In between...

This weekend, I am in between two rotations. I finished endocrinology on Friday and starting Family Medicine with my favorite mentor ever on Monday... This looks like it will be a great month!

My first rotation ever was great. I was a little anxious doing a speciality as my first time in the hospital, but I have to say, it was just perfect! My supervisor is a very good teacher and he made it easy for us. I learned a lot, about endocrino, but most of all, about myself and the type of practice I would like later. And, to my surprise, I completely fell in love with the diabetes, the patients, the treatments and everything that goes with it.

My most important learning of this month is about taking charge. I want to take the patient as a whole and not just part of him. I saw a patient for a reason, which was not abnormal in the end, but had another medical issue that would not be handle by endocrinologist. We referred her back to her family physician. It felt unsatisfying, leaving the poor soul like that when it was not a huge problem to fix. (and let just say that we followed up by a phone call directly to the said physician just to make sure she would be seen very soon, so not just letting her wanders on her own). And I completely understand why the specialists do that, because 1- it would be totally unmanageable if they would address every problem of every patient and 2-they cannot be confortable dealing with every health issue because, well they are specialists and they don't (and cannot) follow guidelines and new treatment for every disease there is.

So, I suppose this confirms that I would like family medicine. I still consider general internal medicine, where you can take charge of patients as a whole, but having sicker and more complex patients than family physician (usually). I think I would like that very much. Still, food for thought for the next few months...

And, as of tomorrow, family med hospitalization for a week. I am thrilled! Hope it will meet up my expectations!