picking up the pieces of my life...

as i said in my brief post yesterday, the test was anticlimactic, and looking around the disaster zone my apartment has become, i've got to wonder if all of that preparation was really worth it..

my laundry to do as a percentage of clothes owned is nearing 100%, and that same fraction could be applied to dirty/clean dishes... there's no food left, save some dried and canned goods... and it's a bit filthy... if you've had the pleasure of living with me before, you can probably extrapolate what this whole scene looks like...

i justified letting all of these things slide by saying that this week, after all of the exams, I would finally clean up, do the laundry, and take care of

antomy: rocked.... bring on the party...

with 50+ hours of studying, anatomy has been rocked...

actually, the exam was a bit anticlimactic... but who care--the learning of material is supreme to the evaluation...

and with nothing really important to do until next tuesday, let the partying begin...

cheers,

T-48...

well, with only 48 hours to go before our first dreaded anatomy test, i am feeling moderately well prepared... the good news is that i caught up on my sleep, so that should help greatly with the "heart break" hill of anatomy preparation...

the word of advice from the ta's was the following:

"you should probably prepare for this like it's the hardest test you will ever take in your lives, because we've looked at it, and it's just that hard. So study and prepare with that in mind, and come with that attitude, so when you see four questions in a row you can't answer, you can just move on unfazed to the next ones that you can answer, and come back. If you get fazed, your brain is gonna shut down, and you're probably done at that point..."

yikes...


hyperbole? maybe... a teaching tactic? i don't think so...

i think it's probably that hard...

at least i passed microanatomy and rocked molecular biology... if i could just pass this next one, what a week... this is really the indoctrination into medschool training... the first three weeks had been nothing...

and with that in mind, i'm leaving you all for the lab, my lovely cadaver, many books, lecture slides, notes, and probably 11ish cups of coffee...

oh, but before i go, i wanted to let everyone know that due to the request of one reader, i'm changing the format so as to allow for people to post responses if they want to... so enjoy--but keep it clean folks...

wish me luck,

cheers,

P = MD...

back at tech, we used to say P = P = P... during the first year, all grading was pass/no record--if you failed a class, there was no record of you ever taking the class on your transcript (although, as my histology prof might say, you would well mind the curious incident with the dog in the night, and notice what is absent to deduce what was there--a sherlock holmes reference)... for some people, it did much to relieve the stress of transition to a pretty competive environment, and for others, well, let's just say it was a passport to shenanigans...

here, we say P = MD... just knowing your doctor passed may not be so confidence-instilling in you would-be patients, but, let me assure you, that P comes with no small effort. it is hard to achieve that P, and it is something to be proud of...

today, i took my microanatomy (histology) midterm, and I passed... of the two portions, I barely passed the written (and my score was a little below average, so this was a hard, hard exam), and i did very, very well on the practical (which is great because i'm such a practical guy)... but, let me tell you, as someone, like many of my peers, who is used to academic success and probably defines themselves a bit by what they've accomplished academically and professionally, it's still a blow and difficult to deal with...

which brings me back to the P = MD... that's sort of the mantra... that brings you back to center, the source of perspective... things are difficult here and now, but that's the way it's supposed to be--the lesson is in the work, commitment and sacrifice...

i didn't mean this to turn into that nike commercial i saw on tv tonight, but it did... anyway, i'm still exhausted--apparently i wrote an email last night and referred to my new dog by the name of one of our passed dogs...

it's fair to say that i'm losing some perspective here...

there was something else, but, well, it's gone now... oh yeah, something about brain plasticity, learning foreign languages, and studying medicine contrasted with age, but i think i'll leave that thought for another time...

back to the books,

cheers,

when testing to see if a wire is "hot"...

so, apparently, electricians know a bit about anatomy... just ask them how they test if an electrical wire is "hot"--live with electricity, that is... the answer you'll often receive is that they brush the back of their hand (or the posterior, as we call it here) against the wire, not the front... if i were to do it without thinking, i'm sure that i would choose the front...

