Rotation III: PEIA Face-to-Face. Living the dream - stabbing thousands of government employees and ex-high school teachers with needles

I started rotation #3 on the first week of February. It was entitled: "Ambulatory Care - Diabetes: PEIA Face-to-Face."

It was in my home town of Parkersburg, WV. It's odd going back and living with the parents. They can't tell you what to do anymore, yet you still mooch off of them. It seems like everyone I knew in high school that didn't go the military route is in jail. There is this one case I feel bad about.

There was this little Asian kid, his big brother, Zac Thomas, used to live down the street from me. Me, Zac, and the kids from the block would always play sandlot baseball, hoops at the church down the street..you know, just hanging out as kids. Anyway, we never let his little brother play because we all thought he was this nerdy little awkward guy we didn't want around.

Flash to today, he was arrested last month with an entire double stall garage full of marijuana, fully automatic assault riffles, handguns, grenades, all sorts of shit. This kid turned into a badass, hardened drug dealer. (Just like me, actually...) I guess it turns out he became the local marijuana drug lord. And just think, if I would let him play baseball with us, maybe he'd be at MIT right now.

As for my actual rotation, I have no idea how good it was. I was only there 10/20 days. My preceptor actually took a week long vacation halfway through it. I only did diabetes counseling for 6 days. So 30% of my rotation involved doing what was advertised. The other days, she was either off or I had to drive up to Weirton, WV (about 1.5 hours from Mo'town both ways) every morning to do clinical workshops for a new Rite Aid they were building up there.

I'm not complaining though. I got lots of time off and I learned volumes more in the few days I was actually there than any my previous two rotations. I feel very, very good about diabetes management right now. This was the first rotation I've done where I feel it was worthwhile. It saddens me that I only got to do it for 6 days.

The great thing is that the program focused on PEIA patients (state employees). This means I got to stab all sorts of people I've wanted to stab my entire life with needles and lancets. DMV workers, ex-teachers (none of which remembered me..because I never went...), state cops, park rangers, you name it.

Compliance with the average Joe is depressing. I'm surprised many of these people remember to breath, let alone take their metformin.

I'm glad as hell I'm back in Mo'Town though. Parkersburg is boring as it gets. Especially in the winter. At least in the Summer I can get some pickup basketball games going at City Park.

Right now I'm doing a rotation in the ER at Ruby. It's been exciting and exhausting so far. We'll see where it takes me

And a new feature, I figure folks out in the academic world would like to see exactly what the preceptors look for when grading students. I'm going to post the comments they make about me every month, good and bad.

Rotation Comments Page, Rotation III:

Critical Comments:
Student would have more effective patient communication by slowing rate of speech both in formal presentations and on a one-on-one basis.

Positive Comments:
Student's knowledge of pathophysiology, pharmacology, and metabolic pathways is impressive - uses this knowledge to deduce possible physiological causes of patient complaints.