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Archive for September, 2013

“Doctor! Heal thyself!”

 

Those were the words of the orthopedist as he entered my room in the Emergency Department.

 

Two weeks ago, while taking a break from working on residency applications, I decided to go ride one of my horses.  Alas, as I was leading him and his pasture-mate to the barn they spooked and one of them literally jumped on my foot.  I’ve been around horses for decades (eek!), and have had my toes crunched many times, but I immediately knew this time was different, not least because he had landed on the side of my foot not my toes.  The pain was instantaneous and overwhelming, I was doubled over and hyperventilating within seconds (at which point I realized that the horses hoof had actually torn my leather boots- let this be a lesson to ALWAYS wear boots around horses, a lesson I’ll admit that I haven’t always followed).  After taking a couple of minutes to catch my breath I hobbled to the barn, optimistically hoping I’d still be able to go for a ride.

 

Once in the barn, with the horses secured, I pulled my boot off and had a quick palpate. One good squeeze and I knew I needed to make a trip to the hospital for some X-rays. *Sigh*  This was NOT how I had planned to spend my evening!

 

A little later, at the community hospital, the X-ray tech snapped a few angles.  I asked if I could see the films before hobbling back the waiting area and immediately spotted two, slim, hypodensities in my 4th and 5th metatarsals.  With an expletive, I pointed to one of the lucencies. The tech tried to reassure me that it wasn’t anything significant: “just an artifact” because there was a similar line in the adjacent bone…

 

After the Physician’s Assistant examined me in fast track, he went to go check out the X-rays.  I asked if I could take another look, admitting that I was a med student (and currently on rotation in this community hospital for my sub-internship!). When he came back to pull the images up on the computer, he let me know that he and the ED doc agreed that I did, indeed, have non-displaced fractures of the 4th and 5th metatarsals.  There wasn’t really much they could do, but the orthopedist was coming into the hospital to see a couple other patients and if I was willing to hang out for half an hour he’d take a look at my images as well.

 

They don't look like much, but those two little lines are really cramping my style!

They don’t look like much, but those two little lines are really cramping my style!

 

Half an hour later, the cheery orthopedist came in, chatted with me about my future plans in medicine, and told me to follow up with him if things got worse instead of better.  I headed home with a walking cast, crutches, and a few Percocet.

 

This was two weeks ago, and while my foot is by no means “fixed” it is certainly getting better.  Hobbling around to take a shower the first morning was rather excruciating, but the walking cast was my saving grace in the hospital and I’ve been able to do more normal activities without the boot with time (though I think I may have pushed my limits last night heading into the city for a book release party and am paying for it today- on that note, definitely check out John Durant’s book The Paleo Manifesto).

 

So why am I writing this, other than catharsis? (It’s perfect fall hiking weather and I’m out of commission- boo.)

 

Healing takes time.

 

With things like a fractured bone people know this, but sometimes we (“we” the public, and “we” the medical community) seem to forget that healing takes time.

 

There’s no denying that I am “into” preventative medicine.  However, as much as we can try and prevent injury and illness- something is bound to happen.  In that vein, I don’t think preventative medicine is only about avoiding problems, but encouraging a physiology where healing is promoted.

 

I’ll admit that I’ve been frustrated at times in the hospital when my stable patients have complained to me on morning pre-rounds that they had a horrible nights sleep because someone was taking vital signs every couple hours, and the phlebotomist came for morning labs before 5.  Vital signs are vital for the management of some patients, but others would benefit much more from a good nights sleep. Of course, making the decision that your patient needs sleep more than monitoring is not an easy one- no one wants to find that their patient is hypotensive on morning rounds and not know when the problem occurred, but for some patients the risk seems quite low.  On my neurology clerkship I remember thinking that what many of our stroke patients needed most was a good night’s sleep.

 

I recently read, at the recommendation of my favorite cardiologist, the book Cutting for Stone.  It is amazing, in many ways. I particularly loved a short passage that talked about the success one person had in improving women’s recovery from fistula surgery.

 

Hema shared with us that she and Shiva had operated on fifteen successive fistula patients with not one recurrence.  ‘I owe this to Shiva,” she said. ‘He convinced me to take more time preparing the women for surgery. So now, we admit the patients and feed them eggs, meat, milk, and vitamins for two weeks…. We work on strengthening their legs, getting them moving.’…

 

‘Can’t get them to walk after surgery if they won’t walk before.’ Shiva said.

 

When I was on my anesthesia clerkship I saw how hard it is to manage a “sick” patient, and how easy it is to intubate and anesthetize a healthy one (a complicated cardiac patient vs a young ortho patient, for example).  On surgery, you see how well some people tolerate surgery and how poorly other do- how some heal quickly while other seem incapable of healing.  One’s underlying “health” certainly affects one’s ability to heal.