but that's wrong, because if the wire is live, the electricity now running between your hand will likely force your hand close--those muscles in the hand that flex your hand will contract with the electrical impulse--right on the wire, which will probably mean bad things for you...

though if you brush your hand against the wire, it'll force your hand close, but you'll close it away from the wire and will be spared what is probably a pretty nasty electrical burn...

anyway, in anatomy we had a md/phd hand surgeon come and talk about his work and the kind of things that are possible in restoring hand (and general upper limb) function for individuals... it's pretty amazing stuff, honestly... my mom would have loved it--all that hand surgery talk... it's an amazingly complicated part of the body, and ingeniously designed...

also, i went to an emergency medicine interest group meeting today, which was great. the meeting was better than the free lunch served, but those sandwiches were easily a close second... i haven't had tuna that good in quite a while... well, at least since July 14th...

i'm staring down a midterm in microanatomy (histology) tomorrow, and on monday we have out first anatomy exam, which the TAs have informed us is killer, so i'm not doing much more than going to class every day, going home for a bit to eat something, watch 20 minutes of sportscenter, and then heading right back to the library for four or five hours of studying, and then maybe an hour or two more at home after it closes... i think i'm getting a lot better at studying--seems like it's a muscle, and after a few weeks, i'm really getting a bit stretched out...

something else really interesting happened today, but i can't think of it for the life of me. the memory has been replaced with info on the extensor carpi radialis longus and the lamellae of compact bone... ugh...

when all this is over next monday night, that's going to be pretty sweet...

cheers,

fresh from another evaluation...

hello all,

so i'm five minutes out of the testing room, and feeling great as only a medical student can feel when it's the time of the week that's farthest away from the next evaluation... this one went pretty well, so the week is off to a very good start, and there's only a midterm between me and the weekend, and the weekend promises unlimited potential in studying all hours of the day for monday's ultra severe anatomy exam... so i think right now, ten-thirty monday morning is about as good as it's going to get, at least until that anatomy exam is over, or, perhaps even better, when the wheels leave the tarmac and i'm headed for bluer skies and hopefully balmier conditions on the left coast for a couple days... i'm of half the mind to change my flight so i can stay another day...

last night's short post was fresh out of a couple hour stint studying in the anatomy lab alone, with nothing but the company of my walkman. I had another of those shocking moments when you look up from what you're doing, stuck in your little bubble of the world with your headphones and whatever you've dug into for the moment, and right in front of you, totally unexpected, is some dude... in the anatomy lab, where there are a more than a handful of in-the-process-of-being dissected cadavers, this is a more disconcerting experience than most. when it happened last night, no words were exchanged other than some mere pleasantries, and i tried to shake off that feeling that you've cheated death somehow even though you haven't even landed in the same country as it... well, at least i got some studying in (looked at radiographs for an hour or so, and then explored the flexors or the forearm, as well as their innervations, and then moved up to the "dreaded" brachial plexus, which i had no idea to dread until i was taught to, so, there it is... hate is learned, not inborn)...

as for the weekend, nothing special... for the majority of sunday, i helped a fellow student wrap their mind around all of this molecular biology stuff we've been studying in class--with my background, it hasn't been bad at all... the least i can do is help some of my fellow classmates get over the hurdle of comprehending some of this stuff, which can definitely be less than intuitive...

on friday, i spent the afternoon shadowing my pediatriation... it was a slow day, so we got to sit and chat a bit--"waxing philosophic," as she called it, and I guess I have to agree... it was really quite interesting, and on a lot of levels...

for one, it's a pretty big high to put on your suit, and your name badge, and then walk around the clinic a bit... people are generally mistaking you for a physician, and since that's where you're trying to get, it's a bit flattering, and quite the trip... when they find out you're a student though, back to the bottom of the pile with you...

so after that high, and maybe, like me, you're sitting on the shuttle going to the clinic, and this high has worn off a bit and all you can think about is "i know absolutely nothing applicable to what is going to happen and what i might need to know...," but then you think that you're a student and you're just there to learn, and you don't worry so much about it...

