Trailing through Tucson

I have spent these last few weeks in Tucson, Arizona on a pediatric cardiology rotation at Diamond Children's Hospital and I can honestly say I have loved every minute of it.  The people here at this residency program are awesome!  They have been so friendly and welcoming.  Being attached to a university does have it's pros and cons.  During the past year, I have worked mostly one-on-one with attendings.  I was use to having individual and private teaching.  I was not competing with other students or residents for attention or procedures.  Most of my rotations were great mostly because my attendings were great.  Some though left something to be desired and I felt like I wasn't challenged enough or I didn't learn enough.  Being at a university with residency programs in pediatrics, internal medicine, ER, surgery, and family practice is very different.  There are 3rd and 4th year medical students all over the hospital.  Because of this, every attending is use to teaching and really knows what is important for the students to learn.  Also, the pediatric residents have all been so patient with me.  It might just be the peds environment, but no one in this program is fighting for procedures.  They share taking the lead in patient care and take turns doing the hands on stuff.  They seem to really believe in the statement "sharing is caring".  They also enjoy teaching med students and sharing advice from their med school days (which were more recent than the attendings).  I am constantly being challenged and pushed to think things through to the next step and beyond.

Children's hospitals always have the best decor

I have been exposed to so many kinds of congential heart disease and conduction disorders during this rotation.  I have learned how to read EKGs (which is very different in children than adults) and ECHOs.  I even got to see some fetal ECHOs were the babies' heart defect was diagnosed at 20 weeks while still in mom's tummy.  This helps the doctors prepare appropriately for when the baby is born and some bigger hospitals are researching ways to fix these defects before the baby is born.  I scrubbed in on cardiac catheterization and ablations.  My ears have gotten much better at detecting innocent murmurs verses pathological ones.  I met kids who are thriving with only one ventricle due to modern interventions.  I met adults who had open heart surgery as children who are still followed by a pediatric cardiologist because adult docs aren't trained how to care for them.  The cath lab is one of my favorite places.  It just blows my mind that we can close holes in the heart, redirect blood flow, repair blood vessels and even replace valves all through vessels in the groin!  Most patients can go home the same day as the procedure.  My least favorite part is wearing the lead.  Because xray is used, all people in the room have to wear a lead vest and skirt plus a thyroid guard.  By the end of the case it is so heavy and hot!

Desert Museum trails

Now Tucson, Arizona is pretty cool in its own way.  All the houses are so flat and short.  It's weird to me to see box houses everywhere with rocks and cacti instead of lawns.  The downtown buildings are also pretty short.  There are no skyscrapers of any kind.  But it does have a big university so the college part of town is pretty fun.   I spent one afternoon at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum where I learned all about the animals and plants for Arizona.  The desert is somewhat pretty at times though I believe the things that live in the desert have an unfair advantage in life.  They all prick or bite or string or fly.  Totally not cool.  I received my first introduction to cockroaches and I am not a fan.  Turns out they live in bathroom drains...yuck.  You have to pour bleach down the drains every now and then to kill them.  I swear they know when they've been spotted and then they plan their attack.  They hold real still and then fly right at your face when you go to kill them.  Just thinking about them makes my skin crawl.

Halfway up Mt. Lemmon

The area around Tucson is really diverse.  Desert surrounds the city but mountain ranges are only a short drive away.  I hiked with some residents on Mt. Lemmon which is at 9,000 feet.  It was like being back in Colorado with aspen trees and pines all around.  Rumor is they even get snow there in the winter.    

Top of Mt. Lemmon

Overall I really enjoyed my time in Tucson.  I honestly think I would be happy completing my residency here.  This is my first away rotation so it's too soon to know for sure but it's definitely on my list.  Hopefully I won't have the same problem that I did last year with loving every specialty.  Now it's off to Baltimore to spend the weekend with my friend from home who is getting her PhD at John Hopkins.  While there we will be joined by other hometown friends who are in Charlestons in OT grad school.  So a mini Sebastopol Reunion will take place in Baltimore!  Then I take the train to Philly to take my clinical skills board exam.  On to the next adventure :)

Nicest Resident Ever