that's it for the kiddos

another rotation come and gone. man, I might as well just change that to another year come and gone! where the heck did it go? while some days seemed to draw out into eternity, others seemed to end as soon as they began. the last weeks at Phoenix Children's was more the latter with each day ending with me scrambling to get everything done. I honestly felt as though each child I saw cast some sort of spell on me and I lost all track of time while in their presence. I am truly sad to be leaving such a great work environment.

along that line of thought, I am now desperately struggling to find another inpatient pediatrics rotation that will be willing to mme before I get too far into my fourth year. the problem is as such: in order to do advanced sub-internships in pediatrics such as PICU or pediatric ER, I need to have done a "proper" inpatient pediatrics rotation including shelf exams and morning/afternoon didactics. I guess that makes sense - I mean no ward team in their right mind would want some dufus fourth-year who had no concept of ward medicine to work on their team. unfortunately, there is no wiggle room when it comes to this prerequisite and I guess while I have received a solid rotation and didactic education from my preceptor, it isn't going to hack it anywhere. so, here I am struggling to fix something that truthfully should have been taken care of this year. to be completely honest, it has been overwhelmingly frustrating as I had a fairly well-rounded schedule planned and now I have to completely rework it to try and meet prerequisites that I thought would have been fulfilled. even more so, out staff appears to be completely inadequate in solving this issue. I'm under the impression that resources have been exhausted, but it is just something that our school in unfortunately lacking. so, as stated before, it is just something that requires me to abide by that old addage to leave the things I cannot change.

well, that was a bit of a rant. on the upside, I've got some time off and have been able to head back to California to visit with my parents. its been great to be here and sleep in and all that jazz - especially since it seems that I only have actual physical contact with them little more than once a year.

that's pretty much it for now. although I'm enjoying the break, I'm really getting antsy to start back on rotations. I think its more that I want to get this blasted OB rotation over with. I imagine it will be super interesting, but I'm honestly dreading the daily commute. here's a small taste of it (courtesy of maps.google.com):

yeessss... two-hour round trip commute... and that's not including traffic!

so, to end things on a happy note, here is poco.

awwww.