My Surgical Rotation

Once again, I find myself starting off a post with an apology about how I haven't been posting because I've been too busy. Sigh. Enough of the excuses.

So, let me talk about Friday's surgical rotation that I did at St. Maarten Medical center. I had a blast! I didn't get a chance to sit in an actual surgery, but I did go on morning rounds with one of the 2 surgeons on the dutch side. I met a lot of patients, most with diabetes and who have had multiple amputations. Many have end stage renal failure, which means that they have to come into the hospital 2 times a week for dialysis (which takes 4-5 hours).

I will keep this short, but I really enjoyed myself. It was cool walking around the hospital with my stethescope and white coat.

In a few weeks, I will be going to the Mullet bay clinic for a 4 hour "shift" there. We'll see how that goes.

SOS...HELP!

Hey.
If anyone knows how to embed a video into blogs, please send me a message via the comment section (i won't post your message). I keep trying, and I can't seem to get it to work.

Thanks!

My Famous sister

My sister, the overachiever. First, she gets published by Maryland Law. Now, she was on tv. She's in the background of this link. She was at this press conference about a new agreement between 11 Baltimore hospitals, should there ever be a crisis.


http://wjz.com/video/?id=24369@wjz.dayport.com

Parasite Twins

I watched a documentary the other night about parasite twins. I posted a pic of the twins that were featured. This is the 2nd set of parasite twins in the past 100 years, according to the show.

These Egyptian twin girls were joined at the head, their brains fused together. The larger twin had all of the main organs, including a heart that pumped blood to both of them. The "parasitic" twin received all nutrients from the larger twin.

These 2 girls were successively seperated, which was the 1st recorded time that this has occurred. Unfortunately, "success" means that the parasitic twin died upon separation, since she lacked all vital organs.

The trickiest part of the operation (and the longest) was trying to determine the borders of each girl's brain were, since the two brains were fused together.

Half a Plane For 4 Sale

I was stuck in traffic yesterday and on the area next to me was half a plane for sale. So if you're interested in a plane without an engine, landing gear, or propeller, call the number on the "For Sale" sign.


(Sorry I couldn't zoom in more, I was inching forward as I was trying to take the pic.)

Triple Birthday Wishes

Today's a big day for my family: 3 birthdays on the same day!
Happy Birthday to Grandmom (mom's mom), Pop-pop(dad's dad) and Mocha (my chocolate lab).

I baked lemon muffins (for myself) in your all's honor!!!

The Longest 4 Hours

Today was "comp day." I have to say, it was the longest and most draining 4 hours of test-taking ever. How I'm going to get through Step that is twice as long is beyond me.

Everyone crammed into lecture hall 2 today, the one that has the loud air conditioning/generator thing/thing-a-ma-bob that loudly cuts on like every 30 minutes. We had 4 hours to complete 200 multiple choice questions. It was hard, but not as hard as I thought it would be, considering I have only put in a small amount of studying compared to other classmates of mine. Lots of pharm (anticancer), path (heart), phys (endocrine) and micro questions. Honestly, you know the classes that we all tend to complain and overly-stress about here at AUC? Well, trust me, those are the classes that prepare you the most. All the times that those profs said, "this will be on your boards"....they're right. I saw those questions on today's comp, which is written by the same people who write the questions for Step I. I hate to say this, but the hardest classes here are the ones where you learn AND retain the most info. I didn't have time to look over any micro or neuro, but I recognized every single question for those two subjects (whether I got the right answer or not is a different story).

I have no idea when we get our results. I'm not stressed if I passed or not, since, like I said, I haven't studied hard-core for it...it took me 2 weeks alone just to get completely organized for serious Step I studying for the next several months, but now that I'm organized, I'm ready to kick butt. One thing's for sure: the depth of those questions, and the fact that they were secondary and tertiary questions is enough to kick me into high gear.

Holey Moley

I figured that it was time to post again, since I've heard it through the grapevine that my family thinks I'm dead or MIA, due to my lack of emails, phone calls, and such.



I'm posting a pic of what's been going on...my organization and studies for Step 1, Kaplan, comp this friday, whatever else there is. I've been trying to keep up with ICM, too, since we've been working on HEENT (head, eyes, ears, nose, throat). Harvey lab, once a week, has also started, which is where we have a simulator that we learn the different heart sounds on. We finished normal this week, so we'll be starting abnormal next week (shunts, murmurs, etc). The first photo that I took was from last night at around 10 pm. The second photo is from 5pm today.

It's been a long week, that's for sure. Now, I have to go track down lightbulbs for my otoscope. I haven't even used the thing, and the light bulb is broken. I have to get it fixed ASAP, since without it, I can't complete a full HEENT exam.

With that said, back to studying. Oh, and no comments about the pics. Each pile represents a subject. So it's not a mess. I call it organized clutter.

