Nephrology.

First day of rotations today, and I couldn't be happier. Not only was Dr. N extremely nice and funny in that sort of geeky way which perfectly suits my taste, I actually got to see some interesting cases, including post-infectious glomerulonephritis, which we covered in micro last semester. Woot for remembering something!

We met in the morning in the dialysis center and Dr. N showed me how the dialysis machines work (it's all osmosis - funny how stuff you learn in freshman bio has a way of creeping up on you). When I asked him, "Why nephrology?" he said that it's not a particularly popular field because students are scared off by the chemistry, particularly for patients needing dialysis, but that he enjoys the subject matter and patients.

We spent the rest of the day seeing patients in the clinic: 3 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon (it was apparently a slow day). I found the patients to be friendly and very nice about allowing me in the exam room. Dr. N was likewise extremely friendly and paid close attention to his patients' histories. The conversation frequently veered off strictly medical topics, which I took as a good sign - when a patient feels comfortable enough to engage in light social talk, it means the physician has done something right. The appointments were scheduled for half an hour each, but several ran over because of the chitchat.

After seeing each patient, Dr. N dictated his notes. He informed me that the dictations were his least favorite part of the job, mostly because so much of the information must be repeated from visit to visit, and because the transcripts must then be proofread for accuracy and grammatical correctness, etc.

Dr. N was nice enough to brief me on each patient before we went to see them, and explain why certain tests were ordered and what the results mean. It was obvious to me that he enjoys having students around; I definitely appreciated him taking the time to explain things on a level I could understand. Obviously I don't expect all my rotations to be that pleasant, or for the people I'm shadowing to go out of their way to facilitate my learning, but for my first experience here, I was very happy.

Dr. N's parting advice to me was somewhat cliche but I know it is very true: "Find a job you love and everything else will fall into place."

I'm adding nephrology to my mental list of fields to potentially pursue in the future.