April Showers Full of Blessings

Echoing my post from November, we have a lot to be thankful for and what a better month to bring in all the blessings than the month known for it's showers, April! --Perhaps the recent Omaha rain storms have gotten to me a bit! Nonetheless, we feel very blessed.

For starters, Dan has decided to specialize in Radiation Oncology. This past year of medical school for Dan has been a rocky one filled with highs and lows. He started out with a rotation in Gynecology. He enjoyed delivering babies, especially those who came via cesarean section, but conducting female exams just wasn't his cup of tea. Pediatrics was just pure fun. Dan came home the first day of his rotation as happy as a kid in a candy store. All he wanted to do was play with the kiddos. I thought Dan had found what he wanted to do, but Dan knew better. Deep down inside he knew he loved kids too much to be serious with them. It tore him up that they were sick and he couldn't make them better fast enough.

Dan really enjoyed how relaxed his psychiatry rotation was, but he knew from the get go, it was not for him. After Christmas break, surgery started. I don't think we saw each other more than an hour a day. He was up at 4:45am and didn't get home until 7 or 8pm some nights. It was very tiring, but Dan loved it. The lifestyle just isn't for us. The little taste of surgery was enough to turn us off. The first half of Family Med was great; however, the second half was a drag. Dan was able to solidify the fact that he loves clinic and procedures, which is what Radiation Oncology offers--the best of both worlds. This last rotation, Internal Med, has started off on a good foot.

  Dan has also been accepted into the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and The Nebraska Medical Center for two month externships. We are still waiting to hear from Colorado and Utah. Our hope is that Dan will be able to get some great experience at these places and hopefully get an interview for residency followed by spot in their residency programs. We're so excited for these opportunities!

I received a job offer from The Nebraska Medical Center. I will be working as a nurse on a med surg floor taking care of patients after coming out of surgery. I did my preceptorship on the particular floor I was hired on. A lot of our patient population consists of hernia repairs, gastric bypass, acute pancreatitis, etc. We also take care of patients on telemetry. It doesn't matter what the patient has, we take care of them. It's a great floor to start out on. I really would like to get a foundation of knowledge and later specialize, but first I need to develop my critical thinking. I'm excited to learn!