The Jude and My Bottle of Champagne

I come to you this morning with Elmo songs in my head and Drew actually taking a morning nap for once. I am also fresh off of spending two weeks at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, also referred to as "The Jude" by those who work there. It was a great experience once I got used to things. It was definitely hard to get back into the routine of things after being off for a month, and it was my first time back on an inpatient service in a while, too. But I got to meet a lot of great doctors and nurses, as well as some brave little kids and parents. I couldn't imagine being a parent who has to take their child to St. Jude, a place they have probably only seen on TV and never really thought about except maybe donating some money at some point. It made me appreciate my healthy little boy at home and I still can't stop hugging him enough. It's amazing how much progress has been made just in the past 30 or 40 years though, so that over two thirds of all kids diagnosed with cancer are able to survive now, with success rates of over 90% for some types. Unfortunately though there are other types that still have woefully dismal survival rates. I think this is an area that I may be interested in working one day, because although it can be very hard dealing with kids this sick, I think that also makes me care and want to fight for them so much more.

I also have brag on myself a little about my last couple of days there. Our attending doctor this week had great teaching rounds and I really learned a lot from her. One of the things she did was have us play Jeopardy, with different categories and dollar amounts, and then we would have to answer a question regarding a type of cancer, chemo, or something similar. On Thursday we were playing and the category was Cancer Presentations, where she would describe some symptoms or findings and then we would have to answer what type of cancer it likely was. The $500 question came up, and she said that if anyone got this right they would win a bottle of champagne, because in the ten years that she had used this question no one had ever gotten it right. The question was what type of cancer can present with an abdominal mass, glomerulonephropathy(a type of kidney disease), and gonadal dysgenesis(ambiguous or hermaphroditic genitalia). The tumor was obviously Wilms' Tumor, a fairly common type of renal tumor in kids, but the hard part was the genetic disorder that the other findings are associated with. I had just done a presentation on Wilms' Tumor for the last attending the week before, and I happened to remember that the rare genetic disorder was Denys-Drash Syndrome. The doctor could not believe I knew it and actually came through with the bottle of champagne on Friday afternoon before I left. So that was pretty cool being known as the student who got this question right and got a bottle of champagne for the last couple of days.

Yesterday we took Drew to Covington to meet up with one of Katie's co-workers who takes pictures on the side so that we could get his picture made in some cotton fields up there. He wore his overalls with no shirt under and no shoes on, a true country boy. He wasn't the most smiling kid yesterday, but I think we got some pretty good ones all the same. He was able to say "cotton" pretty good and was able to pick some of it and run through the fields some. Then we went to the Covington town square and took some pictures with some bales of hay and pumpkins they had set up around there. We also went to the photographer's daughter's house, where they had bunny rabbits that Drew got to pet. There was also an old barn and tractor that we got some pictures with as well. On the way back home we stopped in Mason to eat at the Southern institution that is Bozo's BBQ. It's still like stepping into a diner from the 1940's. I remember going there as a kid and feeling like I was way out in the country and that it took forever to get there, and now I only live about ten minutes away from it.

The other exciting news this week is that I submitted my application to residency last Sunday night and interviews have been rolling in from all over the Southeast and Midwest this week. Katie and I have been like kids on Christmas morning waiting for them and getting excited when they come. We were emailing each other back and forth all week long at work with updates. I am applying for spots in programs with combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. Instead of doing either alone(both are 3 years), I will be doing a combined program of 2 years of each, for a total of 4 years and be board certified in both. Afterward I could apply for a fellowship in either a medicine or pediatrics sub-specialty, go into primary care, become a hospitalist, see only kids, see only adults, see both, or apply for a fellowship that combines medicine and pediatrics. It is known as Med-Peds in the medical world, and I think it will give me great training and a lot of options. I really respect the Med-Peds residents at UT and think they are pretty smart people. I love working with kids, but didn't want to give up working with adults either, so this will be a great mix and I am looking forward to it. More to come on all of this later!