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Yesterday I finished my rotation in the Medical ICU.  A tough but very rewarding rotation.  On some days we had 14 hour work days, and it felt great to focus 100% on patient care.  And with that the 12 week stretch of my so called gauntlet of Hospital In Service, ER and ICU is over.

The last 2 months of my intern year will be much easier and I will have more free time to dedicate to staying fit and trying to learn some Spanish.  I will be in clinic for 2 days this week and then move to Atlanta for an entire month to do newborn nursery.  I also have a one week vacation to hang out in Atlanta and play with my little niece and celebrate her 3rd birthday.  I also plan on doing some fun things like see Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and hopefully meet some new and interesting people.

My final month of intern year will be sports medicine clinic in June.  I will be back in Augusta for that, and afterwards I will move to Waycross, Georgia where I will do the final 2 years of my residency with Mayo Clinic Health Services.   I will start looking for an apartment later this month during my vacation week.

I am currently listening to the new album from Die Toten Hosen.  Argentina can’t come soon enough!

I am grateful that we made it through these experiences of medicine these past 10 months.  When I say “we” I am of course referring to myself and my mother.  This Tuesday is the fifth anniversary of the day she passed away.  I am lucky to have such a cool guardian angel up above me.

Yes, what you read is correct.  The Babu world tour continues in September, and the next stop is Buenos Aires, Argentina.  The main attraction there is a German punkrock band Die Toten Hosen who are playing their 20th anniversary concert on 15. September 2012.   For the hell of it, I decided to make it a week long stay in Buenos Aires.

Argentina will be the 26th country I have visited outside of the U.S.  South America will be the fifth continent on which I will have stepped foot, leaving Australia and Antarctica the only continents I have not visited (yet!).

I am very excited to finally see one of my favorite bands in concert and celebrating 20 years of popularity in Argentina.  I am also looking forward to getting to know Buenos Aires and its people and unique culture.   I told my dad of this trip earlier today, and he actually asked me if it is safe to travel to South America. I laughed and told him we’re going to find out!

Life is an adventure. You have to live it.  The worst thing in the world is regret.  I couldn’t imagine my life without the German language or my medical knowledge or the many friends I have in various countries. Now I just need to work on my Spanish.  Yo soy un viajero sincero.

Two thirds of my 12 week stretch of strenuous rotations is over and tomorrow I move over to the Medical ICU for a month.  It’s going to be really busy.  I hope to do some cool procedures and learn a lot this upcoming four weeks.  It will be challenging but fun (I hope).

I have to run some errands such as grocery shopping, exercising, and, moreover, relaxing a bit before I jump into action tomorrow at five in the morning.  In the meantime the spring weather is really nice here. The air has actually cooled a little bit which is nice since the heat has been too much recently.  Anyway, I’m happy to be a doctor and be in a good place.  I am sure I will be more exhausted and in a relatively bad mood in one weeks time though.

I just finished my second week of my four week ER rotation which is going fine.  After these 2 weeks of ER, there will be a full month of ICU ahead of me before I can relax during the final two months of my intern year.

I am currently eating waffles and drinking juice after staying up all night in the ER.  Man, this is the life!  I look forward to napping later and then tackling the rest of the day and then going to clinic tomorrow.  Hopefully I will be able to think straight later.

YAAAWWWWWNN!!!!!

For a civilized country, the U.S.A. can be a severely fucked up place when a white man can kill an unarmed, innocent black man and not even be initially arrested in our judicial system. You can read more here.  Eventually, I hope Trayvon’s murderer burns in hell, and all racists can have their guns taken away forever.

I am really excited to be entering the final seven days of my hospital in service rotation.  I feel I have evolved into a better decision maker and more knowledgable physician these past 6 months, and I am going to continue to be aggressive in this final week before I start my emergency medicine rotation next week.

I have used these past two days off to try to get some sleep and do reading while exercising with proper nutrition.  I am glad I had these 2 days to get some rest.  I spent the weekend watching the Hostel movies, which may seem a bit gruesome, but they were both shot in the Czech Republic, where I lived many ages ago, and I still have fond memories of those days.

I also discovered a bit of music this past weekend.  If you are not listening to Skylar Grey, then you are really missing out on hearing a genuine, melodic, and sincere voice.