so i spent a number of hours with my preceptor (teacher-physician), and we saw a number of patients, some for acute problems, some for wellness checks and whatnot, and it was really interesting. as to the work of a general pediatrician, it's interesting, but i wonder if i would want to do something more interventional... as i've said before, i really like anatomy, and working with my hands, so i'm going to try surgery, and look at a lot of specialties... there's a great number of things to be crossing off the list...

after the whole affair, i was exhausted... it's quite a bit going from patient to patient, making a diagnosis, counseling a patient and their parent, making notes, taking dictation, going to radiology, making phone calls to follow-up on patients... i think preceptor works 8 to six or something like that, and she probably sees 25 patients a day... generally scheduled for fifteen or thirty minute blocks... it's surprising how quickly it goes...

anyway, in a couple moments we've got our continuity of care course, and our first patient is coming today, so we're all in our nice dibs... looking pretty smart as i class, i would have to say...

well, that's it for me for right now... hope everyone is doing well in their little spheres of the world,

cheers,

...

i spent two hours tonight studying the teaching assistant's dissected cadaver in lab tonight... it was kind of unnerving being in there alone, especially since we've been dissecting the whole upper limb and holding your cadaver's hand while your teasing at it's nerves, tendons, and arteries... well, it's just different...

anyway, quiz tomorrow... it never ends... burning the midnight oil again... and only with fifteen hours of studying done over the weekend... ahg, whatever...

very much looking forward to a trip to san francisco in two weeks.... it's going to be a great breather...

cheers,

the soup...

there might not be a better half hour of tv on all week than the soup on E!... if you don't know what i'm talking about, you would be well advised to take it in some week...

where else are you going to see dogs doing yoga, jose conseco applying sparkling lip gloss, low quality but very campy sketch comedy, and all things funny from a week in tv all condensed to a digestible thirty-minute slot...

shadowing was great today... i need to write a diary entry about it, but i'm beat... not much going on tonight... actually, there's nothing going on tonight...

ugh, this town...

cheers,

body knows best...

last night was glorious...

with all of the weekly evals and our presentation done (well, sort-of), the pressure of the week was over, and we were all left to our devices for, at least, the night. it felt like the equivalent of a friday night.

i went home, made dinner (even the midwest has annie's mac and cheese w/ bunnies), turned on sportscenter, saw that the sox had blown it (getting a little nervous about the east--just a little), and promptly conked out on the couch...

i remember waking up briefly at nine, deciding actively not to go out with classmates, and putting my head down until midnight, when i must have stumbled to bed. Six a.m. came quickly, but i haven't felt that refreshed and stress free in a bit of time... so it was time well invested...

today went by quickly and productively, and with my histology class's reading done ahead of time, i found i was getting a lot more understanding from looking at tissue sections (muscle tissue today) than i normall do, so i'll start doing some more prep time for that class... lecture was unchanged, although i did take fewer notes for having a lot of prior knowledge for the subject. in all of these completely novel classes, i'm finding working a bit ahead of time speeds the whole process along nicely...

anatomy lab continues to rock, although yesterday's session was the least useful. Reason: in lecture, we had a visiting professor present the material in a much more interactive manner, more of a problem-based learning format that's become more and more popular, and it was too much of a change for me. We sat through lecture, i tried to take my notes, and when we went into the lab, i just found myself as lost as i've ever been in there. It doesn't help that we're dissecting the anterior part of the forearm and hand, which are relatively complicated, either. On the plus side, it was just another fantastic group of professors, surgical attendings and residents, plus the awesome TA's in lab to help us understand. Most of the surgeons were orthopaedic hand and arm specialists, so you can imagine what kind of expertise we're getting communicated to us.

