A happy night. Surprise teaching award, though not for pen collecting work

[david i]

I don't talk much online about work, save for generalities, as there seems to be little upside to doing so, but I think it is safe to play with this one. Our Family Medicine Residency had it annual graduation dinner today. I had a nice surprise. I've always enjoyed teaching (both pens and Hospital Internal Medicine), but the occasional bit of external validation never hurts. Besides working with the Residents the last three years in Janesville-- when not hunting Parker pens after my accidental arrival here--I've been blessed to work evenings with an excellent NP and PA.

A nice diversion from my next article for Paul's Fountain Pen Journal.


Tonight's surprise at the graduation dinner.

regards

David

[Jon Szanto]

Congratulations, David. Recognition of this kind from one's peers is hard to surpass. Float on, good Doctor!

[Marsilius]

Congratulations! Enjoy the glow, and I like that "float on" thing.

[david i]

Yeah, it's really a "Night Rotation". Night "Float" is a bit of an antiquated and somewhat racist term Still their heart is in the right place, and it is the thought that counts.

-d

[manoeuver]

Sweet! congrats David.

[Mags]

Congratulations this is a huge award for any Dr.

[david i]

Thanks, Mags.

I've worked at length with this gang (some shown in the photo above). The Nocternist rotation tends to be viewed by Residents (perhaps rightly) as a service rotation, often dreaded, fatiguing and uninspiring. That we turned it into something they now view as an educational boon gives me contentment I cannot easily voice. And, I'm usually pretty good at voicing things

Follow up. It's the little things that spice life.

So, a few years ago soon after Dr. Sareen (my boss in Syracuse who'd moved out there) lured me to join him in Janesville and I had started teaching Medicine out in Parker's hometown, a Medical Student actually volunteered to do a month of night work. Excellent student. Now she's in her senior year of Medical Residency in a well larger town. We miss her.

July of course is "New Intern day", a potentially scary time in teaching hospitals. She discussed a case on the first day of the new cycle with one of her new Interns (first year Resident). This is in another city, though I think she knew the Intern (frshly graduated from Med School) had done a rotation in Parkerland.

She messaged me the short form:

July first:

Me to intern "her ABG is showing she's acidotic and retaining. What do you want to do?"

Intern "well after the BiPAP we could get a VBG and do a correction to the equivalent ABG."

Me "let me guess, you must have spent some time rotating with Dr isaacson???"

Your lessons and style are living on in XXX these days"

This sort is what gives life a bit of extra oomph.

regards

d

[Dreck]

Very cool, and congratulations.
My wife (E.D. manager at a pediatric Lvl 1 trauma hospital) says teaching skills to the residents is the easy part. The hard things they need to learn are to treat the nurses like people, to not drop "F-bombs"(especially in earshot of patients & parents), to not sit on the counters, and for Ortho to not steal the cast saws.

[david i]

Thanks There might be some bias with the ER Nurses, though that does not prove right or wrong. It does not shock that an ED Nurse might think "the docs teaching the residents the medicine is easy but teaching them to be nice to us is harder", if one thinks about it. The Nurses don't have to do the actual core medical teaching (though nurses play key role in making all doctors... better), but they do recall usually all incidents in which they were treated sub-optimally. Selection bias or some such. They might thus be taking the medical learning thing for granted.

regards

-d

[Frank]

That is great David!
Congrats!

Frank

[necrotic]

Congrats! It is truly an exceptional thing for a teaching award to go to the night doc. I'm so glad there are good people working the night shift to keep me out of the hospital Keep up the good work!

[caribbean_skye]

congrats and well deserved im sure

[earthdawn]

Congrats....

Thats great to hear. With all you do in the pen community an award for the work you do on a regular basis does not surprise me at all.

[david i]

Thanks for the nice words, guys.

Teaching students and residents gives great meaning to my work. I talk about it online much less of course than I do about fountain pens, but it is far more at the core of my world.

regards

-d