Christmas Update

Hey!

Since I posted this link on the bottom of my Christmas card figured I should update this with a quick synopsis of the year.

I finished residency at Wake Forest in Emergency Medicine in July and moved down to Augusta, GA to work at MCG (Georgia Health Sciences Univ) and now Augusta Regents University as a wilderness medicine fellow. I work attending shifts in the emergency dept - and then get to do a lot of wilderness medicine stuff which includes courses, conferences, trips, etc.
most of these adventures are chronicled here.

Next year I've accepted a position in the emergency department at Carilion in Roanoke Virginia. I'm hoping to eventually help contribute to wilderness medicine opportunities for in Roanoke.

I'm also a co-founder of blue ridge adventure medicine llc which is a new organization designed to offer hands on scenario based wilderness medicine education.

Interesting ingestion

Patient ingested all of these substances in a suicide attempt! Pretty much covers most toxic ingestions. Hydrocarbon, alcohol, alkali, acid, Tylenol, surfactant...

Updates:

Its sort of been a while since I've posted anything. Just a quick summary of the past month or so.

I took EM written boards November 12th. I'm glad its over.

I spent Thanksgiving at home in Charlotte with my family!

Liz came down Nov 23-25th and we hung out, compared war stories and did lots of mountain biking. We accomplished my goal of riding all the FATs trails in one day :) Somewhere in the ball park of 37 miles.

The next weekend I headed up to Winston-Salem and did the mistletoe half marathon. Nothing about my performance was impressive - but it was the furthest by 6 miles I've ever run in my life - and I sort of never trained for it - so I was just happy I managed to run the whole way.

The weather has been mild, which has allowed me to continue to get in some good mtn biking. Rich and I have gone night riding twice this week at FATs. The trails are even more fun in the dark.

Work in the ED over the past month has been busy. Plenty of critical patients - and plenty of the flu to keep me and the residents very busy!

Today (Thursday) I went to an ultrasound course for the critical care docs. Its awesome to work in a place where you can learn so much!

My upcoming projects include: MedWARs on April 20th and the 6th Annual Southeastern Student Wilderness Medicine Conference on April 13-14.
This spring it looks like a Wilderness EMS director course, WMS conference in Park City, Med support for racing the planet in Chile, and the completion of the WMS DiMM course at Rainier!

I've also got some research projects cooking...

Test rides at fats

Had a great Sunday testing out some fun bikes at fats!!

Peru day 8

Today is the last day of class. Matt Lyon gave us an excellent lecture on us in shock.

We did some review cases and then headed to the wards to scan. We scanned one gentleman who was intubated and as there wasn't a ventilator his family had to take turns squeezing the ambu bag to breath for him until he got better. His family was his ventilator. His prognosis was very poor.

We also went to ultrasound someone in the hospital next door. It was nicer than some US hospitals. It is crazy the disparities in care. You have patients lining hallways with no privacy and several hundred yards away another patient lies in a private room with a flat screen tv. I know disparity exists in the us system - but it's never been that glaring to me.

We have a big final dinner tonight at a restaurant over the ocean. Should be fun!!

Peru day 7

Had a good night last night. We ate dinner in barranco. I had lasagna as ive had my fill of lomo Saltado now.
Afterwards we headed back to loco mar and had hot chocolate and dessert.

I've finally mastered making coffee or atleast am getting used to it. Basically you mix about 1/2 glass hot water with 3/8 coffee 1/8 milk and 2 packets of sugar.

Today we learned about lung ultrasound and ocular ultrasound.

Saw some sad cases. HIV, karposi sarcoma, tb meningitis... And HIV, cryptococcal meningitis.
Interesting one of the patients was intubated for airway protection - but wasn't hooked to a ventilator - just had blow by oxygen. Both of the patients were in regular floor beds without monitors. Crazy how different healthcare is down here...

Went to the inca market after class and had an awesome dinner at San Antonio's.

Peru day 6

Today we learned about cardiac ultrasound in tropical diseases and ocular ultrasound. We went to the hospital and did some more scans. I'm amazed by the number of "sick" patients. Would be an overwhelming place to work. Saw one patient who was intubated but just on blow by oxygen. So different from what I'm used to!!

Tonight we are heading back to barranco.

I've managed to catch a pretty good cold - not sure if the guys are going to try to scan me or leave me in the Ed :). No worries. Pretty sure I got it on the plane not at the hospital and really just a runny nose and sore throat.

I attached a photo of Lucy's which is the hospital cafeteria and also of one of the EKG machines...