Well, I have arrived in Kentucky for my third rotation! Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been pretty busy with traveling and getting everything together.
My surgery rotation ended on a good note! My preceptor gave me a good evaluation, and my last patient with her was a mole excision - she let me do a punch biopsy all on my own! It was really cool. I got to numb the skin up, do the punch, and then glue the little circular hole together so the patient would have a more linear scar. It was a good way to end that rotation! Then, I flew from Kansas to home in New Jersey, then relaxed with family during our summer week off. Yesterday, I drove out to Pittsburgh, and today, I completed the journey to Kentucky - whew!
The area I'm in is extremely rural, even more so than the town I was at in Maine. It even seems more remote than Kansas, because at least in Kansas things are more flat, so you can see other buildings. Here, it's mountain after mountain with just the occasional building. The "downtown" section of where I am looks more like a ghost town, with empty storefronts and boarded windows. On the outskirts, there are a few bigger stores, but not anything major: one (small) grocery store, a couple gas station convenience stores, a Rite-Aid, and some family-owned auto repair businesses. Oh, and the clinic! It looks huge compared to most other buildings here, but it's still pretty small. I start tomorrow, and I'll be working with the one doctor that works there. There are also three nurse practitioners at the clinic. The hours are long (8am-7pm every day, except hours end at 5pm on Friday), so I'm pretty sure they don't all work every day.
I'll probably post something tomorrow about how my first day went, but I'm expecting it to mostly be shadowing, which is fine with me. This rotation is in family practice, and since my last two rotations were pretty specific (women's health and general surgery), I feel like I need serious refreshing on the rest of the body! There will definitely be lots of studying happening this week. :)
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