Recent content by srlondon

At UConn, the residents can fly on an elective basis, but are not scheduled for regular shifts. QUOTE=jf]At my interview at UCONN, I was told that the residents often fly with lifestar, unlike what a previous poster said.

To paraphrase Lt. Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall's character) in "Apocalypse Now", there's nothing quite like the raunchy, rotten smell of the anaerobic pus in a pilonidal abcess that's ready to be drained bright and early in the morning. Nothing ordinarily gets to me, but one time after getting...

EM and Radiology are really quite different. Before you even start thinking about the PROs and CONs, you need to decide whether you want to primarily be a clinician or not. If you don't want to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty on a daily basis, you are not going to like EM. There...

Good advice from the spiritual standpoint, but don't forget that the reason that there are often openings in July is that somebody on staff is leaving a hole on the schedule that the boss is eager to fill. If he/she can chose between a guy who's going to leave them short staffed over what can be...

I wouldn't count on the ability to do a double residency, as medicare is starting to make it tougher for programs to get funding for a resident who is doing his/her second residency. The trend is definitely towards Peds EM boarded people (either peds + PEM fellowship or EM + PEM fellowship)...

Many things: No call (don't get bugged at home... a big deal now that I've done home call as a resident and learned how painful it is) Plenty of time off and the flexibility to do fun stuff with it (hobbies, travelling, actually getting to see your family) Predicable schedule...

Two applications with the same grades are not equivalent. A lot of weight is placed on the actual comments in your letters as well as the summary evaluations for each rotation. Mediocre comments with a good grade can still sink you. Also, your mileage may vary in the applications process...

Emergency medicine is the newest recognized specialty in medicine. With the advent of each specialty and sub-specialty there was a transition period when there were people who were grandfathered into specialty who were allowed to continue their practice. The birth of each board specialty...

The idea others have mentioned about taking the review course is an interesting idea. I'd also agree that failing step 1 and being a lackluster performer in your clinical rotations would be the worst scenario--you need to do what you have to do at this point to regain your footing. Repeating...

Second looks are not by any means "required" to match at your top choice. However, if you really want to make a good impression at a place you liked or to try to help your case, a second look is a good idea. Put it this way... if there are two relatively similar candidates, both interviewed two...

First off, sorry you're going through such a tough time. I would like to congratulate you on having the nerve to stick with your residency, which is tough enough when you aren't dealing with stormy weather at home. Leaving residency would be a poor career choice at this point. In addition...

Pick one and stick with it indeed. But as JF correctly points out above, lido is cheaper, more readily available (in every crash cart I've ever encountered), and has an equivalent survival-to-discharge compared to amiodarone in all data I've seen. As far as dosing goes, good point re...

Or, as The Fat Man says in the House of God (excellent book...should be required reading in med school), we practice on the GOMERs so that when somebody comes in who we might actually "save", we'll know how and know what to do with them.

It has some interesting possibilities for helping you re-adjust post nights when you're trying to re-adjust for days but are still inclined to sleep all day and stay up the night before work. In the lower effective doses, it seems to be pretty "clean". My own feeling is that barring the...

They come to the ED because they want the pill we have which will make all their problems go away and look twenty years younger in a single dose. We, of course, all hold it back from them and keep it for ourselves because we're all just a bunch of jerks. : )