Vaccinated!

Every Monday, I find more reasons to love my ICM site. My preceptor is simply fantastic, and I'm getting extremely comfortable interviewing patients. Last time, I interviewed two patients in front of Dr. Katz -- I got their whole medical histories, and afterward, Dr. Katz gave me his input. It went very well. This week, he briefly introduced me to two different patients and then left for a few minutes, leaving it up to me to find out the chief complaint and history of present illness. When he came back, I presented the information to him in front of the patient, and then he completed the exam. It was great. Clearly, the school part of ICM has been ideal.

On top of that, Dr. Katz is awesome as a preceptor. During exams, he explains what he's doing and sometimes even does a little bit extra -- he'll point out dermatological points of interest, or he'll teach me about percussing to find the outline of the liver, or he'll help me find a popliteal pulse. He also shows me the clues he uses to make his diagnosis -- a red throat, an EKG printout, nystagmus, lung sounds, heart sounds. In between patients, if there happens to be downtime, he teaches me about conditions of recent patients he's seen -- endocrine pathways, abnormal bloodwork, how to read an EKG. Or he teaches me the useful little things that I'll gradually pick up along the way but will probably not learn in medical school -- prescription abbreviations (most of which come from Latin, thank goodness), bizarre/un-PC acronyms, how to fill out a death certificate, how to decipher insurance codes. Clearly, I have been blessed with an amazingly friendly, intelligent, sensitive, interested preceptor.

And even after all of that, there is yet another reason to love him. Last week, the lines for the H1N1 vaccine at Einstein were out the door. It was not worth the wait. I knew that my clinical site had the vaccine, so I planned to ask if I could make an appointment or do whatever it is they needed me to do to just get vaccinated there. Today, during some downtime, I brought it up to Dr. Katz. He was surprised I hadn't gotten one yet and asked if I wanted to get one right then. Sure! It was even free, because of something about the government buying it all up and distributing it or something like that. All I had to do was give my name, birthday, and address, because apparently the government likes to keep track of these things. We went in one of the back offices, and right then and there, Dr. Katz gave me the nasal H1N1 vaccine. I almost couldn't keep myself from laughing, it seemed so bizarre. But there it is: I am now vaccinated, thanks to my totally rock-solid preceptor. I love Mondays.