Getting you up to date

So what have I been up to this summer?

After school ended in May, I spent three weeks studying for the national board exam all medical students take after the second year. You'll be happy to know (as I was) that I passed. Then it was time for a few weeks off.


Mt. Rainier
Two friends from school, John and Tom, and I set out to summit Rainier via the Inter-Emmons route, but unfortunately we did not summit. We made two attempts, and on our second we were foiled by white-out conditions and high winds at 12000 feet (that's me in the orange, on our first attempt). All in all it was worth the sore muscles and blackened toes, and I learned a lot about mountaineering, including how fast a well-worn bootpath can disappear in 50 mph winds. Hopefully we'll get another chance.

Road Trip
Two days after coming home from from Mt Rainier, Diana and I left for a road trip through Idaho and Oregon. We went to my parent's new cabin near Lowman, where we enjoyed the new place, cooled off in the South Fork of the Payette, scouted out winter ski slopes, identified the resident hummingbirds, and ate some great home cooking.
From there it was on to Boise for a night with Diana's parents, and then off to LaGrande to see Diana's grandmother, aunt and uncle, and cousins. We set off some fireworks and managed to keep our limbs. We stopped through Bend, OR the next day where we visited the Deschutes Brewery, camped on the shores of Suttle Lake, and then climbed Black Butte the next day.
After that it was on to Portland to see Jason and meet his new fiance Linda. They showed us a great time and were excellent tour guides, but after that it was back to Seattle and back to work and school.

Pediatrics
This was my first rotation and although I didn't think I was that interested in peds, it turned out to be a great rotation. It was 6 wks long and I spend the first three outpatient at a clinic at Harborview (the public hospital here), and then the second three weeks inpatient at Children's Hospital. The wonderful thing about pediatrics is that every kid is different, and that every age of kid is different. Each age comes with new abilities, new problems (try looking in a two year old's ears), and different diagnoses. Children also also resilient and make doctors (and medical students) look good by getting better so fast in response to even minor treatments. I found that parents could sometimes be difficult to deal with, and especially in the outpatient setting, much of a pediatrician's time is spent reassuring parents that their kids behavior, or their ears, or their spitting up, or their poop, is normal. In the end, I enjoyed peds and I can see why many people choose it as their specialty.

Scooter!
And how could I forget to tell you that Diana and I bought a scooter? It's flippin' sweet. It gets 100 mpg and solves all my parking problems. Check it out: