Mile 8652: (Cue Marching Band)

Above: Rush University Medical Center's new Advanced Center for Emergency Response. From Rush News.

I FELT LIKE I WAS IN AN
AIRPORT TERMINAL...

I learned this week a situation where clear, accurate documentation is critical for monitoring a situation. Let's just say this, figuring out whether or not someone has a "critically morbid chronic condition" from hearsay isn't the best way to handle it. With medicine, a certain line of things need to be done to confirm or rule-out whether someone has a condition. If those tests aren't done in order, it breaks the chain, and a degree of uncertainty (which is never good) hinders the line of treatment for the patient. Nobody wins if things are not documented and tracked appropriately.

----

A few weeks ago, the Infectious Disease team that I am a part of goes to the Infectious Disease grand rounds that go on at Rush University near the heart of Chicago. My attending picked me up from the hospital and we soon walked into a series of tall buildings, a facade of steel and glass. We soon were walking down a hallway with large directional signs and a walkway that could support a flow of a huge crowd (making me feel like I was about to catch my 9 AM flight). After going up to the fourth floor of the building we were in in the middle of a slightly crowded conference room that holds about 50-75 people, I watched several presentations from residents of some fairly interesting cases that they ran into. As the attendings, fellows, residents, and students chatted amongst themselves (and myself with my attending) to discuss each case, I felt that the openness to discusssion I observed to encourage each other's understanding of the concept was amazing. When I look back to my several hours there, I honestly saw myself as a kid in awe at a candy store.

And that's what is really attracting me about university programs when I'll match (next year). The variety of cases that you get to see there, their reputation for being at the forefront of medicine and research, the resources that are available, and not to mention the aura of academia (which I enjoyed after my 1.5 years in a Masters program at the University of Illinois) are just astounding. I really feel that a university program would easily satisfy me academically and open me up to even more new opportunities in medicine. However, aspects of community programs also reach out to me, and I'll tell you more about what attracts me to them in the next post.