I have been looking forward to January for quite some time now. I don't like cold weather, and I am not a fan of never seeing the sun, but nonetheless, I could not wait until the beginning of 2008. This is the month during which I have finally been able to spend time at a family practice office and spend some quality time with the doctors and residents in a rural area of Ohio. At Ohio State, third year medical students spend six two-month periods doing surgery, OB/GYN, internal medicine (IM), ambulatory care, pediatrics, and neurology/psychology. During the first half of my third year, I completed IM, surgery, and OB/GYN, and after 14 hour days, countless gall bladder extraction, and umlimited pap smears, I concluded that I would not become any of those specialities. I have always thought that I wanted to be a family practice doctor, but I had to wait until January, until I actually was in a family medicine setting, in order to know if that was my chosen profession. Every day in family practice offers extraordinary diversity. For instance, yesterday, I woke up, got dressed, and scraped the ice off of my car (did I mention that I hate cold weather). I headed to the community hospital to visit a patient that we admitted the day before directly from the office. Her cellulitis was doing much better, and she appreciated the company. I then met with the doctors and residents that had also gone around the hospital to visit their patients. We discussed the patients, our assigned locations for the day, and shared a few laughs regarding one of the resident's ability to be a morning person only after noon. I then headed to the office, but not before scraping the ice off of my car for a second time (really, I should probably just move to Florida). At the office, I went to see my first patient, a woman who was 38 weeks pregant. She loved being pregnant but was ready to get the baby out so she could stop waddling when she walked. We happily listened to the baby's heartbeat together, and I made sure that the baby was positioned to come out head first. I then went and discussed my findings with a doctor, and we went back into the room together to finish the exam. Throughout the day, I saw ten to twelve more patients who came for the viral upper respiratory infections, blood pressure checks, rotator cuff tears, etc. Around 5pm, the office closed, and I put on my winter coat and prayed that it hadn't snowed so that I wouldn't have to clear off my car again. As it turns out, I love family practice... now if I can just change the weather.