Yep, the dream *is* real!  Here’s the degree to prove it

>???????? I am, sitting in the WVSOM library computer lab, blogging about graduating from Medical School.  It sure has been a long road overall but ya know, I’d do it again.   This week (Grad Week) has been an exercise in futility with endless surveys and people asking for our feedback.  It’s funny because I am sure the same feedback is submitted every year but no one ever listens! haha.  Remember this, WVSOM operates on the all mighty dollar and they will only make changes for students if it benefits their bottom line in the longrun.   Therefore, I believe the end of year surveys are useless and just serves as a chance to milk some last few minutes from us.  Well, the financial aid hour was useful, just boring.  It’s funny that the same people who griped and complained about things the first two years came back and complained about the past 2 years. Which proves my point:  People never change.  It’s an amusing observation.
Anyway, I’ve been sleeping on the floor in my friend’s hotel room because I am broke.  Not broke because I didn’t budget, but broke because I am buying a house. :(  I won’t get my first paycheck till July 15th so part of me is secretly longing for that day to come, even though I’ll be working my arse off. 

Anyway, I just want to give a hearty thanks to everyone in my life who has supported me throughout these 4 years, especially my Mom and Dad, without their encouragement I’d have been down and depressed my first two years.  I’d also like to thank my loving wife for her support. Lastly, Mike Peterson and Erik Buzzard who’s friendship I’ll never forget through school.

It’s funny, after graduation, odds are I will never seen most of these people again.  Yet we weathered probably one of the most inhumanely stressful things one can go through.  Adversity has a way of making bonds in times of need but as residency rounds the corner, there will be new challenges and new bonds formed.  I am hoping I will make new friends at Carilion Clinic in the residency program and have the same bonds I shared in medical school.   

My best friend and his wife was nice enough to take one of their few days off to come down for graduation and hood me when I receive my degree.  A big hearty thanks to best friend, Jade Hoy and his wife Malissa!

So anyway I’ve been sappy now.  I’m going to get some sleep.  Graduation is two days away and I have ALOT to do and no time to do it
Hope you all are well!
-Richie

Ah, yes! They say that the most stressful things in life are 1) Buying your first home, 2) Getting Married and 3) Graduating from Medical School and 4) Starting Residency Well I’m doing all 4 in a three month period! Crazy eh!?!

Anyway, I know before I get a comment that says “This thread is worthless without pics!” here are a couple photos of the new place. We will move in around June 16th, give or take a few days. At that time I will bid farewell to the fine state of West Virginia and hello to familiar territory in Virginia (which they say is for lovers..but that is like saying “West Virginia: Open for Business!”).

In other news, my music is now available for free download/on-demand streaming at the website: http://www.last.fm Enjoy!

So here I am in Wise, VA staying with Patty.  It is snowing outside and I have to get up early and drive 2 hours to work in the morning.  I have aquafresh whitening strips in my mouth right now, which are making my teeth sensitive.  Patty is doing her nightly “Spend an hour on myspace and surf the internet for wedding stuff” ritual so naturally I am bored out of my mind.  I thought to myself, A) how much I have hatred for myspace (mainly for their ads, spam and complete idiots that post stuff on it) and B)  I’ll update my website.

 I’ve had alot of questions about the music.  Well I paid Artistlaunch for my yearly bandwidth dues but I got an email back stating that ”They will be launching their new site soon.”  That was a month ago.  They just now put up Artistlaunch 2.0 BETA and I can log into my account now.  You’ll be able to buy MP3s and hopefully also download them soon…in the meantime, I’ll try to get some hosting.  Speaking of which, avoid Aplus.net like the plague if you can.  My server speed is way way down and so I am going to switch to hostgator.com when I can get my last loan disbursement. 

Patty had her Bachelorette party this past weekend in Asheville.  I had my bachelor party….no wait, I didn’t have one.  All of my close friends work for a living, are way far away or are in medical school so no bachelor party for me. :(   Yeah go ahead and say it…ya know you want to! :P  Luckily some friends of mine were available to play games online that night and keep me company.  Sometimes being up in West Virginia away from all your friends you grew up with sucks!  Ah the sacrifices we make to be sucessful in life.  Please drink some beer in rememberance of the soon to be bachelor-no-more.

