The Mystery of Rotation 8

Well, ladies and gentlemen...the mystery of my rotation 8 has been solved.

Initially, it was to be dermatology with in McMinnville...but alas, I will now be doing family practice (for the 3rd time) in...Rapid City, South Dakota! Now, I completely expected to be sent somewhere random, so I am really just happy that it is a drive-able distance (18 hours). Secondly, I am happy that it is family practice. Not that I don't hate the monotony of viral URI's and back pain like the rest of you, but this practice apparently has a lot of peds, which I REALLY need. I am still afraid of the little aliens and their strange childhood diseases. Plus, if I can't get a derm rotation, family practice is as close as I can get to it.

Life otherwise is so-so. The clinical year is starting to feel like one long business trip and I'm ready to come home. I've been living away from Portland since the first week of November, and won't return until mid-May (except for one week at the end of March for PPS week). Not only that, but by mid-May CJ will have likely MOVED as he is applying for a job in Bend that we are optimistic about. Yay for the job, boo for never seeing the love of my life.

It is a little weird only having 3 weeks left in Coeur d'Alene...I've been here so long that I actually feel like I put some roots down. I've met great people...people who blindly welcomed me into their social circles and let me call them friends. This has been one of the most hospitable places I've been, which I didn't necessarily expect given CDA's reputation. It's also been the largest city I traveled to (even though it isn't nearly as big as I thought it would be), which was an interesting change. I find myself strangely excited to be heading to Brewster, a tiny town in the orchards of north-central Washington. I think I'm really a rural girl at heart.

So, that's really it. The travels continue.

Oh, and I can't remember if I wrote about the woman on whom my preceptor let me order a brain MRI...but my hunch was wrong and it came back normal. Glad she doesn't have a tumor....sad I have yet to develop that clinical intuition.

Jen