So much has changed even since the last time that I wrote to you all. I officially moved to St. Louis and completed my first rotation at SLUH (St. Louis University Hospital). We have visited several churches and are making progress towards St. Louis feeling more like home.
I was very blessed to attend the American Academy of Family Physicians National Conference in Kansas City, MO, a couple of weeks ago. My time there was super refreshing and a huge motivator as we approach this interview season for residencies. There are speakers and social events, but the main focus of the conference for students is the "Expo Hall." There are roughly 300 residency programs from all over the country that set up booths. The booths have lots of information about the program and the area, but most helpful is the residents and faculty that stand at the booths to interact with students. I spent a lot of time with each of the three programs in St. Louis. They were all very nice and I think I have some really great choices in this area. I will apply a bit wider as well, going back to Tennessee for a couple of programs and maybe a few others. I am excited about what God holds for the next season.
I have been busy the past three weeks with a rotation in Otolaryngology, or Ear, Nose, and Throat. Even though that is not what I want to go into for a specialty, I learned a ton about the patients and pathology in the field. A lot of outpatient family medicine will focus on dealing with problems of the ear, nose, and throat, and it was a wonderful opportunity to hear what the specialists have to say about the problems. I learned a lot about when to refer patients and what strategies to try in my clinic first to save the patient and the specialist time. Handy information.
I am about to embark on a very different sort of adventure as well. I am going to Serbia for a week with several members of my church family in Memphis. We are helping facilitate a camp for families whose children have been diagnosed with cancer. We are excited about the opportunity to provide a fun and supportive environment for these families. My part will be mostly working with the children of the families to facilitate activities and conversations. While the foundation of the trip is mission work it will be much more about showing the love of God to these families rather than a lot of out right preaching. My team and I crave your prayers for this week of fun and service. While it is a crazy time for me to leave the country, after praying a lot about it, I decided if I didn't take time my fourth year of medical school to do this... the trajectory of incorporating mission work down the line is not good. I am very excited about this opportunity and will keep you all posted.
Finally, it has been almost a year since my surgery! Crazy! I will actually be in Serbia to celebrate my first "Heart-iversary" (Garrett loathes that term). What an amazing picture of God's provision for my life than celebrating this way. I can't imagine a better celebration than giving hope and joy to kiddos with medical struggles. :)
Next up for us is application season for residency! My classmates and I are preparing our applications to send out in the next couple of months. Then there will be (Lord willing) interviews, ranking, and then match! Super crazy that it's almost all here.
Garrett survived his ICU month and continues to be busy at the hospital of course. He is actually on a calmer month right now working with the pulmonology (lung) consult service. Next month he will be working with inpatients with cancer and then regular "internal medicine wards" for the foreseeable future after that.
Come to think of it...I don't know if I ever explained the medical training pathway which I didn't actually understand until probably last year. It can be helpful if you know someone going into medicine or if you are ever a patient at a teaching hospital. So for those of you who are non-medical outside of Grey's Anatomy or Scrubs (real life is much much much more like Scrubs)...I will quickly outline the training process for clarification:
Step 1: Undergraduate degree (4 years - mine at ACU)
Step 2: Medical School (4 years - I am here. At then end, you get your M.D.)
Step 3: Residency (between 3-7 years depending on speciality. At then end, you take more exams for your "Board Certification")*
Step 4: Fellowship (Optional - Garrett wants to pursue Pulmonology [Lungs] and Critical Care which is a three year fellowship that will board certify him in both)
Step 5: Be an "attending" physician.
*Caveat - The FIRST year of residency is INTERN year. Garrett is an intern or PGY-1 (post-graduate year 1). Interns have different responsibilities than the other residents. Basically interns do the ground work supervised by the residents who are supervised by the fellows/attendings. Both Garrett's (Internal Medicine) and my (Family Medicine) residencies will be three years.
The simpler hierarchy:
1. Attending Physician, M.D.
2. Fellow, M.D.
3. Resident (PGY2-7), M.D.
4. Intern (PGY1), M.D.
5. Medical student, B.S. or B.A.
Anyway, I hope that's useful.
Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for the prayers for all of our upcoming adventures!
Kate
Monday, August 17, 2015
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Life as Dr. and Mrs. Rampon
It's hard to believe that my final year of medical school is here! It is exciting and intimidating to think that in one year I will be starting residency. I figured this would be a good time to give a life update and try (at the pleading of a grandparent) to blog more often.