Still 6 days away and I’ll be a married man.  I’ve had quite a few emails lately asking if I have been getting along ok or if I am getting cold feet or if I am stressed out.  I really appreciate your concerns ;)  First off, I’m not really stressed out about the wedding. In fact I am kinda excited for it to get here.  I’m majorly stressed out about moving to Roanoke, particularly buying our first house which I have never done before.  I’m also still waiting on my COMLEX PE score to get back…which is the final thing that could possible keep me from graduating.  I feel pretty confident that I passed it but waiting is by far the worst part.  Never know until you get that paper with “PASSED” on it. ;)   I love Patty, she is amazing and I’m steadfast in getting married to her.  We are going to have a great life together.   So no on the cold feet thing.  I don’t think I’ll have a runaway bride situation either hahahaha.  Still, some interesting emails this week, mainly from you crazy people in the United Kingdom! ;)

Wow, the snow is really coming down out there right now.  Which means I *may* be late for work tomorrow due to the plows not coming.  For those who are asking I am on my last rotation which ends on April 11th….then I will be done with school till graduation on May 31st.  

I’d like to give a special shout out to my new soon-to-be collegues at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, VA.  Looking forward to working with ya’ll for the next 4 years.  Let it be known that delivering babies still scares the poop out of me!

Hitting submit, time for bed, these aquafresh white strips are killing my teeth.  Ah, the things we endure all for the vanity’s sake.

 -Richie

As of 2/13/2008 I have signed a contract with Carillon Roanoke Memorial Hospital in Roanoke, VA.   I will be doing a 4 year program in Family Medicine with a fellowship in Medical Informatics.   This is the best marriage I can find between my medical and computer skills.  The hospital is pretty large with over 1000 beds and 15 floors.   The staff there are amazing too, which results in a fostering of a level of camaraderie among the residents.  To top this off, one of my old preceptors, Dr. Wayne Brackenrich will be my program director.

There are a variety of reasons for switching from a surgical career into a medical career.  The main reason for the switch was a better lifestyle.  I applaud every person who endures a 5 year surgical residency.   For lack of better wording, it is both hell and a complete sacrifice of one’s free time.   After much thought and experience with certain events (like the technical issues with the allopathic urology match and getting married in March), I bailed on surgery.   For those of you who wondered what happened with me going to Wilmington for medicine, I only ranked one program for the osteopathic match and that was New Hanover Regional Medical Center.   On match day, I didn’t match yet I found that the spots were still vacant on the scramble list.   I couldn’t get the program director to return my phone calls and was just told by the secretary that they were not filling the spots.   The day of the scramble, I had well over 100 phone calls with a total of 24 offers after the 3rd day.  After all the craziness with Wilmington and the scramble, I decided to withdrawl from the Allopathic match and sign with a dually accredited (MD/DO) program in Roanoke.

Either way, it was a stressful week.  I take my COMLEX PE board exam next Thursday so I am currently studying for that.  I am on my last rotation now.  Once I finish that I am thru with medical school!  Excellent!  I am going to dump Aplus.net as my web provider since they suck and my site is slow.  If anyone has any ideas for a web hosting provider, please let me know.  I was looking at Dreamhost for awhile.

In addition to new music (which I know you all are dying to hear but I am not releasing it yet until I have tweaked the tracks I have recorded) there will be a new site coming up called  www.warcraftdoctor.com which will have my tips and tricks for World of Warcraft…geared to the more mature players of the game.

So anyway, I am happy and relieved now.  Some of my friends are going to do a double take when they see I am not going to do urology or general surgery anymore.  But at heart, I feel like being a jack-of-all-trades rather than a specialist in one specific area.   The only thing I will miss if being able to wear scrubs everyday. :(  Scrubs are awesome!  When I look at my Patty, it’s clear I’ve made the right choice.

To the surgeons of the world, I salute you for your sacrifice!   To the rest of the world, you can stop guarding your bungholes now…I won’t be doing a rectal on you every visit now.

-Richie

So here I am at the office in between patients.  My nose is running like a leaky faucet and my body aches.  I didn’t feel well yesterday either but I worked out on my bowflex anyway (wedding less than 2 months away ya know!).  I feel completely run down and out of energy, even though I ate breakfast this morning.  Yet I’m not going to go home because, well, I won’t be able to call in sick in residency will I?  Not for something like this.  I am taking Augmentin 875 twice a day now and thus far it’s not doing poop. 