 

This is one of the many reasons I like primary care.  A good primary care doc makes everybody else’s job easier.  They can keep their patients healthy and out of the OR and specialist’s office, and if misfortune strikes, a patient in the best of health is almost always set up to fair better (the only example that I can think of where this is not the case is the pandemic flu of 1918, where the robust immune systems of young, healthy, adults was actually their demise).

 

Injury and illness, at some level, are inevitable.  A healthy lifestyle and good genetics can go a long way to keeping you out of the hospital, and they can also go a long way towards helping you heal if you do find yourself in harms way.  As the Dos Equis man might say “Stay healthy my friends.”.

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It’s been a busy month since my last post.  I’ve studied for and taken the United States Medical Licensing Exams (USMLE) Step 2 CS and (on Friday) USMLE Step 2 CK, two parts of what most people know as “the boards”.  I’ve attended and spoken at the 2013 Ancestral Health Symposium (AHS) and moved out of the apartment I lived in for the last 18 months.  I’m also half way through my “Acting Internship”, a clerkship most medical schools call a Sub-Internship, where I basically function as an intern (a first year medical resident).  I’m doing this rotation at a local community hospital and I’m really enjoying the atmosphere, personnel, and patients.  The hours are long, but not as long as for many of my classmates doing acting internships in Internal Medicine, Surgery, and Ob-Gyn (mine is in Family Medicine, the specialty I am pursuing). Applications for residency programs go live in just over a week which finds me struggling to write (for the fourth time) a personal statement that embodies me

 

Needless to say, things have been hectic , and the last month has been a touch overwhelming at times.  I’m certainly looking forward to some downtime after I finally complete my remaining med school requirements (just 8 more weeks!), have my residency lined up, and am able to catch my breath. 

 

I really shouldn’t complain.  Even in the last, relatively crazy, 6 weeks I’ve still had some good times.  The week of AHS in particular was one for the books.

 

I’ve written before about destinations and journeys.  The destination for AHS was clear- Atlanta Georgia- but the journey I took to get there wasn’t what you might expect. 

 

Many, many, months ago, when the location for AHS was first announced, I made a rather rash statement that Atlanta was almost close enough for a road trip.  While I had no real intention of road tripping to Atlanta, my longtime Twitter friend @PrimalRush (henceforth known as James) said he was keen to tag along for the journey.  At the time I thought an actual road trip was unlikely (it’s a good 13 hour drive and airfare isn’t that expensive), but as the time got closer I realized I would regret turning down the opportunity to create an excellent story (those that know me know all too well that I’m a fan of adventures and stories). 

 

Since I took 4 weeks off from school to prepare for the boards and attend AHS, I was able to take some extra time travelling to AHS.  About a week out, I vaguely mapped a path to Atlanta, made plans to pick up my Canadian travel buddy from the bus stop, and hoped for the best!

 

Three days before we planned to pull into ATL, James and I hit the road with camping gear, a cooler, and a tank of gas.  After making a stop at one of my favorite butchers to fully stock our cooler, we made tracks to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.  We travelled the length of the park on Skyline Drive, stopping about midway to camp for the night. 

 

At times, we were in the clouds driving on Skyline Drive.  Driving the length of the park added a few extra miles to our trip, and certainly slowed us down a bit (the speed limit is 35mph and you can't help but pull over and ogle at the views), but it is certainly worth it!

At times, we were in the clouds driving on Skyline Drive. Driving the length of the park added a few extra miles to our trip, and certainly slowed us down a bit (the speed limit is 35mph and you can’t help but pull over and ogle at the views), but it was certainly worth it!

 

Without going into detail, our time in Shenandoah involved meeting some mushroomers who confirmed my Chanterelle (and Chicken of the Woods) identification, cooking a truly excellent camp dinner (with Chanterelles), having a run-in with a slightly disgruntled ranger, hiking part of the Appalachian trail in the dark, pitching a tent in the dark, waking up and breaking down camp in the dark, and then scrambling to a 360o viewpoint to watch the sun rise.  When we were finally able to tear ourselves away from our solitude and sunrise we hiked the couple miles back to the car and made tracks through the rest of the park and onto our next destination in Mortimer North Carolina.

 

A delicious addition to our dinner (good thing I had some Kerrygold butter in the cooler!)

A delicious addition to our dinner (good thing I had some Kerrygold butter in the cooler!)

 

I'll take this over dehydrated rice and bean camp dinners any night!

I’ll take this over dehydrated rice and bean camp dinners any night!

