In the Hospital
I've spent about a week and a half on my rotation now and it has been a great experience so far. I have been one of two hospitals in Heraklion. It is a main hospital for Crete and covers many of the islands as well. On internal medicine, our patients are very similar to patients I encountered during my rotations in the US. We have been managing anemia, fever of unknown origin, sepsis, heart failure, upper respiratory infections, and AKIs to name a few. Most of the patients are older, we even had a 98 year old patient who was quite spry. There are lots of co-morbidities like hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes. We look at ABGs a lot and it has been great to refresh on acidosis vs alkalosis, metabolic vs respiratory, and anion gap vs normal. I have been working on improving my physical exam, especially stethoscope skills. I feel like I am getting better at picking up the differences in sounds. The residents are all very confident with their physical exams and lear...