Back home...finally

The trip home wasn't too eventful. I gained even more appreciation for the book Surgical Recall, a pocket-sized 700-page book in Q&A style that really covers a lot of basic surgery territory. Even with all the hours in the air I've only read about 200 pages, but hopefully I'll get more read in the next few weeks.

It was sure nice to get home and see the family. We just hung out and didn't worry too much about chores, homework (mine or the kids) or packing. Got caught up on Gray's Anatomy and I hope the weird afterlife scenes are over.

So now it's Sunday and I have to start on the To Do list: new tires, wash, packing and all the post rotation logs and evals. I've had enough time to think back on the last month now that I sum up the experience as a good rotation, where I learned a lot (got my tuition's worth) but one I probably could have done equally well closer to home. I'm still miffed about my Maricopa paperwork mix-up that resulted in my losing that rotation. However, that whole situation is what allowed to have the excellent Peds ER rotation. I'm not sure I would be looking so closely at EM if had gone as planned.

The surgery rotation ended with a few good surgeries, more office hours and a couple in office I&D type procedures. The Attendings and Resident were very complementary in their feedback and interested in our feedback. I'm fairly confident of getting a decent evaluation.

Tomorrow is day one on a new job again. I drive to Show Low (on new tires I hope) at 6am for rural surgery. We see how well the last month prepared me to step in and really start participating in surgeries. Every indication I gotten from the three surgeons I'll be working with is that I should be able to do a lot more than just cut sutures, staple and steri-strip.