Februrary

As I've been studying for the NBME shelf exam, I've been really excited at how questions that would have seemed extremely difficult only last year make sense because I have a much more broad knowledge of medications, mechanisms of action, and pharmacokinetics/dynamics. Although there's a lot I need to brush up on, I feel like I'm doing a lot more review than learning new material at this point. It feels really good to be aware of a broadened knowledge base.
In mid-February I had surgery on my left shoulder, and I've had a very difficult time getting around since then. Typing is difficult and painful, the healing process is obnoxiously slow and because I'm still out of work and have had to figure out my days in the context of what hurts the least, I'm struggling a little to keep my days organized in the past two weeks. One thing that I really appreciated about the surgery and recovery was understanding the peri-operative medications being used at the time, and following the surgery I was sent home with a local anesthetic pump to function as a nerve block in my shoulder to keep the pain down as much as possible. That in particular was very cool.
Because of the surgery my volunteering has been limited. I was only able to put on one syringe exchange drop in hours, but it was pretty standard fare- distributing syringes and naloxone, discussing wound care, and teaching how to recognize and treat overdoses.

volunteering time- 4 hours