Rise up this mornin’,
Smiled with the risin’ sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin’ sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin’, “This is my message to you:”
Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing, worry about a thing, oh!
Every little thing gonna be alright. Don’t worry!”

Some mornings, I need a little Bob Marley to get me going. Today was one of those mornings. I was tired and cranky and about to start a 13-hour nursery shift while on my pediatrics rotation. Then I saw Baby D, swaddled in hospital blankets and lying in his neonatal ICU (NICU) crib. I grinned widely to myself.

Mommy D had been my patient at the end of July when I was on the Labor & Delivery OB service. She was 25 years old, just a year younger than me, and she was pregnant with Baby #4. Of her 3 kids, she only had custody of one; she wasn’t even sure if she was going to keep Baby D.

Mommy D was addicted to crack cocaine.

It could have been the reason why her water ruptured prematurely at 30.2 weeks. And as a result Baby D was struggling in utero with almost no amniotic fluid to cushion him. On ultrasound, he wasn’t breathing or moving much. We tried to prolong Baby D’s delivery as long as possible, to give his lungs a chance to mature, but he was eventually welcomed into the world, albeit 2 months early.

Fast forward one month. Mommy D has not visited or called about Baby D in the NICU since she was discharged from the hospital. Baby D has periventricular leukomalacia and some calcifications of the brain (maybe due to a maternal TORCH infection). He may also have microcephaly and long-term neuro deficits. Essentially, Mommy D’s addiction has caused holes in Baby D’s brain. It was like one of those Saturday morning public service announcements – this is your brain on drugs – but in the flesh, in the form of this infant in my arms.

DFACS has been called and Baby D will probably be discharged to foster care once he’s stable and eating on his own. As I rocked him for almost an hour, holding him tight to my chest and humming a song, I couldn’t keep the tears back. What a sweet, sweet baby. With so many cards stacked against him already.

I’m going to listen to Whitney and my mentor on this one: Crack is whack. It ruins lives. It strips people of their futures. It kills hope.

So often, I’m plagued by the question: Is every little thing gonna be alright? I’d like to think so. But I know the truth is: not always.

So, I’ll make sure to hug Baby D extra tight tomorrow, even if it does cause tears to roll down my face.

I’m a talker.  It’s what I do: talk, think, usually talk without thinking. I’m not an expert at many things but I’ve pretty much mastered the art of foot-in-mouth. But after studying for over 6 weeks for Step 1, I find myself at a loss for words. I’m s/p 5 days (I guarantee you’ll do better at the bars/clubs if you use med jargon, trust me…), and I only almost feel human. Almost. I wanted to have something profound or even remotely funny to share but I don’t. I’m drained. Studying full-time somehow manages to suck up pieces of your soul and I need this next month off to scrounge up all the little pieces. It’s going to take me that long to reacquire social and communication skills.

But as is my M.O., I’m headed out of the States – passport in hand, backpack strapped on – and spending 3 weeks in Kenya and Tanzania. What’s on the schedule so far: 5-day safari in the Masai Mara Reserve and 5 days in Zanzibar for Sauti za Busara. The rest, I will P.I.B.E. aka play-it-by-ear.

I temporarily hailed from the Hometown of Obama and now I’m off to the Homeland of Obama. My motto for life but especially for travel is: do it for the story. So, here’s to storymaking and storytelling.

keep on rockin’,

Ant

Why hello there.

Alas, our 3-week summer break came and went. Summer, I hardly knew thee. While it was short, it was definitely sweet. Par for the course, I left the country on the first flight out of Atlanta for 3 glorious weeks in the motherland (‘Nam) and Thailand.

Now, 3 modules and a fall break later, we’re in the midst of delicious autumn. Fall gets me excited for cool nights, all things pumpkin, and the return of the sweater. But it also means our pre-clinical years are coming to an end and studying for the boards looms ahead. We did an exercise last week during small group where we had to write for 10 minutes about a critical experience that affected us during the last 18 months or so. I couldn’t come come up with a negative incident and instead, I just free-wrote.

—-

The patient sat atop the examining table as my preceptor looked into her ear with an otoscope. She’d had a history of otitis media and now presented with some hearing problems. But it wasn’t the patient that had my attention. It was the toddler laying in the stroller aside the table. She had piercing gray-blue eyes and was waking up from a nap. Before she could cry, I asked the patient if I could hold her. I gingerly picked her up and held her tight to my chest, rocking back and forth. Not a peep came out of her mouth and she looked at me with those big ol’ eyes as she clenched and unclenched her fists. I felt a pang in my ovaries and some tears in my eyes, but that’s not news. (My tears are pretty cheap these days). My preceptor looked at me and noted, “You’re good at that.” Somehow, this little child had completely made my day. I forgot I was in clinic for a moment and thought about my little cousins (I have 9 under the age of 7) and my family and how much I missed them. I walked to the Grady shuttle stop that day with a grin on my face and a bounce in my step…for no real reason.