This has been a challenging month in terms of some of the personell on our in service team, but my chief residents, attending physicians, and senior resident have been great in supporting me and giving me encouragement.  Now it is time to finish off this final month of MCG hospital ward in service.  There will be no rest, because my emergency medicine rotation will start the very next day and bright and early.  I am already getting used to this. . . I think.

Well, after the past two months of relatively “relaxed rotations” mixed in with 2 weeks spent with family it is now back to a 3 month gauntlet of heavy rotations.  I have adult inpatient, ER, and medical ICU in the next three months. I will once again be going to the hospital when it’s dark and leaving from the hospital when it is dark.

I feel optimistic that these next three months will be fine and I will be a better doctor for it. After this three month stretch I will have 2 months left in my intern year which will be “relaxing” like the last two months have been.

But for now, I am ready for the challenge and looking forward to the task at hand. I made a month’s worth of chicken pasta that will keep me energized for at least the next month.  Los geht’s!

Yeah, yeah, I know! People are probably getting tired of me posting the titles of my posts in German. (YAWWWWWWWNN!)  Anyway, my week long vacation at Dad’s house and at my big sis’s place in Atlanta is over and I am back in Augusta re-energized and re-focused to continue the final 5 1/2 months of my internship year as a doc.

During the last three days I had to deal with a mild case of gastritis which left we a little weak and dehydrated. I even had to postpone my P90X2 workouts which really was a bummer, but now I am back at a healthy level and will continue staying fit.  I will also continue the final two weeks of my Infectious Disease rotation before I enter a 3 month gauntlet of Adult inpatient, ER, and Medical ICU. From the middle of February until the middle of May I will be extremely busy and face a number of challenges and I won’t see another vacation until May.   However,  I embrace it and I keep telling myself that being a physician is a privilege no matter what.

I feel optimistic about things and still believe I can achieve all of my goals I have set out for myself from the beginning of the year.  It was really cool to get a lot of birthday greetings from around the world last week. I miss my friends overseas tremendously  and hope to reunite with some of you later this year (yes, I am working on a trip to “Europa”, details later).

Good night!

I am currently enjoying the second of my three weeks I get to allow for myself for my intern year.  As you notice by the title I am at my father’s house.  I will be using this time to get some studying done, start my second phase of P90X2 and hopefully get some website stuff done as well.  I plan on being in Atlanta this weekend before I head back to the hospital in Augusta,Georgia.

I am already feeling relieved and grateful to get this brief period of time for myself as I will start a 3 month stretch of adult inservice, emergency medicine, and medical intensive care unit shortly after I return from this week of rest.  For now, I am not going to think about medicine stuff too much, just enjoy being here in the house in which I grew up.

I know I am 7 days late but a very wonderful happy new year to everyone around the world!  I had a great one week rest with family and have been back in Augusta, GA for almost a week doing ER and clinic work.  It’s kind of hard to believe that I am half way finished with my intern year of residency.  Time really goes by very quickly.

I have a few promises I want to keep for myself now that I have given myself some time to recover from the onslaught of residency work.  I will continue to stay as optimistic as possible despite any negativity around me.  I will continue to show up early and stay late and continue to give 110% of my effort for medicine even if no one appreciates it (and yeah we interns don’t really get any respect, but that’s okay ).

I also want to continue to stay as healthy and in peace of mind as possible.  Eating proper nutrition and exercising with my new P90X2 program whenever I get a chance will take care of that.  Also I really feel better and more confident about myself after I push my body to its physical limits.  I guess it’s the endorphins.

I also need to be more socially forthcoming.  I am six months into residency and I am no longer going to care about what others think about me and I am just going to be myself and stop letting myself get scared on the wards (okay I will probably be a little scared in the ICU but I won’t let it negatively affect me). I also really need a girlfriend.  It would be fun to meet a fun and interesting female who fits my personality. Hopefully this time next year, I won’t be in the single category.

Spanish language still remains an important goal for me as well.  I hope to make some advances in my Spanish language which for the most part has been stagnant due to my residency obligations.

Also I know that this website desperately needs a makeover.  Same old boring design for the past 5 years just isn’t going to cut it anymore.  Let’s see how creative I can get.

So yeah, I want to accomplish ALL of the above while being the intern physician in the throws of residency.  I am already laughing at myself while I am typing this, but mark my words,  I will accomplish my goals.  I am only one who truly has the power over my fate and no one else.  And yeah,  I aspire to finish my intern year and immerse myself in medicine as much as possible so that I can move on to the second year of my residency this July.   Peace out!