Goodbye St. Louis Children's

Just like every rose has it's thorn and every dawn has it's day, every pediatrics residency has an end, and this is the blog post about mine. It seems like just yesterday I moved to St. Louis to save children and to be hugged by random strangers in the supermarket (see previous blog post). I would say that the time has passed quickly but to be honest the time has passed in drug-aided sleep deprived blur. Its 6:30 in the morning and I'm sitting in the ER with one hour until I walk out of the hospital forever (or until my residency program decides I didn't really graduate).
There she is, a giant concrete Belgian Waffle of top-notch pediatric care. Sometimes I land on top of said Belgian Waffle in a helicopter as sweet as maple syrup. Usually, though, I just ride my bike to work.

It's moments like this when I like to reflect, and when I say reflect I actually mean look back at the last three years on our programs scheduling website to add things up. This is what I came up with.

Past three year stats

In-hospital overnight calls ranging up to 30 hours: 113

Weekend days worked: 126

Night shifts (12-13 hr shifts overnight): 60

Here's the analysis. That's a ton of work. That'll bring you to your knees. It's enough to make a grown man cry (if said grown man were capable of tears as opposed to having the emotional range of a turnip).

After calculating these, I decided to calculate more statistics, and when I say calculate I mean estimate, and when I say estimate, I mean guess blindly at times:

Hot Dogs Consumed, by year

Intern Year: 24

Second Year: 8

Third Year: 0

Mini-tacos consumed, by year (like tacos but smaller and more awesome)

Intern year: 19

Second year: 92

Third year: 211

Here's the graph I made. As you can see, the consumption of hot dogs is inversely proportional to the consumption of of hot dogs. That's a good thing, because if they weren't proportional the graph would look like this:



Broken Knees: 1

Bikes stolen from my apartment while I was asleep in said apartment after having worked overnight call and being really tired: 1

Bikes recovered that had been stolen from my apartment while I was asleep in said apartment after having worked overnight call and being really tired: 0 (zero) (I miss you Bruce, you deserved better).

Times I have said lupus as a possible diagnosis in a large group setting: 62

Number of medically oriented t-shirts I have designed while at work: 22 (including my series of 80s-themed STD-awareness t-shirts)

Number of medically oriented t-shirts I have actually made: 1

Percent of ER shifts I've worked while wearing cowboy boots: 100%

Number of white coats that have been bedazzled by patients: 1

Number of parents or hospital stuff that have independently called me "Doogie": 11

All in all, I can't help but look at these "statistics" and feel a deep feeling of "pride" (I use "quotation marks" to counter-balance the "serious" nature of this last part). In the end, though, a "number" doesn't sum up how great these past few "years" have been. I won't "forget" all the people I've worked with and the kids that I've "met". It's been a great run, but its time to go. I'll see you later, St. Louis. Don't wait up for me.