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bipolarmedstudent · Apr 01, 2012, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dragonfly2

It sounds like you have a fabulous pdoc. The bad lipid results may be from the antipsychotics you've been on and it's good to see that he did an A1c level. Fasting glucoses are good, but can be misleading in someone whose sugars they're monitoring.

It sounds like the Master's degree option may not be a bad one if you don't mind adding another year. Would you be guaranteed a spot in rotations if you were to take another year of didactic instead of clinical studies? It sounds like you've at least got some options and you're young, so you do have plenty of time to work on it.

Something else to keep in mind, just as a back up....if for some reason things don't go well in rotations, you could easily get into a physician assistant program, which I believe is a bit less rigorous in its clinical rotation work (ie: no sleepless nights). I may be wrong, but that was my impression when I was looking at PA programs. I'm certainly not saying to give up on the MD, but don't lose hope if things don't work out.

Oh, and yes, it makes sense to not feed into the OCD with an overly detailed field like pathology. I was just thinking it could be a good option to accommodate that if you were struggling with the frenetic pace of office-based managed care. Internal medicine sounds much more agreeable than emergency medicine or general practice.

Yes, if I do the master's program (I want to do it in biostatistics & epidemiology), then I would be guaranteed a spot in rotations. Basically, I would just be taking a leave of absence for one year (med students do this all the time for health reasons, or to do 3-year PhDs between 2nd and 3rd year). I would technically still be considered a student at my medical school, so I could still shadow doctors in my free time. Also, I would keep my student loans and keep my student drug plan coverage. There would be minimal disruption, really. One girl in my class took a year off between 1st and 2nd year to have a baby! Another girl took a year off because of illness. And several students in my class are taking 3 years off to do PhDs.

But, it's still scary to veer off course, you know? There is a well-defined plan in front of me that I thought I would be following. And deviating from the plan has me a little freaked!

As for my lipid levels....unfortunately, I think that's due to bad genes and a complete lack of exercise on my part.

I'm trying to convince my p-doc to put me on metformin and/or topiramate but he will have none of it! I was just searching on pubmed for some ammo for my argument, and found a bunch of articles suggesting that topiramate is useful in treatment of tics, trichotillomania, and OCD, all of which I have. I'm going to print them out and show them to him. Hopefully he will give in and put me on topiramate because I really want to lose weight and get my lipids back on track.