And the visiting prof was an anatomist from another prominent clinic, who, despite my difficulties with the lecture (which was incredibly interesting, even if i didn't retain much of it--need to do a lot of prep work for that kind of lecture). So there's lots of attention and quite a bit of help... it's great... we did a quick calc, and we figure for every four students, there's a teacher throughout most of the lab.

Accidently, while cleaning out the branch of the brachial artery into the ulnar and the radial artery, I snipped part of it... a total accident... which got me thinking about surgery and whether i would be a good surgeon and whether i would enjoy the work... i think it's a pretty common thought while people are in anatomy, but i'm also in a pretty rare situation where i can easily get into the operating room to shadow surgeons and residents, so i'm thinking of doing it a couple times. I really enjoy the dissection... i wonder how i would feel about doing the reassembly and repair... only one way to find out...

and the really good news is that i'm all set for tomorrow's shadowing of my preceptor... she's a pediatrion, and i've got the whole afternoon (about four hours) scheduled with her to experience acute care (when you're sick and you call the doctor for an appointment on short notice). my suits all clean, and i think it will be really interested, so it'll be a nice way to end the week...

and tonight, some studying, the gym, and maybe a couple drinks out with classmates... this is about as leisurely as it gets around here...

oh, and before i go, i found out that my friend Brian, who helped me move all the way out here, met a girl who's friend is a second year here when he moved to his new job. i love coincidences that make the world smaller... like running into one of my fraternity brother's girlfriend in beijing... always cool... enjoy the cameo, Bri...

did you know that the white and dark meat on chickens come from fast twitch and slow twitch muscles respectively? and that on geese, you find the meat in opposite places because of usage and need (white = chicken breast, geese legs; dark = geese breast, chicken legs)... fun fun..

hope everyone is doing well...

cheers,

anything but studying...

tonight, i am studying in our anatomy classroom--i figure learning the material in same environment that you're expected to demonstrate it on evaluations is probably worth something--and i was in my normal form, with headphones on, head down, pretty immersed in what i was doing... all of the sudden i hear this noise coming from behind me, and i swivel my head to catch a glimpse of whatever it is...

i don't see anything, and i look around the room and, still, no sign of anything to explain the ruckus, so i go back to my book, and forget about it briefly... a second later i stretch, and standing right in front of me is one of the staff--totally freaked me out...

nice guy, we had a bit of an amusing chat at my expense... he's cleaning up in here as i'm writing this. and he just introduced himself to me. Bruce, a very pleasant chap. I'm sure I'll be running into him again...

anyway, the week is almost over... it's at the point where it really has nothing to do with monday to friday, but rather the week is over once all of the quizzes, exams, and presentations cease, and you can take some time to clean up, catch up, sleep a bit more, hang out, or whatever you choose--emphasis on YOU choose--to do with your time... you can pay for it later...

so after tomorrow's presentation and quiz, I will have finished this weeks three big things, and I will take a long, long nap, watch a movie and just chill out... and possibly do some of the reading i need to catch up on... but that won't be a big deal, because of how casual it will be... my apartment may finally get that cleaning it's been beggin for all week...

also a big plus is that i smacked the quiz today in our histology-ish course, which is a nice turn around from last weeks slightly disappointing quiz... and today's quiz was a pretty significant portion of my grade, so even better... i'm prepping for tomorrow's stuff purely on the adrenal of that great performance, because i really think i would have crashed a couple hours ago if it weren't for my good cheer, ipod, and a lot of diet cokes...

sox pulled it off tonight after a disappointing drop with schilling's blown save yesterday, and, as a good friend pointed out, rivera blew a save and it was a full game swing in the east back to a 4.5 game lead for the sox... but that bullpen still gives me such butterflies...

