Estoy en transición.

These pictures were taken at one of two places. Which is which is obvious enough. 1) Chief's Farewell dinner at Dr. Babu's house. 2) Formal graduation banquet

I don't think I'm going to take the time to explain who's who... but know that it's a collection of my co-residents, my Attendings, and their spouses/significant others

 This was our vascular team this past month. Tolga, one of the neurosurgery residents, who rotated with us just for the month, and Chief Heidi! We were supposed to have a fourth member, but lost him after only a few days on account of all the shuffling that was needed to cover everyone.

The end of another year of residency struck me as very ungratifying this year. For example, one of the prelim interns left one day, and that was that. He was moving onto a radiology residency. The rest of us, moving on with the next days of our lives. Absolutely zero "pomp and circumstance." Or the chiefs... it made me thankful that the program at least hosts the banquet in order to make some sort of symbolic gesture to recognize the closure of a huge chapter and transition onto the next.  None of our chiefs were able to have extended family there for their graduation this year. We were their family(s) and happy to be so.

Much Love.

Estoy durmiendo.

The month of June requires an extra thread of flexibility from everyone at the hospital. I had to give up the desire to protest loss of what little time off we are allowed at the beginning of the month, as bit by bit it was all taken away. All but one Saturday a couple weeks ago. This past Sunday I was needed to changes teams, from Vascular to night float. However, the new incoming Vascular chief couldn't make it so I was at the hospital early to take care of the Vascular service, home for a nap, and then back again for night shift. Not the most ideal of conditions to transition to night float. I feel asleep on one of my patients!! A cute little boy who had fallen on a bench at the park and broke his liver. I sat down in the CT scanner control room while he was getting his pictures taken, and just couldn't keep my eyes open.
I'm still trying to get my hands on some of the pictures that were taken at the graduation dinner, then I'll share some of those!

Much Love.

Estoy perdida.

The days seem to absolutely fly by, and yet, by the end of the day, morning was so long ago that I stand in the parking lot completely lost as to where I parked my car. Thankfully its in the same general vicinity every day so I can slowly walk the rows until a silver honda says hello.

I had two cases today. The second case, a below knee amputation, can or can not be a lot of tying. It really depends on how much bleeding you run into. I've had both, this particular case more on the waterfall side of bleeding, so there was alot of tying. Super exciting for me, I didn't break a single tie. I always seem to break a couple. It's a fine balance to find between throwing weak knots, holding tension on the tie, or simply snapping the tie. My first case I had only broken one. It was a carotid endarterectomy, with the Master of Carotids himself, Dr. Babu.

I was speaking with a family the other day, and the father kept referring to a Dr. Bebe, and then to a Dr. Baba. Thankfully he was honestly doing it unintentionally, because elsewise...those could be construed as an insult.  And then... those would be fighting words.
It surprises me how protective I feel sometimes about some of the people I am blessed to work with.

In addition to short a handful of residents and extra hours for everyone, the end of the year brings with it social activities and parties associated with/in honor of the graduating chiefs.

 Brunch with W.O.W. ( Women of Westchester)

 Brunch with W.O.W.

St. Vincent's has their own graduation reception for the graduating chiefs each year. I had brought a change of clothes with me and carpooled after work in order to attend. L to R: Hanna (and Golden) and Heidi are two of our chiefs, then it's me, Monica and Dzeba. (Hanna's oldest son, Tefari, choose that exact moment to dive across the screen. :)

Much Love.

Estoy lavando ropa.

Sometimes, I think taking care of myself could possibly be the hardest thing I do.  I mean... with the effort I had to muster to make it to the laundromat last night one would have thought the task equated to mucking stalls or something of the like. But I made it, dumped a load in the washer and headed down to the Hudson. Hadn't been in too long so thought the sunset would be a fine time to make a trip.

Didn't have my camera with me, but I think the iPhone did an okay job. I'm so thankful for the ability to take a picture at all times.
Sending you a warm hug and a happy evening!
Much Love.

Estoy más.

For the vast majority of this past year our surgery program has been down a resident, an intern to be exact. This left the rest of the remaining interns to absorb those 80 hours every week of work. For the most part, schedule changes were able to make this do-able without too much difficulty. However, when a second intern fires themself in the last month of the year it leaves the rest of us bewildered. Why on earth would you stick out an entire year as an intern only to throw it all away on your own at the very end. It also leaves yet another 80 hours a week needing to be covered. And then don't forget that it is June, meaning all of the chiefs are graduating and are either already checked out or are soon to be so in a week or two. Another 320 hours a week needing coverage. And then two of our prelim residents are moving to other programs and will be leaving us in about a week as well, add another 160 hours needing coverage.

This is going to be so much fun!!  *Note sarcasm*

Like all things, we'll get through it.  We always do. Somehow the patient's keep filling the ORs whether we're staffed with residents to cover it or not.  And if not, well... we'll figure that out too.

Much Love.

Estoy tomando tiempo.

You can't always have your cake and eat it too! But sometimes that's just not acceptable. You find a way to at least get a bite. You know, sneak a taste. It usually works better with an accomplice. Someone to keep look out while you stealthily slip under the radar.  A few strings pulled, and few shifts traded here and there. And voila! a full weekend in Boston!!!
Amber Miller was visiting starting the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. I was blessed to be able to join on Friday afternoon, and really just spend a sunny holiday weekend walking, and talking and enjoying ourselves.  I got to see parts of Boston I'd never seen before. i.e. Gridley St. (see below).

Gridley St. 

 

Amber and I after exploring the ins, the outs and the eats of the North End

 

Boston really is a unique experience on an American Holiday.

The Red, White and Blue standing strong at the end of Long Warf. 

Much Love.

Estoy tratando.

Back on Vascular Surgery this month at Westchester. It's only a month that I've been gone, but it's harder than expected to switch back and forth. I picked up the phone to call the OR today and could not understand why no one was answering!! Until I realized I had punched in the four numbers for St. Vinny's OR. I tried again and had the familier "OR, Jessie" response by the second ring.

While at St. Vinny's we log in remotely for our Didactic sessions every Wednesday. Here we are all saying Hi to Rachelle. If you look at the projection on the wall in the back you can see Rachelle staring us all down for not paying attention!!  jk, We at St. Vinny's have picture and sound, it's not reciprocated. Rachelle had no idea if we were paying attention or not. ;)

 

On our last day at St. Vinny's we had team brunch in our lounge. Indian spiced duck with scrambled eggs wrapped in bacon. love

Much Love.