Long Island Jewish

Three weeks ago I started my seventh (out of eight!) clinical rotation at Long Island Jewish Medical Center!  Recap: one, two, three, four, five, six.  I am doing a general rotation (I am done with all of my specialty rotations like pediatrics, trauma, OB, etc) which means now I just need to focus on getting enough cases (in total - we need 550 cases to graduate, and in specific categories like extremity surgery - we need to do 50 of these before graduating).  LIJ is a great clinical site because there are no anesthesia residents there (no doctors in training to be anesthesiologists) and there is only one other SRNA so there isn't too much competition for cases.  This means that if there is a cool case or a case I need for my numbers I have a pretty good chance of getting it!  The downside to LIJ is that there is no easy way to get there from my apartment...

LIJ (the "B" label) is really less than 15 miles from my apartment (the "A" label) but, as you can see, there is no direct route.  It takes me about 30 minutes to drive there in the morning and then anywhere from one to two hours to drive home, depending on traffic.  Also when I rented a car for Westchester I was sharing it with another Columbia SRNA and when I needed a car for Danbury I borrowed one from Dad and Julie.  I am the only Columbia SRNA at this site which means I was shelling out about $400 a week to rent a ZipCar Tuesday - Friday.  I did the math and realized that was ridiculous.  Since I was planning to start a car search for after graduation soon anyway I (when I say "I" I mean "Dad" - thanks for all of your help finding the car Dad!) just sped up the process a bit and I am happy to report that I am now the proud owner of a Subaru Outback!

I am loving it! One step closer to graduating an living in the real world!  PS: please disregard my glasses in the ID picture - no, I do not suddenly require glasses.  Many of our clinical sites require us to wear eye protection in the operating room.  I find that the disposable ones they provide are both too big for my face and tend to fog up when I tuck them into my mask (too keep them from falling down) so I decided to go the stylish route and just buy regular glasses and leave the plastic display lenses in! Problem solved!  They pulled me out of the OR to take this picture and it was easier to just leave the gasses on then go through explaining why I was wearing them...