It's Friday morning and I'm getting ready to go to the hospital.
Just have made myself some matcha latte.
I'm gonna take it with me in a thermos.
If you watched my what's in my bag as a 4th year medical school video from last week,
you guys know that I'm doing my addictive disorder elective--which is a psych elective.
For today, I'm gonna be going to the hospital and will be doing what is called "consultation
service" meaning if anybody who is admitted to the hospital needs a psych consult then
we go and see the patient and then we give recommendations to the primary team that's
taking care of the patient whether that's medicine or surgery.
I'll be seeing mostly patients who come in with addiction issues or have any addiction
history.
This is very similar to what I did in my third year psych rotation so all the other students
will be seeing the rest of the patients.
Anyway, I will check in with you guys later.
So I'm back from the hospital.
Took a long time for me to get home.
There was a lot of traffic but I picked up a quick dinner from Sweet Greens.
Just a salad.
I'm gonna eat it really quickly and head out to an AA meeting.
I don't know if you guys remember or I don't know if I talked about it last year during
3rd year but basically as part of my psych elective I have to attend an AA meeting which
makes sense because I'm doing it on addictive disorders so there is a meeting nearby so
I'm just gonna head out and attend that meeting.
It's gonna be from 7pm-8 o'clock.
I always feel a little weird going in as a medical student and just observing cause the
obviously the meetings are for their recovery and I don't want to be distraction.
I don't want them to feel like I'm there to watch them.
I guess at the same time I kind of understand the process of actually learning what happens
at these meetings and how people feel about them.
I chose an open meeting.
There's two different kinds of meeting.
I guess generally speaking there is a closed meeting and an open meeting.
So I'm going to the open one.
I'm just gonna quickly eat dinner and head out again.
Hey guys!
It is now Sunday.
I didn't vlog over the weekend but I just wanna tell you guys what I did this weekend.
Yesterday was Saturday--I booked my trip to Palm Springs with my friend for the week right
before match.
It's like a fun little trip so I can kind of not focus too much on match day but just
to have some fun.
I thought today would be a great time for me to tell you guys a little more about my
elective.
So like I said, my elective is addictive disorders and the way this elective is designed is really
cool because you're sort of going through the same process as a patient would be--someone
who's struggling with addiction.
So I have some shifts at the hospital which is basically the detox part of this journey.
The patient comes in, acutely intoxicated from whatever substance and they more or less
detox in the hospital.
This is not the case for everyone but this like an example of what might happen.
And after that a lot of times, the patient might be sent to an inpatient treatment facility--which
is where I was last week.
So inpatient treatment facility you basically live there with a bunch of other people and
you work on getting sober.
You do a lot of group therapy, individual therapy, family therapy and then after your
time at the inpatient center, you might be going to like a halfway home and then after
that you go to an outpatient facility to kind of keep up with your sober process.
So this coming week I'm gonna spend some time at an outpatient addiction counseling center.
So I'll get to meet with some of the patients that come in but I'll also have a couple shifts
at the hospital as well.
So I'll continue to see patients that come in that are acutely intoxicated.
I'll also see patients that are going through their outpatient treatment process.
So I just thought the way this elective was scheduled was just really cool and it's given
me a brand new appreciation of patients who are struggling with addiction.
So overall I'm learning a ton on this elective and I'm really grateful for the opportunity
to really just see things first hand and I feel like me going in as someone who hopes
to become an emergency medicine physician--we are really at the forefront of really what
brings people into the hospital and a lot of people do come into the hospital for pain
reason or something related to drug overdose or intoxications and really the first place
you go to is the emergency room.
So I felt like as a future emergency medicine physician it was really important for me to
understand how addiction works and what resources are out there and what is the best way for
me to help those patients.
So it has been an eye opening experience.
I think honestly all medical students should have exposure to this topic the way this elective
is allowing me to.
Overall just enjoying the process and learning a lot.
So that's my elective.
Hopefully this description wasn't too long..
But anyway, tomorrow at 8:30 in the morning I'm gonna be going to an outpatient counseling
center--not exactly sure how long my day will be but probably come back and go to the gym.
I'm hoping to meal prep tomorrow.
I'm really trying to get on top of my gym and healthy eating right now because I have
a ton of trips coming up and I feel like if I don't set up good habits now it's really
hard to keep that up while you're traveling.
So that's what I'll be doing tomorrow.
And obviously I'll check in with you guys tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon when
I come back.
Hi guys!
I just got home.
It was bit of an early day.
