Small miracles, tiny accomplishments, baby steps forward.
Some days in medical school it feels like the 'teaching' just boils down to constantly being told how many differential diagnoses you forgot, how many signs you failed to elicit, and how many questions you didn't ask the patient. The constant deluge of information and things you ought to know by this point can begin to feel suffocating.
Until a miniscule but measurable gain occurs and suddenly, it seems worth it.
Like today...I actually clearly heard my first heart murmur which I confidently and correctly identified after performing a decent cardiac exam!!!
Pretty sure that at the exact same moment a unicorn was born and a leprechaun discovered a pot of gold.
I honestly thought that heart murmurs would always be a mystery to me and that there would never come a day when I'd be able to do anything other than pretend I heard it.
But, nay! I heard it. I really heard it. And strangely, that made me smile. All day.
Small miracles.
Some days in medical school it feels like the 'teaching' just boils down to constantly being told how many differential diagnoses you forgot, how many signs you failed to elicit, and how many questions you didn't ask the patient. The constant deluge of information and things you ought to know by this point can begin to feel suffocating.
Until a miniscule but measurable gain occurs and suddenly, it seems worth it.
Like today...I actually clearly heard my first heart murmur which I confidently and correctly identified after performing a decent cardiac exam!!!
Pretty sure that at the exact same moment a unicorn was born and a leprechaun discovered a pot of gold.
I honestly thought that heart murmurs would always be a mystery to me and that there would never come a day when I'd be able to do anything other than pretend I heard it.
But, nay! I heard it. I really heard it. And strangely, that made me smile. All day.
Small miracles.
7 comments:
Was it a systolic ejection murmur?
Yay! Keep listening to as many hearts as you can and you will hear more (and less obvious, too) murmurs. Internship will provide ample opportunity!
Oh, and I'd like to think the medicine folks are trying to teach you what should be included in a differential rather than what they think you should already know. It is a rare (maybe as rare as a unicorn) 3rd year med students in the U.S. who leaves the pre-clinical womb ready to formulate comprehensive differentials for any given set of signs/symptoms.
This is one of the things in medicine that takes TONS of practice. You're probably right where you should be.
Hurray!
Maybe it was just a radiating carotid bruit.
Or the other person in the room farted.
Congrats!
Congratulations!
Awesome blog, got referred here from kevinmd. Nice to see fellow Canadians blogging, best of luck with your studies in Ireland!
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