I'm trying to schedule my first preceptorship this coming friday, so not a full three weeks into medical school, i'll be having my first contact with patients... I know, I'm just as shocked as you (don't worry about their well being... other professionals will be involved)

ok, that's it for now... i've got to get back to clinical correlations of the upper limb and pectoral region...

tomorrow, i'll have a bit to say about anatomy...

back to the books,

cheers,

social atrophy...

a number of us made a pact to go to the local pub every monday night, regardless of what was going on...

with a minor quiz tomorrow (well, actually, it's of fair significance), only five of us (of the normal fifteen) showed up...

oh well...

weekend update...

you know that you're in the thick of medschool when netter's passes as bathroom reading...

had a great friday--fueled only by caffeine and sheer will-power, i muscled through three hours of mobio, got my medical fires stoked by our first "continuity of care" class (that's where we start to see patients), enjoyed a free lunch and a talk from one of my favorite groups--Physicians for Human Rights--and had a decently productive afternoon of group work and a library training session...

at 5 p.m., having no sleep and having been sick caught up with me, and i crashed on my futon for a couple of hours before heading out to the pub with classmates, only to follow it up with bowling... the kind with the large ball--not candlepin...

on my first toss, i slid too far, lost my feet and crashed on my tailbone... with my tailbone and ego bruised, i proceeded to bowl a 55... not a bad day's work if you ask me...

on sat, a couple of us headed up to the city to see 'murderball,' which i highly recommend to any of you who haven't been to a great documentary or a great sports film in a long time, because this one fits both of those bills to the T... it was definitely worth the three hours in the car... plus, the theater (The Lagoon) is an awesome indie movie house, and they've got a great line-up of films, and it's in a pretty chill neighborhood to boot... getting to know the twins a bit at a time...

and since then, well, it's been a combo of the books and sleep... i wish i could trade a little more sleep for a bit of studying, but, well, i do love my rest...

and thus begins another great week...

cheers,

friday's are off for the blog...

oh, it was a lovely, exciting interesting friday, and maybe i'll get to touching on it tomorrow, but for now, friday is for socializing and catching up on the week, so i'll mostly be taking if off from the blog...

cheers,

one month down, 46 to go?...

as of this afternoon, i've resided here for exacly one month... i've been "in school" for nearly three weeks, and in classes for almost two...

a couple of realizations to discuss... i really, really like school despite its difficulties and the way it crowds out much of what one might refer to as normal life. i had wondered for awhile whether getting a phd or an md/phd would make more sense, but i think that the medical training on top of my background is going to be perfect. actually, one of my good friends in her residency said that although she found the life tough, the hours long, the compensation not as much as one might hope for, dealing with the administration of medicine frustrating, and a milieu of other things, she couldn't see herself doing anything else... and although i've only been at this for two weeks, and wouldn't even want to make a statement, i can understand how she might have gotten where she is and how she feels about it... when i think back on the last two weeks, the only time i really regret was when i was inefficiently goofing off (there's nothing wrong with goofing off and taking a break, just make sure that you're doing something purposeful with that time, even if it means watching the paint dry if that's what it takes to maintain your sanity), and all of the classes and training and studying were pretty satisfying...

ok, now i like school, so that's out of the way.

the other thing i wanted to say is that i'm feeling a mixture of homesickness and urban withdrawal. it can't be a particularly good sign when i'm already daydreaming about a residency in a coastal metropolis, or taking a year or two during medical school for a masters degree or a year of research that's anywhere but here...

and starting over is definitely hard when you've had such a large and long established network of friends and family...

so, i guess the novelty is officially beginning to wear off a bit--it's still there, but maybe not as shiny and glistening as it once was...

i've got to stop listening to elliot smith in an empty apartment--it's really kind of depressing...

don't get too concerned about me, folks... i've just been couped up in my apartment for most of the day nursing a bit of a cough (although its august, it feels like late september--what happened to that scorching heat august was supposed to usher in? looks like i bought an a/c for nothing)

well, i've got projects to prepare for tomorrow--our intro to the patient course starts tomorrow morning... that's pretty exciting...

g'night!

long day...

today was the first excruciatingly long day...

class from 8 to 11, a meeting at noon, class and lab from 1 to 5 and a review session from 6 to 8... and then trying to be productive in the free time... i meant to do a ton of anatomy tonight, but i was just so wiped from the day, i caught the end of the sox game and did skimmed my reading for tomorrow...