And what struck me was how easy it’s been to retain my “humanity” in medical school. Everyone talks about the inevitability of cynicism and how cases can start becoming about the disease rather than the patient. Maybe it’s preemptive and presumptuous of me to say this, before I start clinical rotations and get worn down by the system and numbed by fatigue, but almost a year and a half into medical school, that’s not how I feel. As we share and confide in each other, I’m often struck by the awesome responsibility that we have ahead of us. And on those really tough days that’ll certainly arise, I have a feeling I’ll be repeating to myself “never stop caring” and “that patient is someone’s son, someone’s daughter.” Call me naïve, but to me, those kinds of lessons are invaluable.

—-

Nothing profound, slightly melodramatic but regardless, it was cathartic to put it on paper. It made me regret the fact that I haven’t journaled often during medical school: too tired, too busy, too whatever. But sometimes, it’s good to stop, reflect… and then jump into a pile of crunchy, dry leaves.

newly minted M2,
Antoinette

Some background: the M1 class is broken down into four societies (so Hogwarts-esque) and those four societies are broken down into four small groups. Each small group has 7 to 9 students and the small group leader is an Emory attending/faculty member. We meet two times a week: Tuesdays and Fridays. [Addendum: my small group gets really irritable when a session is replaced with lecture and our time together is whittled down to one session]. You do all the non-lecture feel-good learning with your small group: PBLs (Problem-Based Learning), physical exam skills, patient interviews, patient-doctor relationship, etc.

Now back to the love-fest. Some may call us a small group. But we’re more than that. We’re family.

We are eight different folks from very different strokes:

Alanna “I used to manage the world’s largest tick colony” McKelvey
Tony “Shaboy from Brooklyn but really, I went to a ritzy prep school” C-Q
Doug “Wiki-Man” Wetmore
Jin “Our silent secret weapon” Lee
Hreem “I’ve only got my Boo (and Chicago) on the mind” Dave
Adam “Sparky, bearer of Esoteric Truf” Carlisle
Antoinette “I feel very weird writing a descriptor for myself” Nguyen
Dr. Kimberly “mother of Thing 1 and Thing 2” Manning

With a small group advisor who looks like this:

And a small group who looks like this:

Can you really blame me for loving these people? But it wasn’t love at first sight. That’s the beauty of it. I never imagined that we’d become so tight-knit, but tight-knit we are. Even though we come from different backgrounds with different families and different experiences, our small group just “clicks.” We have our rituals: the inside jokes, the 10 minute de-briefing pre-session, the hate list…But most importantly, it’s a safe space where there’s open communication and honesty. I feel comfortable discussing clinical questions but also bringing up personal issues, about medical school, family, match.com and anything and everything under the sun. And I know the feeling’s mutual. While Team Manning is not attached at the hip 24/7 off-campus, we look out for each other. And that’s a comfort amidst the hustle and bustle that is medical school.

I’m not hating on any other small group. Every group has their own vibe. Ours just happens to be slightly over-the-top and probably annoying. I’m okay with that.

I won’t post again until after summer break. So to all the incoming Class of 2012 folks, WELCOME! Enjoy the rest of your summer. Do whatever it is that makes you happy. But whatever you do, don’t study. See you soon!

over and out scout,

Antoinette

By the end of the Cardiology module, I was slightly burnt out. It was April 11 and we hadn’t had a day off since Christmas break. I was tired of studying. I was (truth be told) tired of being around the same people every day. I was tired of anatomy. I was tired of being tired. It’s a familiar litany of complaints and I resisted going into complainer-mode. My gut reaction: Man up, Ant. You chose this life. So what’s a girl to do?

After 8 hours of testing, I hopped on a plane, crossed the Pond, and landed in London Heathrow the next day. It was a glorious spring break spent doing nothing and everything. I roamed around the city. I putzed around Hyde Park. I had afternoon tea at Harrod’s. I caught a Chelsea football game. Then I crossed the Irish Sea for a six-day jaunt through County Clare, Galway and Dublin where I drove on the (gasp) left side of the road. I’m a bad driver to begin with so trust me, it was a big deal. If you end up coming to Emory (which you should), I’ll only answer to Ant O’Nguyen.

But I also had time for some reflection. Note: don’t expect any grandiose epiphanies here; my self-awareness only runs so deep. A break was definitely necessary for my soul, but it also put things into perspective. Earth to Ant. Medical school isn’t that bad. I was meeting folks from around the world and from all walks of life. My friend and I ended up traveling with Staale V. for 3 days, an eternity in the land of backpacking and transient, fleeting “friendships.” He’d taken a year off from his studies in Oslo and was living in Galway for the year. Usually, I drool at the mouth and twitch in envy when I think about others on long-term trips abroad: seeing new sights, leaving the comfort zone, getting eaten alive by bed bugs, bearing witness to other ways of life. I love it all. Then it hit me. I wasn’t really envious of this guy’s life, or anyone else’s for that matter. It was a timely and much-needed reminder.

Amidst the powerpoints, anatomy demos and exams, life is still pretty sweet at the good ol’ EUSOM. I just had to remember that I have to take care of myself before I can take care of others. Not that I’m really taking care of anyone at the moment, but you get the point. Now, I’m re-juiced, re-energized and ready to get back to it. No pity party for this girl.

