What Residency Looks Like CXVII: COVID fashion

Sometimes residency in the time of COVID looks like "business on the top" and "comfort underneath."

Exhibit A: Comfy solid tee with a statement necklace that will look good on Zoom/Team meetings, with shorts because the room with the plain background gets hot from the morning sun.

Exhibit B: Cover your comfy tee with a scarf, cargo pants on the bottom; very busy domestic background.

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What Residency Looks Like CXVI: Med Peds Picnic

What can I say? We're just so photogenic! Which makes it all the more a shame that the Graduate Medical Education office didn't post pictures of us in its online graduation announcement, although almost all the other residents and fellows had at least a head shot, if not a group pic. That may be because when they redesigned the Internal Medicine Residency Program website, they left off the fourth-year residents (!). It's not that *none* of the Med Peds residents were included, just that the *four* of us were nowhere to be found. One of the rising third-years mentioned it in a meeting earlier this month, and I emailed the IM Chiefs about it before we were even off the call, because, come on. Who wouldn't want to look at these mugs? And the class behind us is even more camera ready (they're matching-outfit adorable).

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What Residency Looks Like CXV: Accomplishments

Monday: 

Graduated from Internal Medicine Residency (no more shifts!). I dressed up for the live-stream, although no one could see me except in the selfie I posted on Facebook. Even Dear Husband was on a different Zoom meeting.

Earned a Certificate in Medical Education. Was "voted" most likely to give a history of medicine lesson on rounds. Sore that the foodie award went to someone who isn't even a Yelp Elite.

Friday: 

Took a knee against white supremacy, racism, and police brutality. Medical professionals around the city gathered at noon to reflect and kneel for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, but I was not on campus due to graduation. So I had my own one-woman protest on the busy street corner in scrubs, a white coat, a refurbished version of the "White Coats 4 Black Lives" poster that has lived in my rear car window since medical school. I didn't do it for likes on social media, so I didn't have Dear Husband come take pictures or video or anything. I did it for the white man who started crossing the street, turned around, and came back to ask what I was doing. I did it for the black city bus driver who honked and waved. I did it for the black woman who asked to take my picture. I learned that 8 minutes and 46 seconds is a long time to support my weight on one thigh, and that the pavement is very hard when the soft neck of a Black person isn't underneath.

Graduated from Pediatrics Residency (1 Emergency Department shift, 12 more hours of jeopardy, and 3 weeks of out-patient elective to go!). DH, my parents, and I gathered at my colleague's house for a graduation party. Since Allegheny County had moved to Green that very day and there were still fewer than 10 of us, we figured it was safe. I confess that sitting on a friend's couch to watch a pre-recorded ceremony with an adult beverage in your hand is absolutely a superior way to experience a graduation. Big surprise: I was awarded the American Academy of Pediatrics Med-Peds Resident Recognition Award for my advocacy work, and the program director read my poem, "In the Trenches."

Provided by-stander aid to an older gentleman who fell off his motorcycle due to a near-miss with a car. Good thing there was a house full of doctors on the corner, and good thing he didn't really need us!

The ambulance driver who came to pick up the biker was definitely
laughing at us as she drove down the street after the accident...

Saturday:

Repaired a closet shelf that had collapsed when we moved in and I tried to store too many boxes of books on it. (Credit: Father Man)

Acquired a blister from a lovely walk in Frick Park in inappropriate footwear.

BBQ shish-kabobs (Credit: Father Man, who wore his new "My Favorite Doctor Calls Me DAD" tshirt)

Games after dinner included the tallest-ever Tier auf Tier tower (Credit: DH). We also made up rules for Gluecksferkel, because the instructions were missing from the box (I acquired 3 German children's games for free back in grad school).

Sunday:

Adult Forum finished talking about Barbara Brown Taylor's Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others; Zoom church went off more or less without a hitch; and DH had very thoughtfully picked up Klondike bars with which to mark the start of "summer church" (we're still meeting at the same time, however, since we don't have to move to the cooler worship area at an earlier time due to the lack of AC).

