Post by chase on Feb 4, 2007 14:10:11 GMT -5
This rotation is very pleasant one in what I believed would be the sticks.
Granted, Albany isn't booming with fun things for young people, but there
is a mall, every restaurant you can think of, a kitschy downtown, a movie
theatre, and The Flint River Aquarium--a local river aquarium with some
bizarre catfish and mud fish--oh yeah. Plus, ATL is only 2 1/2 hours away,
Tallahassee is only 2 hours away (and the Beach).
The best part of the rotation is the people. Everyone from Dr. Gauthier
to the Residents to all the hospital peoples are painfully nice here.
I lived in the Crimmins House which is about one block from the hospital.
It has 9 bedrooms with double beds or twin beds. You share a bathroom
with one other room. There's wireless internet, a large kitchen, washer/dryer,
a computer in-house, and a common room with a 19" TV with cable.
Being part of Phoebe Residency when you work with Dr. Gauthier, you get
free food from the Hospital Cafeteria all day long. Very convenient! It gets
old after about 3 weeks but it's still free. Usually there's different food at
lunch from all over Albany. There's an awesome gym next to the hospital
(2 blocks from the house) that's free and just as nice with similar facilities
as at MCG. Other students from Family Med, Peds, Sports Med, and Ambulatory
Care rotations from MCG as well as many students from Carribean Med
Schools will be here. So there's definitely some people to hang out with.
But to the rotation: Dr. Gauthier is an excellent clinician. According to others,
he's very professional, has a dry sense of humor, and seems stoic. But everyone
loves him. He's a very nice guy originally from Montreal. He moved down here
with his wife (a nurse in the Oncology ward) for the warmer weather and
has lived here for next to 10 years. He constantly teaches and will occassionally
do benign pimping. Everyone has a great deal of respect for him.
In Albany, you work with the Family Medicine Residency group here, and they
rotate with Dr. G to get their Peds experience. So you'll be working with a Fam
Med resident and Dr. G--very close work. Dr. G wants you and the resident to
work together and decide as much of the patient orders and recommendations
as possible before he'll step in and have the final say.
In the mornings you'll go to the Newborn Nursery and see all the newborns
between 7-8am before Dr. G gets there, depending on how many there are (
just call them when you wake up at 7 to see if you can sleep in). Decide the
plan and Dr. G will approve or not. If there's circumcisions to be done, Dr. G
will want you and the resident to do them after he shows you one or two. I
did about 10 during my time here. Most of the patients both in the Newborn
Nursery and that Dr. G sees in clinic are on Medicaid, as he's the doctor for patients
who don't have a pediatrician set up. If patients do have insurance, it's usually
Tricare for military persons. So needless to say, you'll be seeing lots of underpriviledged
persons and doing lots of education with them. After finishing rounds on the
newborns, you'll see any in-patients that are there. There's no PICU so most
of the inpatients if any that are admitted have minor problems--RSV, etc--and
Dr. G doesn't deal with the NICU.
You then go to clinic about 5 min drive away from the hospital, to meet there
at 9:30. You'll meet there at 10:30 the days after you and the resident are
on call. Whenever there's downtime between the hospital and clinic, Dr. G will
want you to present something or talk about anything you missed on a pimp
question. Most of the time it's one of the 20 clinical questions that might appear
on the departmental exam. Speaking of call, it's usually q4 or q5. He wants you
to stay in Albany on-call for the whole weekend for 2 of the 5 weekends you
are in Albany for the rotation. It sounds bad, but it's actually easy, as you get
to go and do whatever you want around Albany and/or stay at home, as you
only need to go into the hospital for Peds admissions (which is rare). I only got
a single call in at 2am on Saturday on one of the two weekends I was on call.
In clinic you'll work with Dr. G two full days a week ('til 4-4:30) and every morning.
Two afternoons a week you'll work with Brandy a NP. She's very nice and fun.
It's mostly well-child checks and sick children for Dr. G, with newborns to 4 year olds being the majority of the checks. Very few adolescents are seen, mostly with Brandy. It's
a great time to practice some Spanish if you know any with some spanish-speaking
patients. It's great bread and butter Peds here, perfect for Ped5000. You'll see a good
volume of kids a day--probably start seeing patients yourself sometime the first week
and present each one to him.
One day a week you'll get the afternoon off for study time/errand time. It was Wednesday
for him. Lunch every day is a didactic lecture for the 5-10 students there every day
or a whole group professional lecture. As I said, there's tons of free food.
After clinic each day, you'll return to the hospital if there's any new Peds admits or
newborns. It's probably about half the time.
Overall, I'd rate the rotation an A from F- to A+. It's great basic Peds with lots of responsibility and an incredible teacher. There's plenty of free food, nice accomodations,
good facility, and nice proximity to obviously nicer places. I would have given the
place an A+ if the town was more young-person friendly and if there was an PICU
and more adolescent experience. But since you do get to see some adolescents
and inpatients and since the town and people are both nice, it's not a huge complaint.
