A few odds and ends (a great Dylan song, BTW) from the last couple of weeks. First of all I should say that my mood is the best it's been in probably years. Not sure what all that's about, but I have a few ideas. I don't necessarily care, either!

On the way back to Ireland after a wonderful vacation I had two exciting sitings. The first was Cornel West, who was on the plane from Logan to Newark. A tight, ill-fitting suit and an enormous afro made for a hard-to-miss event. I realized I don't know a think about his writing/thinking, so if any of you know something of his worth reading (and also accessible) let me know. The other was a ring necked pheasant along the side of the road in Shannon. Gorgeous. I had just gotten off a red-eye, so it's possible I was hallucinating, but probably not.

My time in Limerick was fine. I was staying with an obsessive compulsive, ultra Catholic woman and her husband, who were both slightly racist, and generally afraid of unfamiliar things. Very much enjoyed reading, watching, and talking about sad/scary things going on in the world, particularly medically related ones. The ENT was OK. They were all very nice, but not yet used to having students around. A lot of the job is looking in people's ears and clearing wax out, or telling parents that it's been a bad winter for ear infections, and no actually, your son or daughter does NOT need grommets thank you very much. I got to scrub in for one surgery so that I could stand closer and see more, but even then they're operating on such small areas that it's hard to see much. My last patient before I left early (to make it to a choir rehearsal) was a lady in the ICU who had bleeding varices. For some reason the blood that continued to ooze after she was fixed congealed in her oesophagus instead of going into her stomach, so she had a huge clot gumming up the works. Two different gastroenterologists had already tried their hands at solving the problem, to little avail (is that an acceptable phrase?) so the ENT consultant tried (his equipment was slightly different, which may have accounted for his success) and was able to vacuum out the rest of the clot.

I'm excited about choir for the moment. Some Tchaikovski, Schubert, Vittoria. Beautiful stuff.

Bedtime for Bonzo

Now it's time to catch up a little bit.... Where we last left off I think I had just had a really interesting couple of weeks with neurology. The two weeks previous to that was spent with a nephrology (kidney) team, and it was fantastic. The doctor in charge is notorious in the hospital, as are his two brothers who are also doctors in CUH, each one taller than the next. The nephrologist is the most wacky, however. Imagine Groucho Marx as a brilliant doctor, and you're in the right ballpark. I learned a ton. We got regular little teaching sessions about medications or dialysis or other conditions, and rounds with the team were very informative because there were a lot of patients so it was easy to learn by repetition.

Your plumbing, on the left, and your kitchen's plumbing on the right. Are the shapes a coincidence? Well, yes. This part of the blog was inspired by coming home to make dinner one night only to find the sink plugged with rice. Similar to the problem kidneys can have with contrast media.

What I think is so fantastic, though, and may have already mentioned, is that it really made me feel like I was a medical student, and helped me to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was treated as someone who needed to learn medicine for the purpose of being a doctor, not as a student who needed to be kept busy. My mood continues to be elevated, even more so after a restorative couple of weeks at home.

I don't expect to write too much about the next month. I'm spending two weeks in ENT (or otorhinolaryngology if you want to give your tongue and spellcheck a little practice) in Limerick. The teaching is pretty good, but I'm just not that interested. We spend most of our time in outpatients, clearing a lot of wax from people's ears. That whole thing about never putting anything in your ear smaller than your elbow is true, by the way. Cotton buds really foul things up. I'm staying with a kind woman who appears to be afraid of everything under the sun. God, MRSA, dirt, water getting on the floor of the bathroom. The place is right across from the hospital, though, which is convenient. There's a couple of pubs, restaurants, and a Tesco nearby, so even though we're on the edge of town it's convenient enough. After this is done, I'll be spending a week with vascular surgeons and a week with urologists, both at the Mercy Hospital in Cork. That trifecta has earned this month the moniker "the tubes rotation."

Hello, I must be going.