There was an interesting thread on the Student Doctor Network forums about calling in sick.  In surgery, you never call in sick…you just carry around an IV pole and have the scrub nurses feed you ibuprofen to keep your fever down while ya operate.  In Internal medicine residency, it’s still frowned upon to call in sick, particularly on a call day.  So I am trying to learn to suck it up and be the Obsessive-Compulsive hand washer to keep from getting sick.   Still…nothing can stop the old woman who accidently coughs up a wad of lung better in your face when you gag her with the tongue blade.  Nor can you escape the inevitable epidemic of gastroenteritis that spreads through the area like wildfire.  I’d rather have a cold anyday of the week than to be stuck on the toliet having the grand-mal-brownout every 15 minutes!

I’m curious. What do you patients think about doctors working when they are sick?  Would you want to be seen by a doctor with a cold?  Leave me some feedback on the comment section and let’s get some discussion going!

Geez.  I’m writing this update from my Motorola Q9m.  My attending gave me his gastroenteritis so I have been chained to the toliet for the past 2 hours.  Can’t eat a thing and choking down some Gatorade is even a challenge right now.  I left work early because all of the patients coming in this afternoon were follow-up appointments.  Nothing is worse then going to the clinic and getting Montezuma’s Revenge while you are there!  “Here ya go buddy, have a steroid shot for your shoulder and the squirts!”  I swear, I might need botox before I’m done with this episode!

Now switching topics…So how have things been?  Well the better half and I went down to Orlando this past weekend for a “Site Inspection” which means free tickets to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Sea World.  A great time was had and it’s always good to mix alot of pleasure in with a wee smidgen of business! Right?  I loved the new Kraken coaster at Sea World and was pleasantly surprised by  Journey to Atlantis.   The Mummy ride at Universal Studios was also awesome.  However I was bummed to find out that they have closed the Back to the Future ride in favor of putting in a motion ride for The Simpsons.  :(  I loved that ride!  Spider man 3D is also beginning to show its age a bit.  I talked it up to Patty before she went on it and she didn’t think it was all that great.   It’s better than Darkastle at Busch Gardens but not as much as I used to think it was.

Ok I am going to send the update to see if this works from my phone!  *clicks send*  If you see this message, I updated my website from my phone!  How cool is that!!!
*goes back to reading Medicine Recall*

Well, I scheduled my last two rotations today. As of April 11th, I will have finished medical school. It’s been a long 4 years leading up to this. I’ve switched career plans 3 times. My gaming time has suffered. I met my future wife. Saw my best friend start residency. Bonded with classmates. Now it’s time to realize the responsibility of taking care of the general public. Perhaps I should open up a Botox and Laser Hair Removal clinic Electrolysis anyone? No wait, even better! I’ll open up the “Richie Truxillo Center for Obesity!” and hire Richard Simmons. That would be the win!

All kidding aside, I am stoked to be graduating soon. I got all my music equipment set up for a post-match-day recording session. 2 new World of Warcraft songs are in the works and the Everquest songs are being remastered. Will be good to have some free time before residency starts on July 1st.

I folded Invitations for the wedding on Saturday. Getting addresses from people is just maddening! Patty is done with her list and I’m the loser who is slacking on my end of the deal! haha Typical guy eh? Anyway here’s a photo from New Year’s Day in beautiful Wrightsville Beach, NC. Pwnage!  Whops no picture, had to take it down

Just finished a 2 week urology rotation at CAMC and interviewed for the slot. Worked some late hours during the rotation. As I was doing this rotation, I swear that everyday I kept thinking about IM residency back in Wilmington (for you new readers, it’s where I grew up). Patty has really changed my life in alot of ways since I met her a year ago. I’ve gone from thinking about myself to thinking about someone else more than myself.  This is why I have switched career plans to from surgical to medical.   At first I had mixed feelings about this but I sat down and prayed that God would make the choice clear for me.  I found out Friday that CAMC was not approved for 2 spots for urological surgery and that they had already had their mind made up back in September on another candidate before I even rotated there.  Pretty much a wasted 1.5 months but I can’t really say that.  I got to do alot and learn alot while I was there.  At least I’ll know what to order when my IM patients need a urological consult

