Funny Stories from Jersey Neurosurgery

I have been up in the tri-state area for about seven weeks and things are radically different from Texas but I truly love everything up here. I am currently sitting at a Starbucks next to Lincoln Square watching the people walk by in their assorted scarves, hats, and coats. The hustle and bustle is not as annoying as I thought it would be, however some days I just want to choke people especially when driving, everyone here drives so slow even when there is no traffic.

Well that was not how I intended to start out this post but rather tell a few funny stories from the hospital. I apologize if you find this too vague or too medical but I will do my best to make it relevant. My first month in New Jersey was spent doing neurosurgery, for some reason this month everyone in New Jersey (or so it seemed) decided to pop and aneurysm in their head. Almost every night we would have a new admission of someone who had a ruptured aneurysm. I learned an enormous amount about the treatment of this disease, which is very complicated to manage. In medical school they just breeze over this stuff but when it comes to the day to day of managing these patients in the ICU it is very complicated. Most of the patients end up needing to be in the hospital for 3 weeks, so I got to know them very well seeing them multiple times a day.

One lady was already in the hospital when I arrived and she had an ACOM aneurysm (don't worry about what that is) but It is near the frontal lobes and as most people know from TV this controls your impulses so she became impulsive and would say anything that came to her mind. Everyday we would go into her room and ask her similar questions to see how she was progressing, things like "What is your name? What is the date? Where are you and Who is the president?" It seemed like every day her name changed a bit as she added a new name to the end of it. The funniest thing happened when she need to have a drain put in to her brain because she was developing hydrocephalus (water on the brain). This procedure can be done at the bedside and is relatively simple. After numbing the scalp an incision is made and the skull is exposed. You then use a twist drill to drill through the skull until the dura (membrane around brain) is exposed, a cut is made in the dura and then you pass a tube into the ventricle (water collecting area). Patients are awake for this or slightly sedated. She was fully awake and as the chief resident drilled through her skull she looked up and said "Heyyyyy now...are you drilling in my head?" we simply told her we weren't and she said ok and continued to watch tv.

A few weeks later another woman was in the unit with the same problem but she had an attitude to put it nicely. Everyday when we woke her up at 6am she would yell at us and tell us we were rude for not letting her sleep. When we asked us to show her two fingers (seeing if she can follow commands) she would always flip us off with both hands. She accused one of the interns of being a lesbian for touching her. She also had a slight crush on one of the other interns.

Woman: "Hey can you do me a favor?"

Intern; "Sure, What do you need?"

Woman in a raspy voice: "Smile"

To appease the woman he smiled

Woman: "You are one sexy bastard"

The intern left the room to her yelling, "You know it, You know it, You know it"

Then there was my favorite patient she came in late one evening cussing up a storm the only words she could say were shit and fuck (we call this an expressive aphasia). She ended up having a left MCA aneurysm this artery supplies the language areas. When the family arrived they told us that sounded like her and weren't surprised. She ended up having the aneurysm coiled and having a drain placed. Slowly as she recovered she would try to talk but all the came out was "ughhhh" and "mugggh" followed by giggling. "Mrs. So and So what is your name?" she would respond "mugggh" and would laugh. She was very frustrated that she couldn't understand or speak, but would try and laugh to play it off. He facial expressions were priceless when I would come in and see her. I actually caught her and her husband flirting one day, which made me really happy.

Then there was the most awkward thing I have ever seen. A 90 year old nun came into the ER after having a massive stroke. We went with the attending to examine her and write our consult even though we knew she wouldn't be a surgical candidate. When examining a patients neurological status we need to know about their strength, pain sensation, vibratory sensation, ability to follow commands and other things. In order to test patients pain sensation we will pinch their skin, stick them with safety pins press on certain nerves etc...however, when a patient is stuporous to try and arouse them we will do a sternal rub or twist their nipple. The attending decided to see how she would react he would twist her nipple. Watching a late 60's man twist a 90 year old nun's nipple was probably the most awkward thing I've ever seen. I couldn't help myself by thinking "that's probably the most action she has ever had"