Re-upholstering my rocking chair. It was 10 years old when we got it with the dining room table and chairs from another history graduate student; at that time I replaced the stained blue-and-white coverings with green-and-brown stripes. 10 years and 2 cats later, however, it was time to replace the fabric. Mother brought a beautiful dark blue cotton with light blue flowers that remind me of blueberries and Maine for the front and ottoman, which we paired with a sturdy light blue polyester for the back.

45-minute hike in North Park (Mother and I are wearing matching face masks that she sewed)

Successfully ordered burgers to go (it only took two tries in three days, as the first time we accidentally landed on the site for a burger joint 30 minutes out of town!); watched Top Gun; chilled

Monday:

Had second breakfast together and said our good-byes until...mid-August for family vacation?

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Snicker-Doodles

Tomorrow our county exits quarantine after 11 weeks. I figured this was a good time to take stock. I worked from home for 3 (4?) of those weeks and worked at the hospital or clinic for the rest. There still aren't that many patients, and neither Dear Husband nor I is ready to eat at a restaurant or even to take a walk without a face mask. We've spent so long disciplining ourselves (and others, in our minds) that I wonder what kind of culture shock it will be when the stay-at-home orders lift and we stumble outside in the heat of summer. Since we returned from our Spring Break trip to Los Angeles and Santa Monica--perhaps with mild cases of COVID-19?--the following things have happened:

Goods baked:
Raspberry scones
Chocolate chip cookies
Snickerdoodles
Blackberry oatmeal coffee cake
Peanut butter banana bread
Chocolate chip banana bread
Mixed berry pie x2
Cherry pie
Strawberry pie x3

I baked the snickerdoodles according to a recipe from family friend S.H., my Brownie Troop leader. It was a gift at my bridal shower in 2005, at the very end of the era of recipes written down on paper or cut out of newspapers or magazines. Nowadays you can search the internet for any combination of ingredients you want (or have on hand), but there's something heartwarmingly personal about a note at the end about liking soft "snicks" better than crunchy ones.

1. Mix 1 cup shortening, 1 1/2 cups of sugar, and 2 eggs.
2. Separately blend 2 3/4 cups flour, 2 tsp cream of tartar (purchased especially for this occasion), 1 tsp of baking soda, and 1/2 tsp of salt.
3. Mix everything together.
4. Roll into 1" balls, and then roll on a plate with 2 tbsp sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon.
5. Place 2" apart on an ungreased sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 F.

"They puff, then flatten. (Makes 6 doz.)," she wrote. They certainly do puff, but my idea of 1" must have been generous, because I only got 48 cookies!

Settlers of Catan: Created a character for myself, grew wheat, mined ore, and traded brick up to Level 20! I am now a Master of Catan. I was "Lord of Catan" among my friends here when quarantine started, but I forfeited my kingdom by choosing to stay home and nurse the rest of my illness instead of defending my title when the rest of them gathered for one last round before stay-at-home orders went into effect. We plan to renew the conquest tomorrow during our graduation celebration, now that the county is entering the Green Zone.


Movies watched:
Contagion (2011)
War Games (1983)
Cast Away (2000)
Jaws (1975)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
The Shining (1980)
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)
Knives Out (2019)
Godzilla (1954)
Snakes on a Plane (2006)
The Towering Inferno (1974)

The very last weekend I had a 24-hour shift (last ever!) that obliterated the weekend. A friend form church H.G. who enjoys theater invited us to a Zoom "staging" of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice over two days. Unfortunately, we only got to watch the first half, because by the time we could get back to it, Pittsburgh Public Theater had taken down the recording of the live feed in preparation for the next week's offering. I'm trying to temper my disappointment by remembering that they will put the money we donated for "tickets" toward keeping their lights on and actors employed until we have passed into whatever comes after the Green Zone, when live performances will again be allowed.

Until then, stay safe. What hobbies or skills did you find during your quarantine? And how much longer will you have to stay at home?