When we last met, I was just one week post-op from my open heart surgery. I am now almost 11 months out! I have been so blessed in my recovery and am so glad to report that I feel awesome. I am often asked if I feel much different than before the surgery. Honestly, I don't feel much different. My exercise tolerance is higher and I suppose I get less short of breath going upstairs or things of that nature. It is difficult to say in the sense that I never had symptoms before the procedure. The only difference now is that I get pleuritic chest pain now when I get a cold or do CPR (which is unfortunate being that I am a CPR instructor and future physician). I am beyond blessed to be able to talk so nonchalantly about my recovery.
Other life updates include:
1. Being married to a doctor (yep, that's Mrs. Dr. Garrett Rampon to you!)
2. Moving to St. Louis (yep, I'm still following that silly boy around)
3. Deciding finally on going into Family Medicine
4. Adding another continent to my "Travelled" list - Serbia in August
To flesh these out...
Garrett graduated at the end of May and matched in his top choice of residencies at St. Louis University in Missouri. He began about two weeks ago with night shift in the medical intensive care unit. He has now switched to day shift, but is still tired. We are able to talk on the phone almost every evening and he seems to be adjusting well. I'm sure everyone is as impressed with him as I am. He has one year to enjoy being Dr. and Mrs. Rampon...Dr./Mrs. Kate Rampon is right around the corner (or Dr. Kate Huggins-Rampon as my loving father says).
We have moved/are moving to St. Louis. Carbie and I are holding down the fort in Memphis for another two weeks as I finish up the rotation that I missed having surgery. After this month, I will move to St. Louis and finish the vast majority of my fourth year electives up there. There is an officially unofficial thing called "Spouse Away Year" created for couples just like us. I was very blessed to be accepted to SLU School of Medicine and able to enroll in their fourth year classes. I will still graduate from UTHSC and will retain my responsibilities and connections through email and visits to Memphis. I will be returning for one class at least in March. We basically have everything moved to St. Louis with Garrett. Carbie and I can't wait to be reunited with our Garrett. Turns out that long-distance is actually harder after you have been together and been living together for a while than it was in college when we didn't know the difference.
I have made the decision to pursue family medicine as my "specialty." This decision is based on my experience throughout third year, my being a patient this year, and some tough deep "soul searching." One of my best experiences third year was on my family medicine 8-week rotation. I loved getting time to spend with the patients in clinic. I loved the variety of things that we saw and I loved watching the interactions between my preceptor and his patients. If it were not for the family medicine doctor that found my heart murmur (that no other physician had heard or worked up), I am not sure what trajectory my life would have taken. The physical consequences would have ended in either stroke or heart failure with a very high likelihood my career would have been over before it completely started. Because of the time and care that family doctor took, I am able and inspired to pay forward the time and opportunities he gave to me. Finally, the deep soul searching was honestly not that tough. Since I decided to do medicine, my mind had changed about a million times about what I wanted to do. I wanted to do procedures, deliver babies, counsel psychiatric patients, give stitches, see children, see adults, hear my geriatric patients stories, etc. With family medicine, I get to do it all! I am so excited to be joining the ranks of family physicians. Though it is not the most glamorous or highly paying field, it is were I feel the most at home. It is also the best training for me to be able to continue to pursue medical missions (happy coincidence...right?).
Finally, I am excited to announce that I will be going to Serbia with my church in the middle of August. We are going to establish and run the first annual camp for Serbian children with cancer and their families. We are going to be providing a VBS-like camp for the children and a meaningful spiritual retreat for the parents. I volunteered for one week at "Camp Star Trails" which was a similar camp for MD Anderson patients during my summer internship at Lifeline Chaplaincy. I am super excited to take those skills and experience to Serbia. Our team includes of a former Target House employee, a St. Jude fellow, a pediatrician, and a pediatric resident (happens to be the preacher's wife). We covet your prayers for this endeavor. Specifically, I ask that you pray to prepare our hearts and the hearts of the campers and families for our time together.
In closing, I want to ask for your prayers throughout this season of transition in our lives. We are excited for the changes but also anxious to see what awaits us this next year. Garrett and I have been so blessed in our (almost) two years of marriage and our five years of being together. We survived the hundreds of bug bites, amoebas, overfilled medical school classes, Memphis, medical school, board exams, and open-heart surgery at 24. We can't wait to see what comes next! We know that the Lord is faithful and has shown us incredible mercy thus far. Thanks for reading!
