M3: Commence!

I would start this entry by apologizing for the week-long update hiatus, but that's a pretty dangerous path to head down considering that life has a pesky habit of happening and this very well may not be the last time I am absent for so long. So I guess I'm sorry for not being sorry. Can we still be friends?

Anyway, two big things have happened for us in the past week (more specifically pertaining to Dr. D, but you know how it goes... married to a med student, his struggles/triumphs/business are my struggles/triumphs/business, blah blah blah, love love love).

The first big thing is that Dr. D got his Step 1 board scores back (!!!). Waiting for his scores was kind of like waiting for Christmas, except that this Christmas we weren't sure if Santa was bringing us peace of mind or something truly horrible, like a clown a la It. Thankfully, Dr. D's scores are very good; no hellish harlequins around these parts. Honestly, it is taking all of my willpower not to brag my hubs up one side and down the other--he gets very embarrassed when I do. Med students tend to be fairly tight-lipped about actual score numbers unless they are are posting on anonymous forums, so I'll respect Dr. D's privacy, put down the personal cheerleader pom-poms, and just vague it up by saying: I'm so proud of him.

The second big thing that's happened is the beginning of Dr. D's third year of medical school (or "M3" as they call it, because obviously even pre-doctors are too busy to verbalize superfluous syllables). Holy schmo, how quickly the first two years have passed! This year marks the beginning of Dr. D's core medical rotations--in other words, goodbye classroom and hello sick people. Each rotation is between 4 and 12 weeks (most are 8), and they're basically crash-courses in how to be a "(fill in the blank)" doctor. The idea is that each med student will get a little taste of each of the specialties which will, in theory, help them solidify their future specialization plans. For some, it will just confuse them more. Only time will tell...

Dr. D's first rotation is in family medicine. It happens to be only 4 weeks long but also has one of the more notoriously difficult shelf exams, which are standardized tests that med students have to pass after every rotation in order to prove that they learned everything they were supposed to. I don't think family medicine was ever a specialty that Dr. D was seriously considering, but I think he's really enjoying himself. The doctor he's assigned to is great, and the hours are very reasonable--probably about 40 hours per week compared to the 60ish that some of the med students in internal medicine are doing right now. It isn't exactly the flashiest or sexiest specialty ("sexy" in the doctor sense, meaning blood, projectile bodily fluids, infectious diseases and rare cases) but Dr. D managed to get a scalpel in his hands in the first week to conduct a minor procedure, so I'm thinking he just may have a little crush on family med... call it woman's intuition. I'll allow it.

So that's a little update on the med student in my life. In other news, I have a gigantic itchy bug bite on my wrist (a consequence of our rediscovered social life, which we gladly reclaimed by grilling outdoors with friends last night--totally worth it!) and typing is tickling the heck out of it, so I'm gonna splitsville. Happy August!