Lewis and Clark

A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to go and explore the great northwest because of an interview at a residency program in Corvallis, Oregon. Corvallis is home of Oregon State University and has a population of about 55,000. I arrived in Eugene on Friday after a 6hr flight from NYC. I then drove up to Corvallis in my big pimpin' Chrysler 300, it was an absolutely gorgeous drive. Most people describe the northwest as a place where it rains every day, but not this day, the sun was shinning, the air was crisp and fall was in the air. It happened to be OSU's homecoming and the weekend of Halloween so it is needless to say the town was hoping. My hotel was on the Northern end of the main street and after unloading my belongings I got a prank call from a fellow classmate who was rotating at the hospital. After I figured out it was EB, he and took a stroll down the main street and settled into a restaurant to enjoy some pizza. While walking up and down the street it was impossible to notice all the children (and adults) in their costumes trick or treating. All of the local businesses give out free candy each year. Being a Texan I am used to extremely nice people but these people we're even nicer than Texans, which took me off guard after being in the northeast where a bad look gets you in trouble.

Later that night I went to have dinner with the current residents and fellow applicants. My friend TP was there interviewing as well so after the dinner we went to a wine bar next door. The waitress(?) was great and very informative and very eager to tell me about all the awesome things Oregon has to offer. It didn't take too much convincing because thus far everything I had experienced was either gorgeous and/or friendly, including her.

The next day I had my interview in the morning, which went well. I then had lunch at a local brewery with TP. EB met up with us for a bit once he was done at the hospital. TP's flight left that night so we dropped her off and headed on our great adventure to coast. We drove for about an hour through the rain to Newport. First thing on the agenda was to drive over an awesome bridge I saw we did that and then saw a spot to go park near the beach. We walked out on the beach where the wind was blowing at least 30mph. Since we were both from Texas and decided it was cold we left. We heard about a brewery there so we went and walked through it, seeing how I am not a big beer drinker I didn't try any. At this point we were kind of out of things to do, but then we saw a lighthouse. I decided I needed to go in to the lighthouse and once I figured out I could go all the way to the top there wasn't much that could stop me. The stairs were a little scary but when else was I going to be in a lighthouse in Oregon? I then proceeded down to the gift shop to buy a coffee cup since I have decided I collect them. The volunteer informed me that Oregon had six lighthouses, after a few minutes of small talk she discovered I was from Texas and informed me that Texas also had six lighthouses, who knew? I asked her which was a prettier drive up or down the coast she suggest we head north so we did. The girl at the desk of my hotel told me I should check out the Devil's Punchbowl. When driving up the coastal highway we saw a sign for it and made a quick U turn. She was absolutely right it was amazing. There also happened to be a winery at this point with free wine tasting. The Flying Dutchman Winery is the western most winery in the United States according to Dan the man working there. After trying a few wines I bought two and had them shipped back to Fort Worth.





We continued our drive up the coastal highway and then found a random side road that cut back towards Salem. This ended up being very interesting. The one lane side road winded through the mountains and we lost all cell phone reception. Convinced we would die if anything happened to my shaggin wagon 300 we pressed on. Deer roamed through the forest and moss covered every tree. We finally made it back to salem and took the highway back to Corvallis where we enjoyed dinner at a local sports bar where I had the brisket nachos.

Updates Coming

I am promising an update by the end of the week. I have several blog post ideas currently and will try to get some of them up soon.

In the mean time check out my sisters blog http://eatfoodlearnlanguage.tumblr.com/

Whirlwind

Well, I know I promised over a month ago to keep this thing updated. Obviously I am a failure. I was heckled by my good friend KF to update so here I go. First things first congratulations are due to KF and her husband AF on the birth of their first child SF yesterday, as well as congratulations to my cousin SW and his wife MW on their first child CW yesterday.

I finally arrived in Livingston, New Jersey last Monday. I made the drive in two days driving 15 hours the first day to Roanoke and then finishing up the drive in about 6 hours to Livingston. I traveled through Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and finally New Jersey. I was able to stop in Harrisburg PA to eat lunch with a friend from college who is living in the area which was a pleasant surprise.