but the good news is that the brunt of the week is over, and we're basically left to prepare for two evaluations and a presentation next week, and numerous other little things...

also, i continue to be shocked at how good the anatomy lab experience is and how much i get out of it... today, we had two surgical oncologists specializing in breast cancer floating around the lab while we were dissecting the pectoral region...

an additional upside, plans are in the works to go to the city to see murderball, the documentary of the wheelchair rugby guys, this weekend, so i'm stoked for that...

i'm exhausted, and getting a little sick, i'm turning in early...

cheers,

twisters in nyc...???

i bet it's been at least fifty years, maybe even a hundred, since anyone saw a tornado in new york city...

there have been two spotted in the last three weeks here in my new midwest locale, and i discovered i'm in no way programmed to deal with tornados. the first time it happened, I was at home watching tv and making dinner. The rain was pouring down at a forty-five degree angle and the wind was really blowing hard, but i didn't think anything of it. a few minutes into my stir-fry, i thought i heard a dull siren in the background, but, as i've said before, there are quite a few sirens around here. it didn't go away, and i attributed to being one of the many sounds that occasionally run through my head...

the next day, in class, i brought up the storm, and my delusional siren, only to find out that i should have been in my basement cowering with toto, rather than wasting the night away, totally oblivious to the danger...

anyway, there was a warning of a potential warning tonight... not really sure what i was supposed to do tonight... a tornado orange alert?


on a school note, the teaching here, especially in anatomy, is just excellent... in our dissections, we've had the aid or two anatomists, one neurosurgeon w/ 20+ years experience, one orthopaedic attending and his resident, and three 3rd year medical student TAs... besides their titles, they're really quite good at explaining and demonstrating the important things we need to know...

getting quite a bit out of lab, but finding a bit more difficult to jam all of this knowledge into my head... if only there could be a hit reality show incorporating all aspects of anatomy...

signing off, House is getting good...

cheers,

quiz results...

i took my quiz today, and it was more focused than expected, and contained exactly what the professor said would be on it...

unfortunately, I didn't believe him, and I studied a bit too broadly and without enough depth. I passed the quiz, but didn't do as well as I would have liked... certainly lower than the class as a whole... but it was only 11 multiple choice questions... c'mon... nothing to worry about..

the good news is that this was really a very, very insignificant quiz (less than 1% of my grade in anatomy), and I'll be able to chalk it up to a learning experience and will know how to better prepare myself for next time... and i'm going to buckle down and study a lot more... over the weekend, i had a lot of difficulty focusing... actually, adjusting to being back in a rigidly structured school environment is a bit more difficult than i would have expected as well...

on the upside, the class going to the local pub for $2 mystery beer night on monday night is still going strong, but I'm battling fed ex--shocking how difficult it is to get them to drop off an express package (it's been nearly a week and a half now)... they just can't figure out that my building has multiple entries...

and finally, i'm watching adam carolla's new show "too late," and i think it's got some potential... i just hope that adam can carry it--seems like a pretty intense impromptu talk show. he's got plenty of background experience, so i'm hopefull...

well, back to the books...

cheers,

with the wind to your back...

today was a refreshing change of pace, and plenty of interesting things going on to boot...

the highlight of the day is easy to identify: manny ramirez getting knocked down by jc romero, and then manny stepping back into the box and launching a 400 ft. shot off the wall for a 2 RBI HR... good times...

