You Know You're a Med Wife When...

...you know a shocking amount of information about Lyme Disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and the Plague.

Here's a pic of a happy sunflower instead of the plague.  You're welcome!

Studoc is swamped studying for his finals which are today, tomorrow, and Friday.  I have been quizzing him with flashcards on tons of drugs....their method of action, what they're used for, and their toxicities.  Many of them have names that look like a bunch of consonants strung together in random fashion.    

Another thing that helps Studoc study is when I let him talk at me.  As in, he stands up and talks at me about the material in teacher-student fashion because it helps him remember the material and sort it out.  I sit and try to appear interested (college made me super good at this) but really I'm just trying to keep my eyes open because I don't understand a word.  Little does he know the whole time I look intrigued I'm just thinking, "Wow, it's so amazing to have him home tonight.  Even if he's studying and saying all this gobble-di-gook at me...so great to have him home..."  Occasionally, he'll say something I understand, and I'll say "Hey!  I've heard of that!"  But that's about it.  Pretty rare, truth be told.


So, lately I've listened to a tidal wave of information about crazy diseases and viruses....which isn't good considering I'm pretty much a hypochondriac.

Studoc:  "These are the signs and symptoms of blibbidy-blob disease...."
Me:  "I feel tired a lot and get upset stomach and more stuff just like you said.  Do I have that disease?"
Studoc:  "No."
Me:  (reaching for laptop to confirm on all-knowing Wikipedia that I don't have said disease)
Studoc:  "Don't look it up!  It'll just freak you out more.  I promise you don't have blibbidy-blob disease."
Me:  (sigh)  "Oh, alright."

I guess for now I'll just have to trust that I don't have the Plague. :)  But dude, hearing about all this freaky stuff makes me want to scrub my whole apartment down with bleach, never touch any animals, and basically live in a bubble.

P.S.  I'm from So. Cal.  I'm allowed to say dude. :)

Specialty Aptitude Test

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I saw this medical school aptitude test on a couple of other med wife blogs, and thought I'd have my husband take the test.  Copying the blogs I read, I'm bolding the specialties Studoc finds interesting.  Once 3rd and 4th year rotations (test-driving many specialties for several weeks) come around, I'm sure he'll have a clearer picture of what he'd like to go into.

So just for fun, here are his result rankings (and sorry about it being super spaced out...it looked fine when I copied and pasted the scores from the website but it reformatted when I published this post and I'm too lazy to try to fix it...let's just say it's reeeeeeally easy to read now! :)

Rank	Specialty	Score
1	pediatrics	42
2	gastroenterology	42
3	dermatology	42
4	radiation oncology	42
5	anesthesiology	41
6	hematology	41
7	nephrology	41
8	radiology	41
9	thoracic surgery	40
10	aerospace med	40
11	nuclear med	40
12	med oncology	40
13	rheumatology	40
14	emergency med	40
15	ophthalmology	39
16	obstetrics/gynecology	39
17	urology	39
18	plastic surgery	38
19	occupational med	38
20	general internal med	38
21	pulmonology	38
22	infectious disease	37
23	neurosurgery	37
24	colon & rectal surgery	37
25	preventive med	37
26	general surgery	37
27	psychiatry	36
28	physical med & rehabilitation	36
29	orthopaedic surgery	36
30	endocrinology	35
31	cardiology	35
32	allergy & immunology	34
33	pathology	34
34	otolaryngology	34
35	neurology	34
36	family practice	33

I had to Google the specialties I was curious about, because I honestly don't know what half of these are!

And for even MORE fun, I took the test for him and answered the questions according to how I view his personality and where his talents lean.  Here are my/his results (again, with bolding what he's kind of interested in):

Rank	Specialty	Score
1	occupational med	45
2	ophthalmology	45
3	anesthesiology	45
4	dermatology	44
5	rheumatology	44
6	pediatrics	44
7	physical med & rehabilitation	43
8	nephrology	42
9	hematology	42
10	radiation oncology	42
11	colon & rectal surgery	41
12	thoracic surgery	41
13	radiology	41
14	general surgery	40
15	plastic surgery	40
16	otolaryngology	40
17	infectious disease	40
18	gastroenterology	40
19	emergency med	40
20	pathology	39
21	nuclear med	39
22	urology	39
23	obstetrics/gynecology	38
24	endocrinology	38
25	med oncology	38
26	pulmonology	38
27	general internal med	38
28	allergy & immunology	37
29	neurology	37
30	neurosurgery	37
31	aerospace med	37
32	psychiatry	36
33	preventive med	36
34	orthopaedic surgery	36
35	cardiology	34
36	family practice	30

Interesting, huh?  Like I said, we'll have a clearer picture once we're farther into this game, but it's pretty interesting to see how our test results vary.  Apparently, I view him differently than he views himself.  Or we are very different test-takers.  Or both.

Here's the link to the free test in case you want your med student to take it, or if you want to take it for someone for fun, or if you have nothing to do with the medicine world but would like to know what specialty you'd be best at in an alternate universe!

*Does anyone know anything good or bad about any of these specialties and want to share so I can be educated by more than Wikipedia? :)