Derm-a-derm-derm

Only the second day since I've started a blog, and it's my second post already! This is because I am currently on derm, the happiest specialty in medicine. Everyone in derm is happy. So happy. They tell me this repeatedly, while drinking tea and eating biscuits between patients. "Connie," says derm surgeon 1, "I'm soooo happy. I love being a dermatologist! Being a dermatologist is tops!"

Derm surgeon 2 passes in the corridor and says, "Choosing to do dermatology was the best choice I ever made in my life. Ooh, silly putty."

I should point out he had just found some silly putty in his bag, and that this is not sophisticated medical code for anything.

We all drink tea and play with the silly putty. I have a hard time imagining this happening on ITU.

Derm surgeon 2: "Do you want to become a dermatologist, Connie?"
Me: "Well, I was thinking of derm. Or ophtho."
Derm surgeon1: "Those are fantastic choices! Who advised you?"
Me: "No one advised me. Everyone on derm just seems so happy. And ophtho too."
Derm surgeon 1: "We're sooo happy!"
Derm surgeon 2: "Awesome, a yogurt nut bar!"

I should point out that he had just found a yogurt nut bar in his bag and that was not sophisticated medical code for anything either.

Anyway, it's true, everyone on derm is super happy. I mean, I'm not saying other specialists aren't happy. But they aren't so happy that they walk around smiling and saying, "I'm sooo happy!" to random medical students all the time. Can you imagine the GI consultants walking around saying, "seriously, choosing to specialise in the lower colon was the best choice I ever made in my life"? Being on derm is like being in Guatemala all the time! It's a state of mind.

So, I've been spending my mornings and some afternoons in derm surgery, which is awesome fun. The first morning, I got to practice all my sutures on a terribly realistic fake arm in the derm office (read: a cardboard box filled with cotton wool and covered with a bit of canvas stapled to it), and the next morning, I got to suture a face, and then an ear. It was amazing. I did a blanket stitch, which looks like this:

http://www.residentnet.com/locking.htm

Turns out derm is perfect because I have a terribly short attention span. Example 1: I started making a rice pudding this afternoon and got bored about 15 minutes in.Sadly I had already committed myself to making this rice pudding and was at the stage of no return, so had to stand there sadly stirring it (it was a stove-top rice pudding) for another 30 minutes before it was ready. Man, that was sad. I do not want that to be an allegory for my career.

Then this morning I went to paeds derm clinic, which was lovely. I got to meet up with my favourite derm doctor, and see a series of extremely cute babies. And one of the mums demonstrated to me how those crazy stretchy baby carriers work. You know - these ones -

http://www.babycarrier.org.uk/the-kari-me-stretchy-wrap/

It was awesome. She showed me all the different ways you can carry a baby in it, with her baby! Who was 3 months old and a peach. She didn't mind being shoved around in the carrier at all. Her two set expressions were happy, and slightly surprised, but still happy. I love babies. I remember being in breast clinic in year 4 and being lectured to by my favourite breast surgeon, when one of the nurses popped her head round the door and asked if one of us was free to hold a baby for a bit while the mum got examined. I moved so fast I was a blur. I didn't even think about it. When I came back, slightly sheepishly, my favourite breast surgeon looked at me indulgently and said, "it's all right Connie. I'll try not to feel offended that a baby was more interesting than my little talk about breast seromas."

To be fair, breast seromas are....not....the most exciting part of breast surgery.

But here is a handy link in case you wanted to find out more about them! http://www.twinkletwinkles.com/2006/05/seroma-after-mastectomy-what-is-seroma.html

So, recap. Derm clinic. Lots of babies. I was in heaven. Also, I had a social epiphany. You know when you realise that everyone does something that you thought only you did? Today I realised that doctors all have an "alternative medicine" face. It's the face you put on when you're trying really hard not to make a face. If any of you have read the Dirk Gently books, it's like that bit when he introduces himself to someone as a private detective, and she pauses, and he asks why, and she says, "I'm just trying to work out if there's something everyone says to a private detective, and trying not to say that," and he says, "oh, no, what everyone does is just look incredibly shifty for a bit, and you did that."

I'd never realised I was even making a not-making-a-face face at all until today when I was caught off-guard during a discussion about eczema by one of the parents mentioning her baby was on a homeopathic MMR detox. After some seconds I realised I was staring into the middle distance, totally expressionlessly. I hastily rearranged my eyebrows (into Interested: intrigued: polite). Then I started seeing it everywhere. It's the careful neutral face. It's the face a lot of doctors make when a patient starts with, "so I was reading on the internet the other day..." It's the face my driving instructor makes at me when I use the handbrake rather than the footbrake in a panic. Actually he does that face almost all the time when he is in the car with me. I don't know how to interpret that.