(for those of you following the sox: what's going on with all of these throwing/fielding errors? some of it's just shocking... i understand that a lot of the regular guys are out and that the artificial turf is a little bit faster, but c'mon, these are just ridiculous to watch... i threw my hat three times today watching them try to give away the win with eleven runs scored...

on the plus side, i got to see schilling stop the bleeding as the closer... maybe that's too much credit, but it was nice to see him pitch... although it's too bad wake couldn't finish the game--that possibililty, i believe, was blown on a Cora error with a botched throw to first)

enough baseball...

it was really refreshing to get out of town and up to Minneapolis to see the game. a bunch of friends were up there, and a guy from medical school came with me (you bostonians would be shocked at how difficult it was to GIVE a ticket away here). it turned out that my med school friend and i had a lot in common in professional interests (lots of infectious disease, public health, human rights, international medicine sort of stuff) and he's a really nice guy to boot... plus, anyone willing to drive me there--that's points in my book...

the whole trip was really refreshing, and i feel much better equipped to tackle the coming week. if i didn't get out of here for that game, i think that it this would have felt like a long 10 day week with no let up... thankfully, the outing and a sox win wiped the slate clean...

on a totally different note, i was listening to an archived episode of This American Life, an NPR radio program out of chicago, and the opening to the show had this little vignette that i thought was really quite funny. each episode of the show has a theme, and the theme of this one was a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous. anyway, there were these two individuals discussing architecture, and they have no idea what they're really talking about--just the barest smidgeon of superficial knowledge--and they get onto the topic of just that: talking at length about something you really know very little about, and they come up with an imaginary magazine or journal devoted such matters.

It's title: Modern Jackass

So, for instance, you may have heard something about how mitochondria play some role in different diets being better for you because of something else, and you proceed to give your friends a discourse about it, at length, over brunch. "Is that really true?," they might ask. "Sure," you say. "I read it this month's issue of Modern Jackass."

I really enjoy that expression--it's popped into my vernacular already, with two or three appearances today. Check out the episode archived in 2005 under the title "A Little Bit of Knowledge" at www.thisamericanlife.com... enjoy...

When you leave the metrodome, there's this big pressure differential from the inside to the outside (that's what holds up the dome, right? the pressure? or is another appearance of Modern Jackass), and as you're walking between the two, there's this huge backdraft. It really caught me by surprise and I nearly lost my hat... it's quite the "how's your father?"

anyway, i've got a quiz tomorrow and quite a bit of reading, so i'm off...

you stay classy, san diego!

cheers,

all quiet on the western front...

i've got to get out...

the center of this city almost totally shuts down on the weekend. without twenty thousand commuters shuttling into their 9-to-5 gigs, there's none of the street traffic and bustle to make it feel like the vibrant urban center i've convinced myself it is.

save for the sirens... (see immediately previous post)

after what was a really long first week and with the bosox playing on local tv, i was really looking forward to catching up on some rest and some work, while taking in the rare tv broadcasts of the hometown team playing out here. needless to say, i've been holed up in the apartment way too much... at least tomorrow, i'm going to get up to the city for the game (although i really didn't get enough studying put in to justifiy a whole day away--there's our first anatomy quiz on monday)

well, monday's going to show up much quicker than i would have hoped, and, if i'm lucky, i'll be prepared for this quiz...

having been in school for a full week now, i have to say that being in medical school is really (this isn't an original thought) like being back in high school. everything is rigidly scheduled (nearly thirty hours of class each week) and the learning is mostly rote memorization and understanding, which will likely be tested in in a similar way. This isn't to cast medical education in any sort of negagive light, because the reality is that there's just so much information you need to know and there's little time for the conceptional learning and problem solving type of learning that i'm familiar with from my undergraduate education. It's just that this type of learning is really different, and I haven't done it for a very long time--it's really going to take some getting used to... and i just hope that my old skool brain is up to the task...

time for bed...

cheers,

sirens...

it may not be a big city here by any stretch of the imagination, but one consequence of living so close to the hospital that i didn't predict were the ambulance sirens at all hours of the day... their pretty piercing at night, considering there's no other background noise whatsoever...

nailing the puncture, more than you would ever want to know about magnification, and personality part II

in anatomy lab, we've been dissecting the superficial back, the deep back, and the spinal cord... as i've said before, it's really quite fascinating, and i find being in the lab to be a really exciting experience--the place is amazing... the equipment, the instruction, the TAs, and the fact that there are only three of us working on our cadaver... i would never have expected it, and i'm doing my best to learn as much as i can from the experience...