Granted, Albany isn't booming with fun things for young people, but there
is a mall, every restaurant you can think of, a kitschy downtown, a movie
theatre, and The Flint River Aquarium--a local river aquarium with some
bizarre catfish and mud fish--oh yeah. Plus, ATL is only 2 1/2 hours away,
Tallahassee is only 2 hours away (and the Beach).
The best part of the rotation is the people. Everyone from Dr. Gauthier
to the Residents to all the hospital peoples are painfully nice here.
I lived in the Crimmins House which is about one block from the hospital.
It has 9 bedrooms with double beds or twin beds. You share a bathroom
with one other room. There's wireless internet, a large kitchen, washer/dryer,
a computer in-house, and a common room with a 19" TV with cable.
Being part of Phoebe Residency when you work with Dr. Gauthier, you get
free food from the Hospital Cafeteria all day long. Very convenient! It gets
old after about 3 weeks but it's still free. Usually there's different food at
lunch from all over Albany. There's an awesome gym next to the hospital
(2 blocks from the house) that's free and just as nice with similar facilities
as at MCG. Other students from Family Med, Peds, Sports Med, and Ambulatory
Care rotations from MCG as well as many students from Carribean Med
Schools will be here. So there's definitely some people to hang out with.
But to the rotation: Dr. Gauthier is an excellent clinician. According to others,
he's very professional, has a dry sense of humor, and seems stoic. But everyone
loves him. He's a very nice guy originally from Montreal. He moved down here
with his wife (a nurse in the Oncology ward) for the warmer weather and
has lived here for next to 10 years. He constantly teaches and will occassionally
do benign pimping. Everyone has a great deal of respect for him.
In Albany, you work with the Family Medicine Residency group here, and they
rotate with Dr. G to get their Peds experience. So you'll be working with a Fam
Med resident and Dr. G--very close work. Dr. G wants you and the resident to
work together and decide as much of the patient orders and recommendations
as possible before he'll step in and have the final say.
In the mornings you'll go to the Newborn Nursery and see all the newborns
between 7-8am before Dr. G gets there, depending on how many there are (
just call them when you wake up at 7 to see if you can sleep in). Decide the
plan and Dr. G will approve or not. If there's circumcisions to be done, Dr. G
will want you and the resident to do them after he shows you one or two. I
did about 10 during my time here. Most of the patients both in the Newborn
Nursery and that Dr. G sees in clinic are on Medicaid, as he's the doctor for patients
who don't have a pediatrician set up. If patients do have insurance, it's usually
Tricare for military persons. So needless to say, you'll be seeing lots of underpriviledged
persons and doing lots of education with them. After finishing rounds on the
newborns, you'll see any in-patients that are there. There's no PICU so most
of the inpatients if any that are admitted have minor problems--RSV, etc--and
Dr. G doesn't deal with the NICU.
You then go to clinic about 5 min drive away from the hospital, to meet there
at 9:30. You'll meet there at 10:30 the days after you and the resident are
on call. Whenever there's downtime between the hospital and clinic, Dr. G will
want you to present something or talk about anything you missed on a pimp
question. Most of the time it's one of the 20 clinical questions that might appear
on the departmental exam. Speaking of call, it's usually q4 or q5. He wants you
to stay in Albany on-call for the whole weekend for 2 of the 5 weekends you
are in Albany for the rotation. It sounds bad, but it's actually easy, as you get
to go and do whatever you want around Albany and/or stay at home, as you
only need to go into the hospital for Peds admissions (which is rare). I only got
a single call in at 2am on Saturday on one of the two weekends I was on call.
In clinic you'll work with Dr. G two full days a week ('til 4-4:30) and every morning.
Two afternoons a week you'll work with Brandy a NP. She's very nice and fun.
It's mostly well-child checks and sick children for Dr. G, with newborns to 4 year olds being the majority of the checks. Very few adolescents are seen, mostly with Brandy. It's
a great time to practice some Spanish if you know any with some spanish-speaking
patients. It's great bread and butter Peds here, perfect for Ped5000. You'll see a good
volume of kids a day--probably start seeing patients yourself sometime the first week
and present each one to him.
One day a week you'll get the afternoon off for study time/errand time. It was Wednesday
for him. Lunch every day is a didactic lecture for the 5-10 students there every day
or a whole group professional lecture. As I said, there's tons of free food.
After clinic each day, you'll return to the hospital if there's any new Peds admits or
newborns. It's probably about half the time.
Overall, I'd rate the rotation an A from F- to A+. It's great basic Peds with lots of responsibility and an incredible teacher. There's plenty of free food, nice accomodations,
good facility, and nice proximity to obviously nicer places. I would have given the
place an A+ if the town was more young-person friendly and if there was an PICU
and more adolescent experience. But since you do get to see some adolescents
and inpatients and since the town and people are both nice, it's not a huge complaint.