When we last met, I was just one week post-op from my open heart surgery. I am now almost 11 months out! I have been so blessed in my recovery and am so glad to report that I feel awesome. I am often asked if I feel much different than before the surgery. Honestly, I don't feel much different. My exercise tolerance is higher and I suppose I get less short of breath going upstairs or things of that nature. It is difficult to say in the sense that I never had symptoms before the procedure. The only difference now is that I get pleuritic chest pain now when I get a cold or do CPR (which is unfortunate being that I am a CPR instructor and future physician). I am beyond blessed to be able to talk so nonchalantly about my recovery.
Other life updates include:
1. Being married to a doctor (yep, that's Mrs. Dr. Garrett Rampon to you!)
2. Moving to St. Louis (yep, I'm still following that silly boy around)
3. Deciding finally on going into Family Medicine
4. Adding another continent to my "Travelled" list - Serbia in August
To flesh these out...
Garrett graduated at the end of May and matched in his top choice of residencies at St. Louis University in Missouri. He began about two weeks ago with night shift in the medical intensive care unit. He has now switched to day shift, but is still tired. We are able to talk on the phone almost every evening and he seems to be adjusting well. I'm sure everyone is as impressed with him as I am. He has one year to enjoy being Dr. and Mrs. Rampon...Dr./Mrs. Kate Rampon is right around the corner (or Dr. Kate Huggins-Rampon as my loving father says).
We have moved/are moving to St. Louis. Carbie and I are holding down the fort in Memphis for another two weeks as I finish up the rotation that I missed having surgery. After this month, I will move to St. Louis and finish the vast majority of my fourth year electives up there. There is an officially unofficial thing called "Spouse Away Year" created for couples just like us. I was very blessed to be accepted to SLU School of Medicine and able to enroll in their fourth year classes. I will still graduate from UTHSC and will retain my responsibilities and connections through email and visits to Memphis. I will be returning for one class at least in March. We basically have everything moved to St. Louis with Garrett. Carbie and I can't wait to be reunited with our Garrett. Turns out that long-distance is actually harder after you have been together and been living together for a while than it was in college when we didn't know the difference.
I have made the decision to pursue family medicine as my "specialty." This decision is based on my experience throughout third year, my being a patient this year, and some tough deep "soul searching." One of my best experiences third year was on my family medicine 8-week rotation. I loved getting time to spend with the patients in clinic. I loved the variety of things that we saw and I loved watching the interactions between my preceptor and his patients. If it were not for the family medicine doctor that found my heart murmur (that no other physician had heard or worked up), I am not sure what trajectory my life would have taken. The physical consequences would have ended in either stroke or heart failure with a very high likelihood my career would have been over before it completely started. Because of the time and care that family doctor took, I am able and inspired to pay forward the time and opportunities he gave to me. Finally, the deep soul searching was honestly not that tough. Since I decided to do medicine, my mind had changed about a million times about what I wanted to do. I wanted to do procedures, deliver babies, counsel psychiatric patients, give stitches, see children, see adults, hear my geriatric patients stories, etc. With family medicine, I get to do it all! I am so excited to be joining the ranks of family physicians. Though it is not the most glamorous or highly paying field, it is were I feel the most at home. It is also the best training for me to be able to continue to pursue medical missions (happy coincidence...right?).
Finally, I am excited to announce that I will be going to Serbia with my church in the middle of August. We are going to establish and run the first annual camp for Serbian children with cancer and their families. We are going to be providing a VBS-like camp for the children and a meaningful spiritual retreat for the parents. I volunteered for one week at "Camp Star Trails" which was a similar camp for MD Anderson patients during my summer internship at Lifeline Chaplaincy. I am super excited to take those skills and experience to Serbia. Our team includes of a former Target House employee, a St. Jude fellow, a pediatrician, and a pediatric resident (happens to be the preacher's wife). We covet your prayers for this endeavor. Specifically, I ask that you pray to prepare our hearts and the hearts of the campers and families for our time together.
In closing, I want to ask for your prayers throughout this season of transition in our lives. We are excited for the changes but also anxious to see what awaits us this next year. Garrett and I have been so blessed in our (almost) two years of marriage and our five years of being together. We survived the hundreds of bug bites, amoebas, overfilled medical school classes, Memphis, medical school, board exams, and open-heart surgery at 24. We can't wait to see what comes next! We know that the Lord is faithful and has shown us incredible mercy thus far. Thanks for reading!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)