So I’m done with my first official week of third year. And it sucks. I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel this way, but I kind of hate it. Maybe it’s because I’m on psychiatry adult consult and all I’ve seen this week is malingering, delirium, and dementia, all of which involve pretty hard to interview patients. I suppose my malingering patient wasn’t that difficult, except for the fact that he was a prison inmate and kind of scared the crap out of me. But I definitely didn’t figure out the malingering part, which makes me an idiot. I’m so tired that even 10+ hours of sleep last night wasn’t enough to make me not feel dead tired today. And this is just psych. It’s not medicine or surgery. I wake up at 5 in the morning so that I have plenty of time to preround on my one patient (I have two now, so I’m not quite sure how I’m going to pull it off on Monday). That’s how slow I am. At this rate, I might as well not leave the hospital when I’m on medicine and surgery because there’s no point when I’ll probably have to come back in an hour or so since I’m so slow. Not only am I slow, but I don’t know shit. My fellow psych consult-ees all claim they don’t know anything either, but it sure doesn’t sound that way when they present their patients. I’m just waiting to get yelled at because I’m so incompetent. In fact, I’m surprised I haven’t been yelled at yet. I figure they’re just holding it all in until next week, when they can safely assume that we should know what we’re doing.
I know I complained to no end about grad school sucking, but I think I almost prefer that now. At least I’ll have plenty of sleep and not be exposed to people with Hepatitis B and C every damn day. Nor will I be living in constant fear of getting yelled at. I hear it’s inevitable. My fellow psych consult-ees have all already gotten yelled at. It’s just a matter of time before it’s my turn.
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Did you defend your thesis yet? Or did you start third year before finishing? I’m thinking of doing the latter next year…just wanted to see how feasible it is to be in the lab occasionally during third year and to finish writing during fourth year.
I started my third year before finishing. A lot of my classmates end up doing that. I’m currently kicking myself for being lazy and not finishing it all first because it’s just one more thing to worry about on top of all the third year things I’m worrying about. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time for everything involved in third year, let alone also trying to work on a thesis. I would love to finish writing during fourth year, but for some reason, my PI won’t let me. He wants it done by this June. But yeah, I would say that if you can, finish everything up before going back. It takes a HUGE load off your shoulders so that you can focus 100% on third year. Of course, if you’ve been out for four years like I have, it would be better to just go back even if you’re not 100% done with your PhD yet because who wants to spend 5 years on their PhD?