The first week of neurosurgery at St. Barnabas Medical Center has gone really well. I have a great time with the residents each day and get along really well with them. I have learned a whole lot about the field in a relatively short time just because of the amount of patients I am rounding on each day. They do a great job of including us in all aspects of medical management which really helps to pick up on things. I had one hick-up when I was driving to work my check engine light came on. Luckily for my my hotel is across the street from the Lexus dealership so I was able to take it over there and get a loaner car in no time and it turned out to be nothing and I was in and out for $100. I took call this past weekend with one of the residents which was really fun but got me really behind on sleep. On Sunday we were able to get most of the work done pretty early and he let the other student and I leave around noon for the day. I took this opportunity to drive to Newark and then take the PATH over to NYC and walk around.

The PATH dropped me off at WTC or now ground zero and I walked from there up broadway to Union Square. I mainly just peopled watched. I noticed that in order to be a true New Yorker you needed a combination of some kind of hat, a fancy coat, skinny jeans, boots, and at least some time of accessory usually a scarf. If you really didn't fit this description I chalk you up to being a tourist. The biggest reason I went to the city was to go to Apostles Church led by JR Vassar. When sitting in a pew by myself a friend from college snuck up and sat next to me I was so surprised she then went on to tell me that another friend from college would be there because she was in town and then I saw another guy who was in BYX with me. Never in a million years would I think I would run in to one person I knew, yet I saw three.

Hopkins and BostonMed

I finished up my second round of boards this week and have been relaxing all week. I heard about a show called BostonMed, that filmed the lives of attendings, residents, and nurses at Mass General, Brigham and Women's, and Boston Children's. I have always had a love-hate relationship with medical shows on tv. They can be very entertaining but also are frustrating because they freak out about stuff that is very common and don't represent what the hospital is actually like. For instance every time they show an operating room the lights are off. Yes many operations that are done laprascopically do have the lights off but I would say the majority of surgeries I have been in on the lights were on. That being said I have always like the show House M.D. and Scrubs but never really gotten in to shows like Grey's Anatomy.

I watched the entire mini-series of BostonMed in two days. It was really good. Granted I have only been working in the hospital as a medical student for one year and have not gone through residency I think the show depicts life at the hospital very well. The interactions between the staff is spot on, after all the show is real and not scripted. So if you really want to see what life is like and not just get caught up in the DRAMA of Grey's then I highly recommend watching these mini-series'.

As soon as I finished BostonMed I started watching episodes of Hopkins which is really good as well. Hopkins actually came out before BostonMed so you can see how they improved the show. Hopkins basically does the same thing as BostonMed except it follows around attendings, residents and nurses at Johns Hopkins. Watching all these episodes has me extremely pumped about being a resident even though they are extremely tired and worn out. The show also has me pumped about being on the East coast for the next few months. There are beautiful shots of Boston and Baltimore throughout the series. The cities are so beautiful and vibrant, I just can't wait to be in that setting doing what I love.

I start my first official neurosurgery rotation on Monday, I'll let you know how it goes.

Code Blue

I have decided that I want to revive my blog after nine months or so of absence. Reviving might not be the correct term since I am not sure how alive the blog was in the first place. Anyways, I decided to do this because I have been trying to read more at night (I canceled my cable and have little else to do). I have read several of the "must read" medical books this past year such as, House of god. I found reading books like these are quite fun for me and encouraging. I just finished the book Better: A surgeon's notes on performance by Atul Gawande. At the end of the book he shares five tips that he previously gave to a group of medical students and one of them was to write, so here we go.

First, a little up date on what I have been doing. I started my fourth year of medical school about two months ago. My first month was spent doing research, the second month has been an academic medicine month. Academic medicine is the month we get to study for our licensing exams. I took one of them (COMLEX) this past Tuesday and take the second one (USMLE) on Monday. If you actually kept up with my blog you would remember a post about how I had a Meltdown last year.