one of the exercises we've done is to do a lumbar puncture (or a spinal tap) on the cadaver... we were to do the puncture, and then have a TA inject a blue epoxy into our tap, and then when we dissected the spine later, we would be able to see how well we did. long story short, our puncture was perfect. when we did the laminectomy to look at the lumbar portion of the vertebral foramen, there it was--our blue epoxy creeping up the interior of the subarachnoid space--just where it should be... the TAs were pretty wowed, and news of our success was kicked up the chain, and before we knew it, the profs were coming by to admire our handiwork... that was pretty cool... they can be pretty hard to impress... but I guess they view us as reflections of their teaching, so the like to set high standars...

today, we spent a huge amount of time on imaging techniques for histology and microanatomy... we were taken on a tour of the electron microscope facility here, which was interestings enough, but i've just been exhausted today from the week... it's finally caught up with me a bit, but relaxing a little tonight has helped... getting to bed at a decent hour tonight will help more... bugs under a scanning electron microscope just aren't equivalent to 8 solid hours of sleep or a couple expressos...

but before i wrap this up, i wanted to go back to the career testing stuff and post the results of the STRONG survey that i took, because i think it's pretty interesting. those of you who know me well may think it's a pretty accurate reflection of me and my interests. basically, it's a tool (you answer a couple hundred questions about things you like and dislike to do, mostly career and hobby kind of stuff) and they correlate it with a standard set of people from various professions, and spit out an analysis of your interests... you may have taken it, or might think about it... as i said, it's interesting...

without further ado, here's the results:

Highest Themes:
Investigative, Artistic, Social

Top Five Interest Areas:
1 Medical Science (I)
2 Politics & Public Speaking (E)
3 Social Sciences (S)
4 Culinary Arts (A)
5 Science (I)

Top Ten STRONG Occupations
1 Psychologist (IA)
2 Marketing Manager (EA)
3 Attorney (A)
4 Optomotrist (IR)
5 Top Executive (E)
6 Reporter (A)
7 University Professor (IAS)
8 Physician (IAR)
9 Public Administrator (ASE)
10 Rehabilitation Counselor (SAI)

and there's a lot more info, but that's the gist of it...

the thing that strikes me is how many of the occupations i've actually seriously considered at different points in time...

ok, i'm calling it a night... the daily show cues up in a few minutes, and then it's slumberland for me...

cheers,

developing habits...

well, three days in, and i can definitely say i'm developing habits... my friend jon was telling me that it's important to develop good and healthy habits early in med school, but i'm not sure my habits are so healthy...

basically:

sleep to 7:30
class at 8:00
end at 11:00
home for lunch for twenty minutes...
back to school to "study" until one...
lecture and lab until five
home to eat, watch sports center, and do some little things...
back to school to study until 11...
watch the daily show at midnight...
go to sleep...

i haven't made it to the gym yet, and i'm still wicked behind in my work, but i don't feel so bad... it's pass/fail afterall... how bad could it be...

anyway, back to some more studying--oh, and i finally got my phone working so if you want to call me, my old number still works...

cheers,

as soon as you start, you're behind...

on the first day of orientation, one of the deans said to us that during these next four years, we'll need to learn 55,000 medical terms--that's the equivalent of learning to speak four foreign languages... that's probably romance languages, so maybe it's like learning chinese one and a half times or something like that...

anyway, i've been at this medical school thing for two days, and it's amazing how far behind i am already... kind of shocking to someone who generally likes to tie things up completely, because i don't think that'll be possible anymore... there's no way you can learn it all...

i started anatomy yesterday, and i won't say much about it here other than it was an amazing experience--honestly, it's a privilege--and i was much more composed than i thought i would be... i had a lot of trouble dissecting a frog back and middle school and thought this would be magnitudes more difficult for me personally...

guess i've come a long way from that frog...

anyway, back to the books... i'll try to update a bit more later...