Whirlwind week

Clearly I have been slacking on this blog business. I have been too busy to sit down at my computer and recount the ongoing saga that is my life....but I will try to catch up as best as possible.

Last week was my final week in Marathon. Great evals, great time, great big case of the stomach flu. Ok well not great big, I'm being melodramatic, but enough to make me miss my last day of work and also dissuade me from ever eating A&W (my last meal before the horrible vomitting) ever again. Probably for the best that I give that up anyway!

During that whole episode I had to drive to Thunder Bay for my exam. 3 hours of being nauseous on the trans canada is not really my idea of fun. Then I arrived at my apartment to find someone else sleeping on my couch! We were both quite shocked, shared some foul language about the Northern Ontario Medical Program and how they manage to screw up every bit of administration, and then I had to drive to the University to sort it out. They ended up putting me (and Darwin!) up in a hotel for the night, so it wasn't so bad. There was a Tim Horton's in the parking lot....I was pretty sure I was in heaven.

My exam went. Yup. That's the whole sentence. It went. I continually feel like med school exams are designed to test how you can do on med school exams, not actually whether you will be a good doctor. They have the craziest marking schemes. Write two things on one line, instead of just one - you get zero. They ask for up to 6 answers, turns out you only needed one and if you got it, you get the point, if not...tough crap....even though all the other answers were perfectly valid. I can't even explain the marking scheme on some of them...I think you need to have a PhD or something to get it :P But its done, and my eval was great, so I'm a happy camper.

Then it was on to my fabulous weekend of being cosmopolitan. *sigh* Even now, it almost brings a tear to my eye how wonderful it was. I flew to Toronto, took a shuttle to the Royal York to meet Jill, and then Subway to her place (stopping of course at Starbucks!). Saturday we went shopping most of the day, had a nap and then some yummy take-out ethnic type food. Pre-drinks with friends and dancing at a club. Not the best music I have ever heard....but the stupidly drunk people who got out on the dancefloor first more than made up for any shortcomings with their antics. Sunday morning we had an awesome breakfast with all the extended family of siblings...our poor waiter...I mean really....having to put up with all the Aird's and Skrypnyk's too...we left him a big tip. Hahaha. And finally a wonderful afternoon at the movies and dream shopping at MEC. It was as darn close to perfect as I have ever gotten.

And now here I am, back up North, in the minus billion degree weather, working in Psychiatry. This is what I have learned so far:
1. Psychiatrists don't work very long hours
2. Psych hospitals are designed in mazes so that only the sane people can find their way around...and even that is a stretch
3. You should go to bed early before the first morning of a new rotation in case you have to spend your whole day in meetings fighting the yawns
4. Greys Anatomy is even better when there are 5 med students watching it together
and 5. My car is the bestest car there ever was, and will start all on its own, without a block heater, even when it was minus 40 over the weekend :)

Alright....back to learning about antipsychotics...

Lots of love
Pamela