Well my friend is sort of better. Her chest tube was taken out a couple of days ago but they found 2 more fractures that weren't initially seen on film. Her pain control has been horrible. When her mom told me what she was being given, I was shocked. She's had major injuries and they are treating her with so little morphine that I doubt it would cure a migraine. The doctor's excuse has been, "we don't want to turn her into an addict". What?!!! If her pain was adequately controlled, you wouldn't need to worry about that! She's at an academic hospital, so I feel positive that her pain is being managed by residents who are tentative about morphine orders. I understand why. I mean, they see a lot of drug seekers, but when you have someone that has been in an obvious trauma, has multiple injuries, and is in her room crying because she is in so much pain and exhausted from lack of sleep, why not show some mercy? I hope none of them ever has a car accident like what my friend had, and if they do, I hope they don't get the kind of medical care they gave to her. One thing I can take from this is that I will never be stingy with narcotics when someone needs them.

So, not too much out of the ordinary has happened this weekend. My ophthalmology exam was yesterday and it was officially the last exam of my medical school career.

My friend Joe informed me soon I will need to rename my blog. If anyone has any suggestions, leave 'em for me!

Bad news : (

I found out late this afternoon that my old oboe buddy (and very good friend) from college was in a bad car accident last night. She swerved to avoid an animal and flipped her car several times. She has a fractured lumbar vertebra, a pneumothorax, and 4 fractured ribs. She also has bruises and swelling everywhere. I hadn't seen her in a long time and went up to the hospital to visit her and was shocked at how bad she looked. I see injured people all the time so I should have known better, but she is my friend! She's not supposed to look like all the other injured people I've seen! It was strage to visit her because we haven't talked in years, but she was glad I was there. I don't think she'll remember my visit since she was so sedated, but I left her a gift and will definitely visit her again this week. I know with her injuries she is going to be okay but it's going to take awhile and I want her to feel better now. I hated seeing her in that much pain and I honestly wish it was me instead of her. I hate it when there is nothing I can do to help...

My day was going pretty well up until that point. I showed up for ophthalmology clinic this morning and my resident never showed up. When I finally asked another doc about it, she told me he took the day off to study for his board exam, and that I didn't have to come back to clinic at all this week. Guess I'm in for another few days' of vacation, at least until Friday when I take the ophthalmology rotation exam. I finally got my results today from the $1,000 dumb clinical skills exam I took 9 weeks ago. I passed. I knew I did. 98% of US medical grads pass it which is what makes it so dumb, pointless, and a waste of time and money. I knew last Wednesday my score was in the mail. The Dean's office gets the scores a few days before I do via computer, and I know they would call me in a New York minute if I had failed. So at least I had some good news today.

That's about it.