What Residency Looks Like XCIV: Lesson on Friendship

Sometimes residency during COVID looks like snuggling up with the kitty, your notebook, and a lecture on social outcomes for kids with severe and/or chronic medical stressors like cancer or sickle cell disease. She got lots of scratches, accidentally knocked me out of the meeting once, and then fell fast asleep.

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What Residency Looks Like XCIII: Back porch oasis

Sometimes residency looks like studying for board exams in a lounge chair on your back porch. The "garden" bed is a riot of green weeds and Queen Anne's Lace that I don't see a need to do anything about because it thrives so wondrously without me. Above me hang the wind chimes: a piano keyboard from Aunt B., a copper spinner from Uncle M. and Aunt C., and a tubular chime left by the prior occupants.

Summer 2020 was supposed to be a mix of hot sunny days as a healthcare volunteer at Camp CAMP down in Central Texas; a week that would go by too quickly with my family at Smith Mountain Lake; and studying. Probably we would have squeezed in at least one trip to Cincinnati for Fourth of July or birthdays. But CAMP has been shuttered for the summer, and the rental house canceled our reservations, so we're left with the calculus between how many hours a day I can effectively study...and when we will feel ready to travel.

By this point we are Zoom pros and proud of our custom backgrounds, so if you haven't seen our faces for too long and want to, please reach out to set up a session! You'll know where to find me with my textbooks and practice questions...

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What Residency Looks Like XCII: Caricatures

"He's gorgeous," I say to a first-time mom.

"I bet you say that to all the parents," she replies, wryly.

"I do, but it's also true," I admit.

"I agree with her," says the OB, who is fixing a tear. "They're all so stinking cute!"


COVID-19 has upended the end of residency, which was supposed to consist of a couple weeks of night shifts and inpatient pediatrics interspersed with electives and history of medicine conferences. Instead, for the last 6 weeks, I have either been quarantined at home for my protection or else working at the women's hospital, attending high-risk births as the pediatrician who checks out the newborn baby. For this reason, my life hasn't been all that terribly different under COVID. When I'm home, I keep myself busy writing and studying (and tuning in to live-streamed lectures), and when I'm at work, the women's hospital functions much like it always has, since people still have babies in the middle of a pandemic. We are not entirely sure why adults _seem to be_ having fewer heart attacks and strokes than before, but some awestruck relatives will still take flash photographs while you resuscitate a blue baby...

I am not a fan of the long hours and the uncertain schedule (example: 5 hours of waiting, followed by 5 babies born within 30 minutes). But I do like being a cheerleader for new parents, reassuring them that their babies are cute despite the blood, meconium, cranial molding or swelling, extra digits, and/or weird swelling in the groin that is either a hernia or a lipoma but either way is really just cosmetic, and General Surgery can take it off when the baby is old enough for anesthesia in a couple of months. I enjoy announcing the baby's weight, since everyone has a guess (and sometimes money riding on it). And I particularly like introducing babies to their fathers. Although I have a good relationship with my own father, I think it's a cultural thing I have unfortunately absorbed that suggests it's unusual for dads to be emotionally invested in their children. Which may be why the video of Anderson Cooper choking up while announcing the birth of his son, Wyatt, got me right in the feels this week.

Anyway, I had already completed this required rotation a year and a half ago and wasn't expected to be back, which is why there was no head shot to go on the whiteboard for tracking which procedures we had done. So I drew my own "COVID portrait," hospital-issued paper mask and all. But I had to "break quarantine" to document it: the blur in the bottom left corner is the edge of the plastic bag around my cellphone. It's not very environmentally friendly, but I've been using one a day to reduce the burden of germs on my phone. When I get home from the hospital I remove the bag and clean my phone with an alcohol wipe. Then it just has "home germs" on it.

Next week we will resume something that approximates our "normal" schedules, although patient volumes are expected to remain low, and some visits will take place via video chat rather than in person. It is all so similar, yet different, a caricature of what used to be.

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