To be honest though, I’ve struggled with the whole medicine vs. surgery idea since 3rd year.  Medical school is cruel in the sense that you have to have your mind made up while you are still sampling the universe in your 3rd year.   As a board certified internal medicine physician, you can apply to fellowships in many many things.  Fields that interest me currently are:  Endocrinology, Gastroenterology, Cardiology,  Infectious Disease and Pulmonary/Critical Care.  Then again, I have over a year to really figure things out in that regard.  Plus, doing so on familiar territory back in Wilmington would be a breath of fresh air.   Anyway, match day is February 11th so I will find out then what will go on.  My rank list is certified now so it’s just waiting, which is the hardest part.   I feel pretty good about my decision though…like a weight has been lifted off of my chest.

When I look back at my almost 4 years of medical school, I’ve had many moments like this.  I am sure my residency years will provide even greater challenges for me to tackle.  But with a renewed drive, a loving wife and my family/friends behind me, I feel like the odds are stacked in my favor.

Maybe I will write more tonight but I just rolled back into town and my town house looks like the Tazmainian Evil lived here in my absence!

So it’s December 23rd officially and I am sitting here taking a break from wrapping presents and doing Christmas cards. Today was perilous as I fought the throng of Christmas masses in the bowels of Hallmark and Independence Mall. Still I emerged physically in one piece while my wallet was shot to pieces by the last-minute Christmas sales. Ah the sweet smell of greenbacks floating away! I’m flat broke now. Come on school loan check, where are ya!?!?!

I had my internal medicine interview at New Hanover Regional Medical Center last Friday. I must say, the hospital has grown leaps and bounds since I was a kid, and even since I was there last December. I was not my usual perky self though since I was sick (thanks to the pediatrics rotation I just finished! ha!) and my nose kept running the entire day. I was happy to learn that a couple of my friends are currently doing residency there, namely Nick Morgan who is doing a preliminary surgery year. During the entire interview I was not asked about any medicine! None. Zero! No pimp questions at all! They really just wanted to get to know me as a person and that made me feel good inside…like it would be a place I would definitely fit in. That is not to say I am dropping Urology. On the contrary! But I also know I am in hard fought contention for one of the urology spots at CAMC and I have almost no idea how I stand in terms of that. All I can do is pray. After giving it much thought, I would very much be happy in IM at Wilmington if I didn’t get the urology residency. Maybe a little disappointed but I’ve always taken whatever life has thrown at me and made the best of it. If I am meant to be a urologist then God will place me there. If I am supposed to be in Internal Medicine (with a subsequent Cardiology felllowship or something) then I’ll end up in IM at Wilmington or CAMC. And that leads me to my next point…I’ve spent the last 3 months anguishing over the match process. Although I try not to show it, I lose sleep every night because of it. It’s the fear of not knowing where you are going to end up and what you’ll be doing for the rest of your life that is so maddening. However, I’ve prayed about it and feel at peace. Let match day come. I’ve worked long and hard to get where I’m at. I’ll let God do the rest.

Life *is* good though. I’m getting married and I’m spending Christmas with my future wife and both of our families…Though it involves about 15 hours of driving for me over a 72 hour period. Still spending a romantic Christmas Eve with Patty and then waking up, snuggled next to her Christmas morning is going to be the best present I can think of. I’ve gotten some neat Christmas stuff for her over the past 4 months. One of the items I got for her was backordered and I sweated for 2 months until I got an email that it was available again last week. I’ll try to get some pictures up of our Christmas visits in Wise and Wilmington.

And now I am very sleepy and need to get some rest. I’m *still* sick but I am feeling a little bit better since I started taking some Omnicef. Strep pneumoniae for the lose. I will leave you with a brief funny story though. In the mall tonight, I saw a 9 year old kid walking around with a pair of lacy red panties on his head. He was giggling to himself and running around like a kid on meth! 10 seconds later I see a running frantic woman running after him yelling “Terry! Terry Christopher! You take that off your head RIGHT NOW and GET BACK HERE this INSTANT!!!” I just laughed! It sounds like something I would have done as a kid…but I think I just hid from my mom in the lingerie section of a Sears once. That’s an entirely different story altogether! Maybe I should write a book about my embarrassing stories. I swear I do something funny every week ;P

Good night my friends and have a very Merry Christmas! (none of that Happy Holidays crap here!)