random

I know it's been a while since I've written. I guess I've been busy enjoying my vacation. Heading to Colorado tomorrow to visit Ry Ry - my old roommate and one of my best friends. Can't wait. I spent this evening sitting around playing games with my family - being loud and laughing - A LOT. The way it's supposed to be. I love how even though I'm gone most of the year - that never changes. I come home and I'm exactly that - home, where everything seems to fit just so, even though we're all growing and changing, so much is still the same.

So here's a post I've been meaning to write for a while and just didn't get around to it. This is about our last week in clinical skills and I was talking with my fam about some of this tonight. Well - we were talking about being a standardized patient and getting pap smears. We heard these patients get paid $1000 / day.

Let me back up and explain. During clinical skills week, one of the skills we practice is giving a female pelvic exam. We have standardized patients that are paid to do this for us. They are supposed to help guide us through this along with a doctor who is also there to guide us through. We don't actually perform a pap smear, but we do the speculum and bi-manual exam (where you insert 2 fingers into the vagina and use your other hand on the abdomen to feel for the uterus and ovaries)

First I must say that I feel at an advantage being a woman and having experienced a pelvic exam before. Naturally, I think most of the guys in my class are much more nervous about the entire process. The best story I have out of this experience was one of my guy friends who has rather large hands. He walks in and shakes the patient's hand and she says - Oh my gosh, you have huge fingers! He chuckles and tells her that he'll be gentle. The exam proceeds, but when the bi-manual exam rolls around the patient requests that he only use one finger instead of the standard two!