my life as a filipino-american, newly graduated family med physician

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If I see Chicken Curry

or even eat it, it will be too soon.

My cell group hosted the church under the bridge soup kitchen today and so each of the couples made a dish. Three of us made chicken curry because it happened to be popular with the patrons last time we went. Anyhow, a few weeks ago, I learned how to make this dish from my cousin and so I volunteered to make 2 chickens worth this time. I burnt my first batch and so i had to cook 2 more chickens to make up for it! I spent the whole day cutting, mixing, recutting, and remixing. I didn't even study. My friends had a heydey making fun of me since they know I'm not a fervent cooker, but I think I should get points for trying.

Anyway, nothing seems to take away this odoriferous memory of burnt curry! Everytime I think about it, I just cringe. On top of that, I've got tumeric stains on our countertop.

WE had a good time though. I sang and played the guitar and Robin shared a message about the Prodigal Son. I had never seen him give a speech or sermon before and I'm happily surprised that he prepared a good message in such a short time and was impressed by his approach on the topic. As I stared up at him on the stage, I thought to myself, "This is another great reason why I'm glad I married him!"

Now that the weather is getting cooler (it nearly snowed last night), people are wanting coats, underwear, and blankets. I pray they're somehow keeping warm tonight.

posted by dinah 12:12 AM

Much better than people watching

Since graduating from college and practically 4 years of medical school, I have exhausted the medical library. I can not stand to be there mainly because I hate feeling everyone else's stress. I have a board exam in 2 weeks and study mainly at home or the local bookstore with its adjoining Starbucks.

I felt a little agitated to find the tables practically occupied with stressed out college students studying for their finals. The girl next to me flipped the pages of her book ferociously and I could hear her leg tapping against the table. Ughh!! I had to relocate and get some coffee quick.

I settled down at a table near a 40 something couple who apparently just started dating. Okay, so I didn't get much studying done for about 30 minutes, but there was no real stressing out there. Just pure puppy love. What could be more entertaining than eavesdropping? It was like an episode of ONCE AND AGAIN--2 divorcees meeting for a rendezvous over a cup of Java. They had kids I learned and asked each other if the other had happened to mention the "new" relationship to the kids. What was even juicier was that the guy had to sneak into his house one night after coming home from the woman's place after hours.

Do people think a small wooden divider is going to keep me from hearing these things?

posted by dinah 11:44 PM

So as long as you love me so . . .

We have been doing way too much driving lately because of the holidays and then again for a praise and worship church retreat. Radio stations are starting to play Christmas songs 24-7 now so Robin and I found ourselves singing the choruses and mumbling the words we didn't know.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my in-laws and spent yesterday with our praise and worship team for a church retreat. It's so great to be home though!

posted by dinah 7:00 PM

At the Other End

I know I've been talking about Pap Smears way too much lately, but just one last time I promise. I actually just had one
performed on myself and I'm wondering if I would have gotten better treatment had I told them I was a med student.
Last year, my experience wasn't bad AT ALL! The nurse pracitioner had great bedside manner and I didn't feel a thing. She asked me what I was studying and it lead to the whole med school thing.
This time, h/w, the NP was rough. I won't go into details, but I wish she had told me beforehand that she was going to
do a rectal . . .

posted by dinah 1:24 PM

Being Cheap

A Grande Caffe Latte at Starbucks costs me about $3.60. I study there practically everyday so it's getting kind of expensive. Sure, I could possibly not order anything, but I feel like I have to "rent" my study space. I tried something really frugal the other day. I bought hot chocolate for $2.00 and added my own instant coffee. Is that cheap or what? I had to sneak the stuff in and look to see if anyone saw me. Too much trouble. I scrapped the idea today.

posted by dinah 7:12 PM

Lucy is Mean

The Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special is on TV and I'm all of a sudden getting those warm fuzzy feelings. Charlie Brown reminds me of those worry-free days when I could enjoy holidays. I think around high school holidays started getting stressful because we'd always have final exams or projects due right before.

posted by dinah 7:09 PM

I wish I drove an automatic rather than a stick. Uggh! I'm dizzy and I have a headache! It took me almost 2 hours to get home today because of the flash floods. Luckily the clinic is next to a highway so I didn't have to drive on any access roads till l had to exit for home. I've got a headache though from all the stop-n-go traffic.

