Third time's a charm, baby?

It's my third night on call. I just came back from a delivery. What a smelly baby! She was covered in some smelly meconium (baby poop that's black and tarry, which is normal)... not a huge fan of meconium, by the way. She also had bilateral palmar creases, wide set nipples and syndactly (some fused toes). I hope she doesn't have any underlying syndrome to explain her anatomical findings. The parents were Spanish speaking only, so I had to explain to them "este problema con sus pies." I hope I did ok... there were no interpreters around at 12:30 in the morning.

So this week is also my first experience in having medical students, which is scary because I feel like I'm not capable of teaching them anything since I don't know much. They're SUPER helpful though, and I didn't realize how helpful med students are until you are on the other side. Plus they konw more about the Emory system than I do (how to check for radiology reports, where the films are actuallly located). Although one of the students kinda scared me today. Apparently during afternoon rounds, one of them asked the attending about "female circumcision" of newborns. I can't believe someone would actually ask an attending about this. My colleague told me that the attending's response was something like, "We..... don't... do.... those. They're.... ILLEGAL."

The reason I wasn't at rounds this afternoon is because I was taking an in-service exam... to check my baseline knowledge of pediatrics. It doesn't "count for anything." I would argue for the contrary. There a lot of potential fo rme to embarrass my alma mater quite badly. The exam was 200 questions and took me about 3 hours. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but that doesn't mean that I aced it. I was joking around with Bheru before the exam that I was going to ace it... that I was going to get every question right. Doing that reminded me of something Chirag Parghi would say before an exam to ease the tension :) Miss you Chirag! Oh, and here's a shout out to Chirag and Anu... I got an email from one of my co-interns who regretfully wrote that he wouldn't be able to attend my birthday festivities. And he addressed me as "Devo"!! I thought that was awesome. I still haven't told my co-interns about my blog. Maybe I'll do that soon :) Poor Camden didn't make the exam today cuz he misplaced his male purse and his keys. I hope they'll let him take it tomorrow...

Other thoughts... I hope my attending doesn't think I'm a moron.