Today I went to an outpatient counseling center which also I found out is a methadone center--or
a methadone clinic.
What I did today was I sat with the nurses to give out methadone and I kind of learned
about what it is like and who gets to take bottles home and who has to come in everyday
to take their methadone and how often they do urine drug checks and things like that.
And then I sat in on a group meeting for a group of women who recently gave birth or
are pregnant or have young children and are on methadone.
It was great to hear their stories and their perspective and what they had to say about
sort of like what they wished doctors knew about being on methadone.
So it was a great experience and after that I sat with a couple of the counselors to talk
about some fo the things of that they deal with and then I came home.
On my way home, I stopped by Trader Joe's and Target to pick up a couple things.
I picked up a wrap, got this chile lime seasoning blend which sounds awesome.
I also got some crackers.
I also picked up---this is what I love Trader Joe's, they just have all these unexpected
things that I'm so curious I have to buy them and try them and try it.
Basically this is coconut chunks that are frozen.
From Target I picked up Halo Top pumpkin pie.
These have been hit or miss for me.
Some of the flavors are really good, some of them have been not so good.
So for example I have this rainbow swirl one that I don't like that much.
I also tried the mint chip one... which is just okay I think.
Hello everyone!
Happy Tuesday.
I'm just about getting ready to leave the house.
Just wanted to share my lunch and breakfast with you guys.
I got this lunch box maybe a year ago.
I think I talked about it when I first got it.
It's very small but it actually fits quiet a lot.
So just wanna show you guys what I have in here.
So I have my little thing of forks, a bag of strawberries, I have clementines, I have
a little thing of vinegar shot.
I find that this really helps me with my sugar cravings--just personal opinion I don't know
if it actually works, so I like to have these.
And I have this big container it has my chicken and asparagus and these sweet potato ribbons
that I got from Trader Joe's yesterday.
They look like this and they really just reminded me of the sweet potatoes that they have at
sweet greens.
So I thought they'd be a great addition to the chicken and asparagus, just to make it
a little more fun so that's what I have.
So that's my lunch.
It actually fits all in here nicely... like that!
So today I'm headed out to the hospital.
So I'm gonna be doing the consultation service.
So that should be a pretty regular 9-4ish thing, so I will check back in later.
Last year during my psych rotation, I talked about how my professor likes to discuss movies
and sort of like the psychiatric lessons and depictions within these movies.
So today, we discussed split.
Because I'm not at the hospital everyday.
I'm with the third year groups sometimes... only a couple times a week.
I didn't know we were gonna watch split and discuss it today.
So I wasn't prepared.
I didn't really watch the movie beforehand.
But during the discussion I just found it so fascinating and this D.I.D--Dissociative
identity disorder so I came home and I watched the movie with I guess with the benefit of
all the discussions that I've heard.
It was really fascinating.
I enjoyed that a lot.
Usually I can't watch scary movies because it just gets to me too much but I think knowing
the plot and knowing sort of the psychiatric undertone of the movie... understanding that
part made it a lot easier and not as scary to watch the movie so that's what I did.
So I'm going to make my dinner and maybe watch some TV and head to bed.
Alright talk to you guys later!
Good morning everyone.
It is Wednesday morning.
I have today off so I'm leisurely having breakfast here.
Today is technically supposed to be my independent study day but because I don't really have
any exams coming up...
I've been learning a ton from my experiences at my elective sites.
So I don't have anything really anything specific to study for but I'm gonna try to film a video
today and run some errands, clean the house, laundry and maybe make some food for the rest
of the week and things like that.
So I'll just be doing my usual housekeeping stuff.
Alright guys.
It is about 5:45 right now.
I'm headed out to meet up with my friend, do a little gym session and then go out to
eat at someplace that we wanted to try--it's called Le Botanist.
It's like a vegan place, I think.
I actually have all my gym stuff in this bag so I can go out right after.
Here with Sabrina.
Getting our workout in.
So sweaty!
"I feel like this is just the warmup though.. but we've probably been here for just 10 minutes"
"I've been here 20 minutes"
"Oh haha.. you've been here for 10minutes but I'm almost done!"
"Oh right you did some cardio already"
"No.. this is the meat of our workout and then we're gonna go eat"
"Yeah I could stop anytime"
It's Friday and I just got home from my elective.
Today was actually the last day of the elective.
I feel like I learned a ton and I hope that I was able to convey some of what I was learning
and was able to explain what this elective was about.
I hope you guys enjoyed this vlog and I will see you guys in the next video!
BYE!