Hi folks! After two weeks of studying, I took my USMLE Step 2 CK (carpooling with Brandon, Zoe, Steph to the test site), and then drove off on a roadtrip from Michigan to visit friends on the east coast. Highlights from the roadtrip:
- Meeting up with my old college roommate and fraternity brother, Sunny, in Maryland.
- Driving with Sunny to meet up with Jill, Matt Spitz, and Lori (friends from the LSJUMB) in New York City.
- Driving with Sunny from NYC to Washington D.C. and eating at Comet Ping Pong pizzeria.
[Harold and Kumar hit up New York City]
[Comet Ping Pong: featured on the Food Network]
After returning to Ann Arbor for an evening, I promptly started driving to Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio on July 4 (God Bless America) for my first Air Force away rotation in psychiatry. This would be the first of my two Air Force psychiatry rotations, the next one being at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas.
[My room for four weeks at the Air Force Inn at Wright-Patterson AFB]
[The Wright-Patterson Medical Center, literally right across the street from the Air Force Inn. Very convenient.]
[July 4 fireworks in Ohio]
[Surprise! A Bar Louie in Beavercreek, Ohio.]
But enough of pictures. I want to talk about a feeling. That feeling you get when you know something clicks or is right for you. You could compare it to falling in love with "the one," but I want to extend it beyond romance or relationships. My first few days here observing the Wright-Patterson psychiatry program have cemented my love for psychiatry.
On my first day, for example, I heard a resident recount a story of a patient who claimed to communicate with fairies, but also practiced Wicca (a nature-based religion), which raised the issue of whether she was being schizophrenic, delusional, or simply practicing her religion; I knew I would love psychiatry when I found myself wishing I could have been at that case presentation in person and learned how she was eventually managed. I took it as a good sign that I got fired up answering practice questions in my head during a lunch review session for the PRITE exam (the annual national test for psychiatry residents). I was also fascinated to see a patient demonstrate CBT techniques during a follow-up visit and was happy to see a psychiatrist convince a patient with refractory depression to seriously consider ECT. An introduction to psychodynamic counseling left me wanting to hear how residents negotiate a patient's Id, Ego, and Superego.
What's more, all of these experiences have happened during a hectic week when residents are in transition (new interns arriving and old residents moving up one year). As a result, I haven't had much direct patient contact yet unfortunately (mostly shadowing attendings so far), but if I'm getting this excited at this point in the game, I can only imagine what I have to look forward to next week when I hope to have patients of my own, and next month when I get to compare Lackland AFB to Wright-Patterson. It's gonna be great!