So I got my away elective applications all sent off today – I printed and collated and signed many many papers last night and AJ helped me get them all set for Fed-Ex-ing to the West coast.  And now they are out of my hands and all I have to do is wait.  And wait – because I definitely won’t hear anything from them until mid-May at the soonest.

On a pleasant note, I got results of my 4th year scheduling and it all turned out pretty good.  I have July off, so I can go back to Seattle and study for and take my boards (Step 2) and have some vacation time.  I also have August and Septmeber free, and this is when I hope to do my electives in Portland and at the UW.  Then I’ll head back to St. Louis at the end of Septmeber and do my month of Subinternship in Pediatrics here, followed by a month of Child Psychiatry and then a month of Developmental Pediatrics.  Then I have about 6 weeks off for vacation (including Christmas break time).  I’m doing a month of Pediatric Infectious Diseases in February, followed by a month of a "Capstone" course in primary care (discussion/classroom based) and finally a month of Pediatric Spine and Orthopedic surgery.  Which puts me finishing the school year in mid-April, with graduation in mid-May.

Yay!

And as far as Internal Medicine goes, I’m currently finishing up week 1 of 4 at the VA medical center.  It’s going well so far – I have a lot of responsibility for my patients and so far they have all been really nice and talkative and not grumpy at all (which you can get a lot of at the VA, so I’ve heard).  After these 4 weeks, I have 4 weeks of inpatient medicine at SLU Hospital, followed by 4 weeks of outpatient medicine with a private doc.  Then I’m done with my 3rd year.  Wow.  So so fast. And next year should be so so good.  And it will go fast too, I’m sure.