The picture above, of Mount Tam, is essentially the view I had from the doctor's office for the last three weeks. I had the pleasure of rotating with flash gordon, md, yes- that is his name, and yes, he uses no capital letters :)
Dr. gordon is filled to the brim with knowledge and wisdom... he has so much of it that it just comes out at all times in the form of advice, quotes, old adages, and funny sayings. He was an emergency physician for many years and he also was the director of the haight-ashbury free clinic. In addition to being a physician, he is also a writer. I believe his experience with writing makes him the ideal teacher- he has spent years figuring out how to reach his audience and help them understand the way the body works in the easiest way possible. For someone new to the health profession, it can be very hard to keep it down to less than three syllable words when you are trying to explain processes of the body, medication uses and side effects, and treatment plans. After three weeks in Greenbrae with flash gordon, md, I am most certainly a better teacher, and do not use more than 2 syllable words most of the time ;)
For those of you interested in completing a FM rotation in beautiful Greenbrae, with an amazing preceptor and awesome, friendly office staff, you can request this for 3rd or 4th year electives. For more info about him visit: http://www.docflash.com/
Dr. gordon really made me feel like I contributed a great deal to his daily practice. He always introduced me by saying how happy he was that I was there, and that I have a wealth of knowledge about how the body works with my osteopathic training. He let me counsel patients on their posture and how to correct it. I found myself diagnosing upper crossed syndrome and lower crossed syndrome non-stop, and taught patients exercises to treat it. I also helped several people with TMJ, by inhibiting their pterygoid muscles with an intra-oral technique, releasing their SBS compressions and other related strains, and then teaching them conditioning exercises for their jaw muscles. Many of these people had only been offered extremely expensive mouth guards previously. Yesterday a woman in her late 80's came in with back pain and all it took was very gentile myofascial release of her bilaterally extended sacrum to fix it- she almost seemed like a new person when I was done!
I have not been able to practice my OMT skills this thoroughly on every rotation. For instance, on internal medicine, I stuck to a few techniques that were hospital-bed friendly and left it at that. My confidence and faith in my abilities is renewed whenever I am able to practice this much. I am thrilled about how helpful these techniques have been for patients and I really have my amazing professors at Touro-CA and my peers with whom I practiced during these three years to thank for it. Dr. gordon wants me to return after my audition rotations to hold an OMT clinic for his patients once per week or so. I am going to try to make this work!
As I embark on audition rotations in less than one month, my goal is to find the program into which I fit like a puzzle piece. I want to complete my residency where there is a supportive environment and encouragement for me to pursue the unique modalities of medicine that I am interested in. I hope to find a place that is supportive of my passion for preventive medicine, neuromusculoskeletal medicine, osteopathic manipulative medicine, and my desire to help patients improve their quality of life/functionality.
It is with the conclusion of this post that I announce my completion of third year! If you want to know what I have in store for this next year, the blog post before this one has a little summary at the bottom. Here's to having 3 weeks left in the bay area before I uproot myself for Summer and Fall.
I am officially a fourth year medical student and will be a physician in less than one year. Oh. My. Goodness!!!
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