Study Sunday

No cool updates for today, as all of today, I've kept myself in my apartment to study. I have a pathology shelf exam on tuesday and a comp on Friday. The path shelf is optional, and I'm going to take it, just for the exposure to USMLE-style questions. I'm not expecting to pass it, as I'm just now in Path II. But like I said, I'm doing it for practice.

The weather here has been up and down. I went for a night jog and got caught in a small down pour. I came home shivering and wet, and spent the night under several blankets, with fleece pants and sweatshirt on. I couldn't get warm. Funny. I live on an island, and I'm complaining of freezing last night. Irony at its best.

Oh, and as for the gross pathology pic... it shows anthracotic pigment. Some may misinterpret this as a smoker's lung, but it's actually an environmental pigment. You get this if you live in a city.

congrats, little sis!

I had forgotten to post that my sister will be published in the upcoming Maryland Law Review. congrats!!!!

Latest Construction

Yesterday, I went to the white coat ceremony to cheer on some friends who made it into the honor society (great job!!!) I decided not to go to the actual party afterwards. Instead, i enjoyed the temporary silence of my building (until I was awakened at 7am by the same bunch that seems to go out every weekend and come home in the wee hours of the morning, only to waken everyone on our floor. If they're reading this...keep it down!!)

I think I'm finally organized to study for step. You get pulled in many different directions, trying to figure out the best approach that works for you. After 1 week, I've got a schedule down (finally), and I'm preparing for the comp that is on Friday.

Nothing else is new here, except the construction site that has expanded. The one building is still having floors added, and now, there are bulldozers clearing all the brush around it, perhaps another building is on its way. I'm hoping for a really good restaurant or grocery store, but more likely than not, it's going to be another apartment building. However, it would be a really smart investment if someone would put a mini mart right there, what with the entire student population and the CIA students, there is def. a money pit to be made.

Closed

The school's gym is closed until further notice, or so a sign said when I walked over at 10:30 tonight. It might have something to do with the students in the dorm rooms right underneath the gym. I figured this gym set up wouldn't last very long.

Cut 'Em, Bleed 'Em, Sew 'Em Up

This will be me in a few short weeks. As part of ICM, we had the option of signing up to shadow a physician at the hospital. We could choose from ER, surgery, orthopedics, anesthesiology, gynecology, and pediatrics. I chose surgery. I'm pretty excited about that.

I'm moving through my Kaplan studies ever so slowly. ICM takes up a lot of time. Tomorrow, however, we're practicing vital signs on each other.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into??

Ahhhh, 5th semester.

Nope, not feeling any relief just yet. Question marks are permanetly floating above my head as I try to figure out the best way to time manage my semester, but also how to tackle Step I.

I took the diagnostic online over the weekend. I scored the same as most people (from what I'm hearing from friends). I can't figure out if that should be reassuring to me or not, as I'm about to take the 1st comp in less than 2 weeks, and feel like I don't know a thing. What's neat about the diagnostic exam is that it gives you the breakdown of the subject material. Biochem was not my weakest subject, rather, anatomy. My best was immuno, not behavioral sciences like I thought it would be. It was kind of weird how all of my predictions were totally off. I didn't do so hot in path, just avg, but I attribute that to the fact that I am just now taking Path II. Out of 150 questions, 57 were path, so take Path I and II seriously. Robbins (the path book) should be your best friend.

I've just now started on the Kaplan videos. I don't have too much to comment, as i just watched one chapter's worth of biochem. If you're a visual/auditory person, then they'll benefit you. If not, then you're wasting your time.

Oh, and my other comment: those key words that work for answering questions in classes like immuno, micro, and phys. Well, they're going to work for Step, as well. They showed up on the diagnostic: "red sputum," "green sputum." "orange colored crystals" etc.

Good luck everyone on this new semester!

Getting Into the Groove...

...or swing of things, or whatever the cliche is. Needless to say, I'm back and I'm by no means ready (gulp!) I'm still trying to unpack (surprise, surprise) and of course, I can't find my camera again (an even bigger surprise).

I don't want to make premature judgements on my classes yet, but I can tell that ICM is going to be a lot of work. I'm in class forever: M-F 12-3 plus T, Th 5-6 plus M 3-4:20. Yikes! But we all are def. starting to feel like doctors, with our white coats, AUC name badges (gold of course) and stethescopes slung around our necks. Scary part is, I feel like I don't know enough to even show my face at a clinical site, but yet, in a few short months, I'll be there.

I'm grateful that Kaplan is self-study now. We are the 1st medical school to use this new program that Kaplan just came out. Pretty cool. I'll be posting more on this once I get beyond the orientation video that I watched online at home about the program. Now that I completed that, the program allows me to take a diagnostic exam (which i'll do this weekend) and immediately scores and gives me a personalized study plan to ensure success in all parts, especially my weak points.

5th semester is now in full motion!