Well, tomorrow is my last day of this rotation. I really enjoyed myself because I can see myself working in the same type of clinic in the future. The staff and nurses were great as well as the patients. I know I would have had an even better experience if I had understood and spoken Spanish fluently. After all, I spent most of the time trying to translate in my mind what the patients were saying. BUT I am no longer scared of plastic speculums and I'm much more familiar with OB ultrasounds and OB (obstetrics) appointments. I got better training in OB/Gyn during this rotation than I did during my OB/Gyn rotation my 3rd year!

I also feel more chummy with everyone. I am just now getting comfortable! I'm finally laughing and making jokes--being myself. In the medical arena I have such an inferiority complex that I speak in a low voice and am extremely passive. I HATE THAT. People in my Bible study would be shocked cuz I think they see me as outspoken. But no, I'm nothing like that in school.

posted by dinah 8:15 PM

I've smelled stinky feet before . . .

Even before I shook her hand, the smell accosted me. Her bare feet dangled beneath her as she sat on the examination table. I wanted to barf, but I smiled and said, "Nice to meet you." As I listened to my attending take her history, I chuckled in my mind wondering if he was holding his breath as much as I was. Still, why she had taken the liberty to take off her shoes when she had really come in for an STD check-up was beyond me. I tried breathing through my mouth.

She is a non-compliant diabetic whose yeast colonies love sugar as much as she abhors taking her medicine. As we browsed through her chart, we found she had bounced from one doctor to the other with no one really convincing her to get her diabetes under control. They sent her to diabetes education classes she never went to and prescribed meds she never took. She would have none of it and only saw doctors to treat the symptoms she understood--like her sorethroat and now this inevitable consequence of a one night stand.

I find it hard not to judge patients because I'm a little jaded. You would have found me much more idealistic 2 years ago, but that was before my clinical training. This patient is not special in her tendency to dismiss medical advice. Imagine seeing countless amounts of similar patients in a year, and you see why so many clinicians get frustrated. I don't want to be jaded. I want to make a difference, but if I were to counsel these patients, would I be successful?

posted by dinah 12:15 AM

Guh-rate

Great. Shallow Hal was worth $5. I'll give it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars.

posted by dinah 11:41 PM

I'm getting better!

Yesterday, I performed several Pap Smears and was able to place the speculum and visualize the cervix ALL by myself except for one. It's terrible that although this is such a horrifying annual event for a woman, I can't even remember the names or the faces of the women I saw yesterday. Although I'm sure if this was my practice and I was here for more than a month, then I would know, but now they're just pap smears to me. It doesn't help that there's a language barrier either.

People wonder if men who are gynecologist are perverted for their choice of profession, but I can honestly say for the most part they aren't. When I perform an exam, even though I'm in such close proximity to the person, I can't tell you now what one person's cervix , breast, or external genitalia look from another. You just don't remember. Plus, when you're in that position, you just want to get out of there quick AND when I'm the patient, I want that person out of there quick too.

posted by dinah 10:39 PM

Tea Party

I wonder if I shouldn't have volunteered to host a table for our church's ladies tea party so close to my exam. I keep on thinking about how I'm going to decorate my table, what colors I'm going to use, etc. It's such a girlie thing, but I love it. I loved planning my wedding and devoured every Martha Stewart Weddings Magazine that came out. Now I find myself going back to those mags again for some more ideas.

posted by dinah 10:24 PM

Last Nerve

Most of the time this doesn't bother me, but today i just got a little annoyed. One of the medical assistants helping the attending I was working with today said that a patient was getting angry because he was taking so long. The medical assistant said that she told the patient that the doc had a student with him which was making things run a little slower (I'm the student . . .). The patient got all huffy and supposedly said something along the lines of "there shouldn't be a student, etc etc."

Now here's why I'm annoyed. One, the med assistant didn't bother to inform this patient that the real reason things were slowing down was b/c of the large amount of "walk-ins" monopolizing on the appointed patients' times. Also, I don't even get to really do anything but FOLLOW and WATCH this attending anyway. How could I possibly be slowing things down by any real magnitude. AND IF I WAS . . .then just be a patient patient and wait. You're getting practically free care anyway!!!