So on that note, here’s to good health and good times. Slainté.

Hey everyone!  I wanted to use this entry to share a little bit about my OPEX clinic.  (Note: OPEX = Outpatient Experience).  Regardless of where you end up for medical school, you will have lots of opportunities to practice in-patient care during rotations on the wards, but I am so grateful that Emory’s new curriculum includes a year-long component where we are assigned to a primary care out-patient clinic during our 1st semester.  The clinics are spread throughout the greater Atlanta area and serve different patient populations (insured vs uninsured, family medicine vs internal medicine vs pediatrics, etc).  Everyone comes to Emory Med with a different story, resulting in a depth and breadth of firsthand clinical experience with patients.  I had worked in free clinics but now, donning my white coat, patients expected me to know something. 

I volunteered to be placed at Grady’s International Medical Clinic (IMC), where most of the patients don’t speak English and many are uninsured.  While I’ve taken Spanish since middle school and have lived abroad in Spanish-speaking countries twice, I’m not as confident as I would like with my language proficiency.  I figured this would be a great way to get over my Spanish jitters and work with an underserved population, which is where I envision my career to be in the future.  Two Thursdays out of the month, I take the shuttle into the city and shadow senior internal medicine residents, who run the Thursday afternoon  clinic and report each patient to an attending.  It gives me a chance to touch patients and practice my new-learned physical exam skills.  But it also provides an early look into continuity of care. 

I have seen Mr. L. three times since October 2007.  He’s a jolly Jamaican with well-controlled diabetes and hypertension.  I was shocked to learn that he was in his late 70s as he doesn’t look a day over 50.  By the second visit, Mr. L. was greeting me with a crushing handshake and hearty bear hug.  I saw him alone and planned to present him to the resident myself.  As I took his vital signs and gathered his chief complaint and history of present illness for that visit, he regaled me with stories from his heyday when he boxed off knife-wielding thugs, and not-so-subtly hinted that he had a son my age. He didn’t believe me when I told him I was “only a first year med student” and made me feel like I was a part of his medical team, even when I got his blood pressure off by 10mmHg. 

Mr. L., an English-speaker, was the first patient I saw by myself, but since then, I’ve been able to see Spanish-speaking patients on my own each time I’m in clinic.  It’s great to translate things I’ve learned to the clinical setting: listening to pleural effusions during the pulmonary module, observing as a patient was diagnosed with guttate psoriasis during the dermatology/rheumatology module.  OPEX is a wonderful reprieve from the grind of classwork and lectures, and the admissions folks are not kidding when they say students have real clinical experience as early as our M1 year.  When we get to the wards in March, no one will be caught like a deer-in-headlights when they have to touch and talk to a patient.  They should have been doing it for a year already. 

over and out scout,
Antoinette

Hey everyone!  First things first, a little background…  I’m Antoinette Nguyen and I hail from the Lone Star State.  I (gladly) left home for college at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL (right outside of Chicago).  During my undergrad years, I toyed around with being pre-med.  Even though I completed the pre-med prerequisites, I was more about getting a solid liberal arts education, focusing on my history degree, and assuming that things would eventually fall into place.

I first applied for Fall 2005 entry, but I really wasn’t sure if medicine was the right path for me, which was transparent in my admissions essays.  While the rejections – and there were plenty of them – were crushing, they were truly blessings in disguise.  I had some new letters behind my name and a degree in hand, but I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.  Call it an early quarter-life crisis.  Yes, rejection was humbling but ultimately, it drove me to step back and reevaluate my life.  I ended up taking two years off after graduation.  During that time, I worked in the Vascular Surgery division at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.  I studied for upper-level biology classes and the MCAT (Round II).  I spent a month at a free clinic in Bolivia.  A year after that, I once again fed my addiction for travel and backpacked through South America for two months.  And through it all, I realized that I wasn’t ready to call it quits on medicine just yet.  Now, here I am, more than halfway through my first year of medical school at Emory.  I hate rehashing my AMCAS, but my point is: we all get here from different paths.

Now, on to the crux of this blog.  Interviewees are constantly bombarded with “Do you have any questions?” but I know I always had a few that I just didn’t feel comfortable asking in large groups with everyone dressed to impress.  Are the students liberal, conservative, apathetic, or just plain crazy?  How much time do you really spend studying?  What do you hate about Emory?  What do you love?  Does everyone say “y’all?”  What about Emory has surprised you?   What do you really do for fun?   How do you feel about living in the South?   Do you eat grits every day now?  How many married folks are in your class?  And then there are the nitty-gritty questions about the curriculum… You’ve got questions.  I’ll do my best to answer them.

Medicine is a long, hard road but it doesn’t have to be an unhappy one.  And being at Emory shouldn’t mean being a student 24/7.  Free time is a tad more scarce, but I still do the things that keep me sane and grounded.  Rather than wax poetic about the amazing students, faculty, and curriculum (not to mention the beautiful new building that is my second home), I’ll just say: I am happy at Emory.  The application process is a ten-ring circus and you’re jumping through hoops left and right.  I don’t really envy your position but we’ve all been there.  So, best of luck to everyone!

over and out scout,
Antoinette