What Internship Looks Like XXXII: Iron Guts

Sometimes internship looks like dressing up for team-theme days. Around Fourth of July many of us defaulted to red-white-and-blue. It's common for the color teams to dress in their name sake (check out silver bow ties on the Platinum team!). One week the medical students and interns dressed in the skinny jeans and cardigan of the senior resident, who donned the blue button-up shirt and long white coat of the attending physician. This week the Neurology team paid homage to the current attending's predilection for ordering iron studies on all his patients by dressing up like "iron." I wore grey slacks, a brown shirt, and this red-orange-yellow tie-die scarf to represent the gastritis that can be caused by taking iron supplements on an empty stomach. This is me being inordinately pleased at our cleverness.

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Going to CH_RCH in Pittsburgh

As I mentioned in a previous blog post about going to church here in Pittsburgh, Dear Husband and I are "church shopping" until he gets a permanent position. One Sunday while driving home after worship, we tried to name all the places of worship we have visited so far. The following two exchanges took place:

DH: [Counting on his fingers.] Redeemer and Memorial...
FrDrDr: [Driving.] Cavalry!
DH: No, that one's out in the suburbs--
FrDrDr: Where they have room for the horses--
DH: And laxer gun laws.
FrDrDr: Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew!



[A short while later.]
FrDrDr: I haven't been to the UUU church.
DH: The UUU church?
FrDrDr: I mean the UU church.
DH: That's because it was missing "U."



Over lunch we sat down and mapped them all out. Click on a blue marker to find the name of the congregation and the arrow to close the sidebar.



The photograph above is of one of the several stunning stained-glass windows at Northmont Presbyterian Church (the blue marker on Rte. 19 in the northwest corner of the map). Unfortunately, I have since forgotten the name of the local, 20th-century artist, and the church has taken down the history of the windows from its new, modernized website. This one illustrates John the Baptist's baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. Its colors were even more gorgeous in daylight. I also wish I could share with you my pic of the stained glass window in the UCC church downtown (click above the b in "Pittsburgh") depicting President Abraham Lincoln's visit to the city, but it got corrupted in my phone. Needless to say, our peripatetic Sunday mornings have allowed us to ogle all manner of church decorations, from stained glass windows to painted domes, and from Advent calendars to wooden buttresses. I was particularly fond of the handmade quilts adorning the walls of the UU church (hiding in the central cluster of markers). The one to the left by Annie Stenton is called "Garden of Friends."

Here are other blog posts related to church in Pittsburgh: one about World(wide) Communion Sunday and one about Beulah Church and Cemetery.

What Internship Looks Like XXXI: a Menagerie

This week's night crew at the children's hospital decided to do an animal-themed potluck on Friday night. Each team was supposed to bring in food that represented their animal. My team also dressed up as our namesake.

Here was the menu:

Bunnies -- carrot and celery sticks with Ranch dip aka "rabbit food"

Frogs -- "lily pads" = chicken salad on lettuce leaves and "froggies" = mint chocolate chip cookies with green food coloring

Swine -- pork sausage pizza; there was a rumor about Spam, but I don't know if that ever happened.

Buffalo -- buffalo chicken pizza, of course

Dogs -- puppy chow and (to my dismay) Chinese food

There was lots of other food: cheesecake, chips and guacamole, yogurt cups and granola bars. Needless to say, none of the animals went hungry. And a 7-year-old patient complimented me on my bunny ears, which I will wear again in clinic around Easter.


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What Internship Looks Like XXX: Early Mornings (aka Hospital Vistas 3)

Sometime internship looks like watching the sun rise over the Allegheny River while reading a book in a comfy chair in the hospital library in between morning sign outs. Even when the night shift is so busy that I don't have time to read, I like the quiet of the hospital at night. Someone has to take care of these patients around the clock, and it might as well be me. These peaceful moments are extra sweet.

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What Internship Looks Like XXIX: Saturday Morning Cereal

Night team at the children's hospital decided this week's Friday potluck would be childhood favorites. We had mac n cheese, apple pie, popcorn, and all the junk food our parents wouldn't let us eat: Fruit Roll Ups, Gushers, Jello jigglers, Juicy Juices, Lil Debbie cakes, and store-bought cupcakes. At the end of a long shift, I enjoyed my bowl of Fruit Loops more than I thought I would, especially considering that I didn't particularly like them as a kid. (Dear Husband didn't mind that I brought home the leftovers, as he sometimes gets through the month of February with kids' cereal.) The only thing missing was Saturday morning cartoons. For laughs, night team watched _Twilight_ instead.

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What Internship Looks Like XXVIII: Midnight Snacks

Sometimes happiness is peanut butter-stuffed pretzels and the time to eat them on night shift.

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What Internship Looks Like XXVII: Bathrooms, Take 3

Occasionally internship looks like the inside of a bathroom: At last! a chance to get off my feet, not have to field questions I can't answer, and check Facebook.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I have a minor fascination with technology (exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C). Exhibit D: This is a photograph of the lock mechanism from the inside of the folding wooden door of the tiny, not-ADA-compliant closet of a bathroom in the staff locker room of the women's hospital. Rather than locking the door by fastening it to the door frame, the metal bar on the top swivels around the pivot and prevents the door from folding inward to open. The vertical metal bar at the bottom is the handle for pulling open the door once it has been unlocked.

For other posts about the weird and wonderful hospital bathroom technologies I have encountered see here and here.



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