 

The view at dawn from Bearfence mountain.

The view at dawn from Bearfence mountain.

 

It was certainly worth waking up at 5, and hiking in the dark, to watch the sun rise over Shenandoah.

It was certainly worth waking up at 5, and hiking in the dark, to watch the sun rise over Shenandoah.

 

How could I resist?

How could I resist?

 

Mortimer North Carolina holds a special place in my heart.  One of my longtime friends has a family cabin in Mortimer, and I’ve twice travelled with her for an escape to the mountains and the beauty of Wilson’s Creek.  Mortimer is also home of Betsey’s Ole Country Store an establishment owned by my friend Bruce.  The address to Betsey’s is a little deceiving- let the record show that “Highway 90” is a gravel road where you need to pull over to let oncoming traffic pass. 

 

Anything I say about Betsey’s or the owner/operator of the establishment, Bruce, would sound like a paid advertisement, so I’m not going to even start.  What I will say is, if you want to visit a beautiful part of North Carolina- visit Mortimer. And if you visit Mortimer- visit Bruce.  He’s got cabin rentals, inner tube rentals, and more knowledge of the area than you’ll find anywhere else.  If you ever find yourself that way, tell him Victoria sent you… Seriously!

 

With Bruce’s back yard as our home base (he is a gracious host), we put in many miles of hiking, had numerous dips in local swimming holes, and managed to spot some of the Perseid meteors.  It was hard to tear ourselves away in order to make it to Atlanta on schedule (we actually didn’t make it to Atlanta on schedule because we opted to take a morning hike before we hit the road).

 

Betsey's. "Peace and Love, Y'all"

Betsey’s. “Peace and Love, Y’all”

 

Putting in some miles in Pisgah National Forest...

Putting in some miles in Pisgah National Forest…

 

I was keen to keep my socks dry, and I did! At least for the first half of the hike (darn slippery rocks)...

I was keen to keep my socks dry, and I did! At least for the first half of the hike (darn slippery rocks)…

 

My new favorite swimming hole, at the top of Gragg Prong fall.

My new favorite swimming hole, at the top of Gragg Prong fall.

 

The reason we didn't make it to Atlanta on schedule- I had to introduce James to one of my favorite spots- Big Lost Cove.

The reason we didn’t make it to Atlanta on schedule- I had to introduce James to one of my favorite spots- Big Lost Cove.

 

It goes without saying that Atlanta was a big change of scenery in comparison to the preceding few days.  I actually didn’t see much of the city, save for the inside of the Sheraton Conference center, a few of the fine dining establishments, and Boyd Eaton’s gorgeous house where the presenters dinner was held.  Prior to the official start of AHS, a number of the Physicians and Ancestral Health docs got together for a brief meeting.  It was great to catch up with these like-minded Docs, and I was reminded, again, how refreshing it is to spend time with people who share passions and interests. 

 

AHS itself was fantastic, save for a few AV snafus. I thoroughly enjoyed some of the plenary talks: namely Nassim Taleb’s antifragile talk, Gad Saad’s talk on The Consuming Instinct, and Geoffrey Miller’s talk on Sexual Fitness (not talking about “reps for time”).  I was a bit surprised by Mel Konner’s and Boyd Eaton’s talk on the history of modern “paleo” diets, where they repeatedly said that our modern diet is much higher in saturated fat and lower in polyunsaturated fat than historic diets… I find it hard to believe that any diet that contains modern vegetable oils has anything other than an excess of polyunsaturated fats. 

 

There were many excellent talks over the course of the conference, and it was often hard to pick which talk to attend out of a very tempting schedule.  I look forward to catching some of the ones I missed online when the videos are posted.  On that note, my talk on Dietary Fats and Fatty Liver Disease, went well.  When the video becomes available I’ll try and post it here!

 

As much as I enjoyed the various lectures, workshops, and posters, the highlight of AHS was catching up with friends and making new ones.  There is quite a vibrant online community of those interested in evolutionary and ancestral health, and AHS can sometimes seem like the interwebz in 3D.  As someone who would happily trade days of online interactions for even brief face-to-face encounters, AHS was a social occasion that refilled my tanks and renewed my enthusiasm. 

 

Back in May, on the Wilderness Medicine elective in Utah, our instructors expressed that one of the goals of the elective was to “stock good memories” for the rough times that were to follow in residency (all but 2 of the 12 students would be starting internship in the next month).  I still have quite a bit of time until I start residency (though the march towards June of 2014 soldiers on), and my goal between now and then is to bank as many good memories as I can.

 

Stashing good memories (and looking for Hobbitses).

Stashing good memories (and looking for Hobbitses).

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