The next few months should be interesting. I have decided that I want to be a neurosurgeon when I grow up. I have told this to several doctors I work with it is usually followed up with questions such as "Are you crazy?", "Are you married?" Neurosurgery is one of the most demanding specialties in the medical field. There really aren't many neurosurgeons, last I checked there were 3,500 in the US. This shortage along with with fact that many of the surgeries take 6+ creates a lot of strain. If you decide to cover trauma for you respective city you might be taking call several times a week for multiple hospitals when you are in your 40-50's. I have been told by some neurosurgeons I shouldn't do it and they wouldn't do it again. I have not been shaken by this so maybe the answer to the first question is yes, I am crazy.

With deciding to do this I have applied to several residencies and part of getting in to them is doing audition rotations (AKA away rotations or Sub-I's) at the places you apply. Unfortunately for me there are no programs in Texas that I am going to apply to so I will be doing this rotations in other states. Next month I will still be in Fort Worth doing a neurosurgery rotation with a local doctor so he can get me prepared to go "show off" to these other places. I am really excited about starting to do rotations in what I actually want to do. I have spent the first part of the year in thing like OBGYN, Pediatrics, and Psychiatry, all which I had fun because I love medicine but I really like operating and operating on the brain is just so exhilarating. After my last day of my rotation here I will make the trek up to New Jersey for a month, followed by a month in Long Island, then a final month in Philadelphia. Once I finish in Philly it will be Christmas and I will be on my way back home.

Given that I will be in the North East all by my lonesome I hope I can read even more books at night and hopefully blog about the experience.

SHARE Kenya

I know it has been a really long time since my last post but I have no finished up half of my third year of medical school wow time flies. I was lucky enough to participate in a trip to Kisumu Kenya during my family medicine rotation this past month below is an email i sent home while i was there. Here is a link to my photos, and a link to a website of our group's updates.

Hey guys,

I am writing this email as we journey on our hour and fifteen min bus ride from kisumu to masara. We take a two lane highway that is pretty scary; bicyclists ride on the edge of the road without a bike lane and tour buses pass us nearly having a head on collision each time while running cyclist off the road. Children play in the trash and bathe in the streams naked as we pass. Most ecstatically jump up and wave with both hands as they see us shouting mzungu (white person). Their smiles are absolutely gorgeous as you can see they joy within them. Once we get to ahero we take a left off the pavement on to a dirt road. We stop and pick up some of the translators who crawl on top of the bus and hold on for dear life as we travel the bumpy road for about five miles. The road is very much domed so we spend a good deal of the trek driving at what feels like 30 degrees. The scenery is gorgeous women walking from market with baskets on their heads. Other women out in the rice fields working with their children in the far distance you can see the mountain ranges. The best part is when gazing upon the horizon there are no power lines to interrupt the beauty. I usually take this time each morning to listen to my iPod and treat it as a one of worship and can't help but look out and think how great god is and bow He created this for our pleasure so that we may subdue it.

We finally pull up to the clinic each day with several hundred people waiting for our arrival. There are probably 20 children running from their perspective huts to follow the bus. We usually have morning clinic for about 3 hours until we take a lunch break. The women of the village cook. Chapiti for us which is a piece of flat bread that is fried Almost like a pita. To drink we get a cup of hot tea with sugar in the raw. Yes it is 90 degrees outside and we drink hot tea. We will then finish clinic leave some pharmacy students behind to finish up filling some scripts as we make the journey home.

We are averaging about 300 pts a day at clinic, yesterday was our biggest day at 400. The cases consist of malaria with fevers of 105, diarrhea from parasites, asthma, allergies, arthritis, trauma, abscess etc. We have a wound clinic that we rotate through. My first day in wound clinic I injected countless knees for arthritis drained many abscess and even pulled some teeth.

I have yet to have any patients that aren't happy and content. Everyone seems so happy about everything. The children run around and play with anything they can find. One of my favorite toys is a metal ring they spin and run alongside with a stick that pushes it. Might not be the best description but that is essentially what they do. We pass out stickers to them every day and they absolutely love them. I get asked daily for my water bottle and my pens something they get to experience and play with once a year.

