on the sunglasses until we exited the hospital a few hours later when I was laughed at by my attending, whose chortle sounds something akin to a cackling mongoose-albatross hybrid. I was more than a little self-conscious when the other people in the area started in on the laughing, too.

Picture it: I'm a towering 5'1" with a too-big white coat, black stethoscope, and purple leopard print sunglasses.

It's non-traditional. I get it. But why the hell not? I may look like a caricature to most, but I bet that you'd never forget a doctor of that description.

The ultimate list of ultimate destiny.

I worked at Anthropologie at the Mall at Millenia in 2003. It was the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college and I was pretty convinced that I wanted to be a doctor. The job was certainly not something I'd look back on as a transformational experience (although the discount rocked), but I got some advice that summer that's stuck with me for almost 7 years.

"Don't lose yourself."

Let me explain further. I was working the cash wrap and rang up a woman in surgical scrubs, so I asked her if she was a doctor - she was. We got to chatting and she told me what she thought of medical school and how she got through alive. The aforementioned quote managed to lodge itself in my brain because it seemed kinda melodramatic at the time.

But damn if she wasn't right!

It's really easy to get caught up in the competitive fervor when you're in professional school or any other high-stress environment. I definitely did and crashed and burned HARD.

In honor of the new year, here's a list of the cool things I've done since January 1st that made me feel human again:

1. Spent New Year's Day playing games with some of my best friends.

2. Milked a newborn human baby boy and subsequently decided that I hate general peds.

3. Busted out my saxophone and pretended I still can wail.

4. Decided on a specialty after a few well-timed words from my mentor.

5. Gone to several ass-kicking pilates classes.

6. Started gathering applications for externships at ultra-competitive psychiatry programs at Stanford, UCSD, Northwestern and Harvard.

7. Got a new tattoo, which isn't done.

8. Started this blog.

I don't have a good reason for writing this stuff down, per se. Listing the fun things that I've done lately doesn't make me feel any more accomplished or alleviate the stress. It's just proof that I did it and that's good enough at this juncture.

In other news, general pediatrics is a real bummer because there aren't many funny patients to write about. My blog is turning in to a sappy coming-of-age story about the little medical student that finds herself through tough love and new ink.

Speaking of which! The new tattoo is an angel wing that's not quite finished. It's got some personal meaning... most of which is in memory of my Catholic grandma who was scared of not getting to heaven. If she didn't make it, none of us will.

Today, I fell in love.

Love was in the air at the pediatrics clinic today. My little heart went aflutter as soon as I saw his double-diapered, skinny frame sitting on the scale. I can't tell you his name, because that would be illegal on several fronts, but that's not intrinsic to my story.

I have this really deep affection for Down syndrome children. They are the happiest, most loving and unselfish little people, but they'll live a shorter life and be ostracized by ignorant peers just because of their extra 21st chromosome. I think nature sometimes has a funny way of protecting its most vulnerable creatures and Down syndrome patients are not spared from this phenomenon. Within that extra genetic material is definitely a healthy dose of good attitude.

I'm not trying to make a point about accepting those who are different or anything else remotely political with this post. There are just few better huggers than a child or adult with Down's, and I like that.

"As we hope for the best in them, hope is reborn in us." - Eunice Kennedy Shriver

Thanks, med school.

One of the best things about working in healthcare is that, when you're having a bad day, someone around you always has it worse. I don't claim that this is an unselfish statement - it's just a fact.

I've been having a comically bad week; mostly just little annoyances but definitely some serious and heavy stuff, too. For instance - someone stole my bed sheets from the community laundry room, and my cat projectile vomited all over my comforter at 4:36 am.

Like any other Wednesday, I went to the pediatric pulmonology clinic this morning and proceeded to vent to my nurse practitioner friend about my woes. Sympathetic words and hugs were offered but I was definitely still feeling sorry for myself. Not two hours passed until I saw one of my cystic fibrosis patients. She's an 18-month old hispanic darling with curly hair and deformed arms and her social situation is awful; young mom, food stamps, non-present dad. Long story short, mom had been skipping her treatments and grossly underfeeding her, leading to a significant drop in lung function and continued weight loss. Death isn't off the table.

I did some crying this evening because it seemed like the right thing to do, and I definitely shed some extra tears for that little girl. I was born healthy with parents who adore me. I am lucky enough to feel the joy and pain associated with being a grown-up or experiencing cat ownership. I have medical school to thank for those little reminders.

The Island of Misfit Doctors

The reason that I make reference to myself as a misfit in my blog title is because, in truth, I feel like one. Duh. I don't feel like I've found my home in the medical community and I'm surrounded by people who feel a pull towards a specialty like I feel a pull toward the bakery at Publix. I've become increasingly anxious and disheartened as the months pass and I continue to feel like an outsider among my peers.

As hard as it is to admit sometimes, I oscillate between painful insecurity and confident badassery. Add this to my need to make people better and it leads to some really self-neglectful behaviors. These traits are also the reason that I am absolutely meant to be a doctor.

It's funny how one weekend's worth of events can hit you like a Mack truck in a way that 3 years of medical school haven't. In truth, I've known where I want to be since August. I'm a born psychiatrist. Not saying that I'm not talented in other areas or that I don't like the OR or pregnant ladies, but I have this incredible feeling of joy, humility, fear, respect and stimulation when working with people that are trapped within the chemical imbalances of their brain. Mental illness doesn't scare me. I scare me.

I strongly believe that people need to break before they can put themselves back together again if things don't fit right. Also, the words of friends and mentors are often truer than the things you think about yourself.

The whole bang-up conclusion that I've come to is that I've been looking at external things as sources of happiness and contentment. Specialty... friends... boyfriend... parents... scrubs (fo' real). Especially my specialty choice. It's like I've been wanting to be a doctor who is also Lauren, as opposed to Lauren who is also a doctor.

I have nipples, Greg. Can you milk me?

After a three-week respite from the world of medicine, I begin 2010 on my pediatrics clerkship. This means that I'll spend the next 6 weeks working both in a private office and in a children's hospital. I'm not one of those girls whose maternal instincts have been in full effect since childhood; I hated baby sitting, I dug the Thundercats and I've only recently heard the (very) faint hum of my ovaries when surrounded by little ones. Kids actually kinda intimidate me.

It's also important to note that I've never been able to take medicine and the body as seriously as some of my colleagues. Words like "smegmocele" are meant to be laughed at.

Anyway, I found myself in the newborn nursery as my first official peds assignment. Examining a fresh one makes sense; I, myself, am also relatively fresh when it comes to baby parts and innards. Imagine my shock (and awe? Horror?) when I learn from my matronly and stoic attending that BABIES HAVE BOOBIES. Not "awwww, that's a chubby baby" mounds of fat, but actual functioning breasts. To emphasize the point, said attending invites me to palpate the little boy's chest for proof.

It gets worse. Hours later, when I think that there's no other pediatrician on earth that would bother pointing out the superfluous baby boobs, another doctor actually encourages me to MILK A BABY. A boy baby. In front of his crestfallen father.

I could get all science-y and give an accurate explanation of why this happens to newborns, but the fact is that this poor baby's dad is never going to get that image out of his head. This unwitting pediatrician has just caused years of daddy issues for this boy... he's going to wonder why dad forces him to go to the strip club for $9.95 all-you-can-eat ribeye or watch UFC when all he wants to do is go to Chuck-E-Cheese with the other kindergartners.

All of this because any good doctor needs to milk a newborn once in their career.