This clinic and all the other teaching hospitals are usually indigent clinics. People who can't afford insurance come to this clinic. In addition, they sometimes only pay $3 for a 3 months supply of pills that for an insured person would cost $60-70. I'm sorry, but these people shouldn't bite the hand that feeds them. I mostly sympathize with these people. Some can't help their situation, but please work with us please. All doctors had to learn somewhere and these very same people have given up better paying jobs in private offices to serve (i hate to overuse this term) the underserved.

posted by dinah 10:19 PM

cooking

I can now add biryani to my list of "things I know how to cook." I observed and took notes while my mother-in-law made the dish 2 months ago. Anyway, I finally made it this past weekend for our Cell Group meeting. When I cook, it's some big deal because among the young marrieds group I hang out with, I cook the least and also speak Tagalog the least (save the guys who we are married to that shouldn't have to know Filipino anyway). When I'm with "the girls," I don't feel out of sync, cuz none of us really speak Tagalog or cook (except for anna who recently learned how to make kari kari--a peanut butter based dish).

Anyway, a few weekends ago, the girls from my young marrieds group taught me how to make chicken curry and a Filipino dessert called Pichi pichi. IIt's weird how my one group of friends can't cook or speak tagalog, yet my other group of friends who are practically the same age as the former group do. I guess in that respect we are terribly Americanized.

posted by dinah 7:03 PM

Tongue Tied

I just came back from a "get to know you" dinner for one of the residency programs I applied to. I actually have an interview with them in January. I sat next to the associate director of the program and was also in close proximity to an intern. I had a completely easy time making conversation with the intern, but man, whenever I tried to make a segway into some sort of meaningful convo with the director, I was tongue tied!!!

He made a comment about Dinah Shore and said he wasn't sure what she was up to nowadays and I had to break it to him that she passed away. Now how do you break into a question about the program from there? I tried all kinds of ways but it was just a no go. Plus, we were at DAve and Busters and I had to compete for attention with the WOrld Series game!

oh well. I'm sure he'll remember me for my Dinah Shore comment.

posted by dinah 11:16 PM

Kudos

Kudos to all those brave women who have let me perform pap smears on them!

Ughh! I had the hardest time today using plastic speculums to view the cervix. I don't know if it's because my attending is always looking over my shoulder or what, but I can't seem to get the cervix. I seldom have trouble with metal speculums, but the disposable speculums are a doozy!

posted by dinah 5:34 PM

The Projects

In this city, the east side is predominantly african-american while the west side is predominantly hispanic. I drove 45 min, to work in a small clinic on the east side right in the heart of the Wheatley Courts public housing project. What a breath of fresh air! At the university and most of the clinics I've worked in these past 4 years, the patient population has been hispanic. The numbers are growing which is why I'm always fretting about learning Spanish. Everyone from the patients to the clerks s are hispanic, but at this eastside clinic, the bulk of the people were black (African-american--to each his own cuz some prefer to be called "black.").

When I saw patients today, I could speak to them at ease without having to feel inadequate because of my lack of Spanish. I felt refreshed to be able to establish some rapport with patients again rather than just smiling and making really stupid grammatical remarks in Spanish. aaaahhhhh.....

This afternoon, I drove around with a public housing worker to different "projects" or public housing complexes. One of the projects had just been remodeled and had a computer facility with 20 computers complete with cable modem, a recreation facility for kids to hang out at after school, and a brand new pool. The other projects were typically run down with torn screens and stray cats roaming around all over the place.

The one thing that baffled me was large amount of programs created for residents of "the projects" yet the dearth of interest by these residents for them. They get free/low-cost dental/health care (we were visiting these projects to advertise this), free pre-school via the Head Start program, access to computers, and health education yet many just don't take advantage of these things.

I felt scared

Yes, I have been sheltered all my life. I 've done mission work in Mexico, Malaysia , and the Philippines and have volunteered at a soup kitchen, but there has always been that option to go home to comfort. I've driven by these areas before, but I've never walked them. When I was walking with this african american woman from the clinic to the projects I wondered if she knew I was scared and that I was so glad she was walking with me. Maybe it would be different if I was hispanic or black, but I'm this conspicuous skinny Filipino chic! Plus, in mexico and the philippines, I didn't worry that the people we were helping had guns hidden in their pockets. It made matters worse when the woman said, "don't walk that way, there's a big gang bangers house there."

5 babies

I saw a teen today who has 4 children already. It's typical in this area. I can understand having one, but four by the age of 19?
Why are people having sex so early? People always push contraception, but why is it so hard to abstain? I really would like to know. Is it because people bloom early or something? I can tell you, I wear the same bra size as most of the 12 year olds around here.

posted by dinah 5:20 PM