Medicine Sub-I, Day 11: The 'Rule-Out'

Today the team was inundated with patients that were admitted for chest pain. Most of time, chest pain doesn't mean much - a muscle pull, maybe chostochondritis, perhaps they merely forgot that somebody kicked them in the sternum when they were passed out drunk on the pub floor. However, because you never want to miss someone having a heart attack, most people with chest pain are admitted to the hospital for observation - "Rule Out M.I.¹". These admissions are quite annoying - they hardly ever amount to anything, we just sit there waiting for a bunch of blood tests to come back, we spend at least an hour working on the admission, then several hours later, we spend another hour working on the discharge paperwork. Of course, it'd be even more annoying if an M.I. were ever 'ruled-in.'

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I'm trying to schedule interviews during the spare minutes I have during the day. I literally have so little time to accomplish so much in the next couple months. It'd be nice if I could group all my Pittsburgh interviews together, then my Chicago interviews another week, and my Ohio interviews another week. But no, it's not going to be that easy, of course. I'm going to be spending quite a bit of moolah on plane tickets and hotel rooms, and lots of time missed from school. That's not going to go over so well.



¹ myocardial infarction