Intern year is finally over! (well, almost...)

Hurrah for the end of June and with it, the end of internship year! We had our graduation yesterday in front of the old hospital steps at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth wearing our formal dress whites. Despite the heat and humidity, it was a nice ceremony attended by not only our Admiral Cullison, but also a 3-star General from the USMC. I hope to post pictures soon. Even though I walked at graduation and received the "Psychiatry Intern of the Year" award, I technically have one more month of internship left as I started a month behind the rest of the class due to attending OIS last summer. I'm okay with this extra month though, as it is Consult Psychiatry, and I will basically be functioning as a second year. Starting in August then, I take over one of the two inpatient wards and dig into my R-2 year. I will stay on schedule with the rest of my class, and the rest of my year will be in three-month rotations. As a warning to the general public, however, it's always good to stay out of the hospital during the end of June and beginning of July as that's when the new interns come in and are beginning to work on the wards. I don't think I've done any major damage in the past year, but things are a little shaky when you're first working as a real doctor and no longer have that "I'm just the medical student" umbrella to work under. :)

In the spirit of celebration, I think I will buy a few more books (and maybe a purse or two...). I found a few more great sites that are recommending summer reads and wanted to share those today. The first is actually a website with recommended reading for those going into college. Some I've read & some I still need to read. Here's the link:
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/plan/boost-your-skills/23628.html

NPR is normally a bit liberal for my liking, but I did find these next three recommendations off their website appealing:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11354716
The printable list of 2007 recommendations is here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10662577

Books that I'm adding to my list regarding war and psychiatry:
Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress by Mary Edwards Wertsch.
War and the Soul by Edward Tick

Currently, I'm finishing up Water for Elephants (good, but hard to read at parts because I can't bear to read or hear about cruelty to animals and this makes you think twice about attending a circus...but overall, this is great) as well as the first Maisie Dobbs. I think next I'm going to dig into The Historian. Oh, I'm also almost done listening to Under the Banner of Heaven. The more I hear about the LDS faith, the more disturbed I become. It's actually a great read in terms of psychiatry, too, because it paints a picture of how delusional people can be. I'll go to the library soon to get another book on CD. I literally have a stack of books as tall as my desk sitting next to me compelling me to clean another day and seize today for reading! (Especially since Grant is on call today!) But...Drew & Maureen & Greg will be arriving today, and cleaning the house will take priority right now. I'm so excited because I finally have a bit of leave & will be home for the next week. Hopefully there will be lots of down time to relax & read. :)

More later!

A Must-Have Item for Book Lovers!

I bought two psychiatry books today and upon arriving home, immediately went upstairs to get a couple of my "Library of" stickers. When I picked them up, I realized that I hadn't mentioned this important part of my new-book tradition. :) Each library must have a way to identify individual books as being part of the whole collection and my personalized embosser makes this possible. The embosser can be used on the actual page of the book or, as I mostly prefer, on a sticker. I've seen various embossers available, but love mine from Willliams-Sonoma (and it's even the least expensive one I've seen yet at $36!) I get my stickers from Wilshire Graphic Press (I recommend the dull gold foil).

At last! A new Bookmarks!!

I'm on call tonight for medicine (only 9 more days left!!) so my free time tonight (and hopefully there's lots of it!) will be spent devouring the latest Bookmarks that arrived in my mailbox today. Couldn't have come at a better time! I'm definitely over reading academic material at this point in the year (did I mention that I have 9 days left till I'm straight psych, all the time?). And, this edition of Bookmarks is devoted to two of my favorite things in the world - 1) crime & mystery books and 2) summer reading!!!! How perfect! I love this magazine!

In a previous blog, I commented that Bookmarks' website leaves a lot to be desired. In the Letters section this month, the editor stated that they are working on improving the web site and are planning on making past issues available online! That's good news to me because last year I procrastinated on renewing my subscription and missed a few issues! Although my collection is now incomplete, I take heart in knowing that I will be able to review those issues online in the future. :)

I just finished listening to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt, and really enjoyed it. Although the author takes a bit of freedom in recounting the real-life events surrounding a murder in Savannah, Georgia (a la James Frey) it was an interesting book. I have to admit, however, that I could not take the suspense any longer by the time I reached disk 10 (of 14) and googled the book so I could find out how the trial ended. ;) Now I am in the middle of Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer about the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints church and its twisted history and beliefs. It's rather disturbing, especially from a mental health perspective.

Finally, I wanted to mention two websites that have been brought to my attention recently. The first is www.abebooks.com - a website dedicated to helping locate new, used, rare, and out-of-print books. Very cool - especially its "Avid Reader" e-newsletter. The other site is one that's already added to my "favorite links" - www.librarything.com. This site has two main functions: 1) it allows for people to have a virtual catalog of books they own and 2) links all the online catalogs together. For example, I love Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, and when you type the title into the "search" function, it finds every library that contains Rebecca, and then gives suggestions of similar books others recommend. Additionally it lists new book recommendations, allows for searching the Library of Congress, and has numerous online book groups and discussions. For free, you can catalog up to 200 books; an unlimited catalog is either $10 per year or $25 for life. I haven't ponied up any money yet, but have to admit it's tempting. My only hesitations are that I'm not sure I seriously have the time to sit down and enter in all the books I own online (nor am I sure that I want Grant to know exactly how many I own!!) and - $25 could buy at least a couple more books! :) I'll probably stick with the free membership afterall. :)

Three cheers for Grant!!!

Here's a shout-out to the best husband in the world - Grant Leo - for taking me to Barnes & Noble and letting me walk out with five new books (even though I promised him I would only get one!) Here are my newest purchases:

Three of the Maisie Dobbs mysteries: the original Maisie Dobbs, Birds of a Feather, and Pardonable Lies. Also, Case Histories by Kate Atkinson & finally, Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian.

Now, I've been eyeing The Historian for a long time and it was only after reading multiple reviews about it in Bookmarks that I decided it sounded like a good read. I was super excited about the Maisie Dobbs books because B&N has a "Buy 2, Get 1 Free" sale going on now that featured all of the books. And get this - I got Case Histories & The Historian for $5.96 each!! In hardcover!!! This is probably the reason that Grant let me get away with such an egregious violation of the one-book promise. :) He's just too good to me. Grant is now strongly lobbying for use of the library from here out. He even volunteered to write a guest blog about the fine qualities and redeeming features that local libraries have to offer. We're in negotiations right now. ;)

Here come the summer reading lists!!!!

Yeah!!! Here's the first of summer reading lists I've found on the web! I'm getting sooo excited! Let me know if you see any other reading lists floating around - I'm always taking suggestions! This one is from NPR....

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10662577

This past week was my first week of medicine and honestly, wasn't all that bad. I'm enjoying working with my team members and our resident, and that makes a big difference. Grant had this past week off and was able to get a lot of tasks done around the house, so my stress level is down now as well.

I'm currently reading My Cousin Rachel by Daphne DuMaurier & am absolutely loving it. I can't say that it has the same intrigue that Rebecca holds for me, but still a great read. I am on call on Tuesday, so that means Wednesday I will probably stop by B&N to reward myself with a few books. :)

Great Article from the New York Post

Found this while surfing Al Gore's invention (i.e. the internet) earlier tonight & thought it was interesting - definitely adds a few books to my "must read" list. :)

"The Best Novels You've Never Read"
http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/2007/32390/

I start inpatient Medicine on Monday, so it might be a while before I'm able to get a good posting in. I'm looking forward to the rush of "summer reading recommendations" that usually comes out around this time. Hopefully will be able to comment on that more the next time.