Sunday Bonyo's dad had a party for us at the village. We had live entertainment that consisted of a keyboard 5 cow skin drums a shaker and a man singing. Each song lasted about 20 mins it seemed. I made a complete fool of myself but the children loved it. We had the kids in a Congo line at one point. After watching the villagers dance they sat down and said it was the white peoples turn to dance so we stood up and tried to dance some more. I have never been laughed at that much but I believe they enjoyed it. We finished the party with a meal provided by the women. I went into their huts and watched them prepare the meal and will show you pics later. The huts made of mud with a tin roof had two rooms one for sleeping and the other for cooking. The cooking room had a wood fire in the corner with a pot of water on it. The women sat around a table and prepared the meal. Chickens roamed throughout the hut along with cats and dogs. So who knows what the meat was. It is custom that guest eat first and then they eat the leftovers. Makes you think twice before getting seconds or a lot off food and never will you not finish a meal.

I have many more stories that I hope to get into an email but I am now tired of typing on my phone. I hope you all are doing well and can't wait to get back and share stories and pics.

-Parker

Mr. and Mrs. W. Peppard

This weekend I had the pleasure of using my skills I learned when I was eight for a wedding. What would these skills be? Well of course they would be acolyting (not sure if that is a word). My roommate CB and I were both asked to be acolytes in a wedding for two of our friends. He is an Aggie thus we were on the C team since we are we t-sips. However, I would like to make a notion that this is actually the best position you can have. 1) you have your moment 2) less responsibility 3) you get all the same perks.

Talking about perks the rehearsal dinner was very elegant with a great steak. The brides started of the T(r)oast perfectly with a talk about how "no man was good enough for his daughter" with cigar in mouth and all. He happens to be a lawyer thus he knows how to execute a speech to the crowd better than any. We learned all about how WP was a man by his sports knowledge of Michael Phelps pot and Lance Armstrong's breakfast. We also learned he is an engineer and can fix things.

The wedding went off with out a hitch and might be the shortest ceremony of all time. AP was very excited the entire time as you could see from her almost jumping up and down during both ets of vows and constant giggling. WP on the other hand lost it when she was about halfway down the isle. It seems like the times are starting to change most every wedding I have been to recently the guy has cried more so than the girl. We then booked it to the reception which was very much a party. After a few moments of chaos at the reception due to the overwhelming amount of people and rush for the food the dancing began. The couple decided to do all the pictures up front thus we were able to eat and then dance with the couple through most of the night. They buzzed a way in a limo at 10:30 but this seemed more like midnight because of how tired I was from wearing out the dance floor.

We finished up the trip to Waco with a stop at the Dr. Pepper Museum. If you have never been consider yourself lucky. First of all there isn't much to see there and most of it isn't entertaining. Second of all the Dr. Pepper I had at the soda shop was watered down and terrible. The only redeeming part of this experience is the picture below.

Always state your intentions

This is a valuable lesson I learned recently. After spending some time getting to know a girl at school I decided she was worthy of a date. However when asking her I simply said I would like to take her out to dinner and then to our Boot Party for school. She was unable to go to the Boot Party because of her back but said that going to dinner sounded fun. YES! I was in like Flynn. I told her I would make reservations at a restaurant in Arlington and pick her up around 8. I went to Student Clinician Ceremony before hand where there was dinner served (didn't know that was going to happen), and then booked it from downtown to pick her up.

She lives in the back house of some friends so this made things tricky, I went to the front door of the main house which she was unable to leave from, so I had to make my way back to the car pull up to the back house that she lives in and then get out of the car and preceded to open the door for her. We made our way to Olenjacks Grille in Arlington to what I thought was a great dinner with good conversation. She ordered a grilled chicken salad with Russian dressing. I thought this was a great sign since girls always order salads on dates. After about an hour of conversation the waiter brought us the check. I immediately grabbed the check to pay; she reached for her purse and offered to pay for her portion of the bill. I thought this was odd but assured myself she was just trying to be polite. After a few more mins of conversation we left which I opened her door again and went to drop her off. We of course jammed to my favorite two Michael Jackson songs on the way home: Will you be there? (Free Willy) and Black or White. When I say jam I mean I was singing at the top of my lungs and borderline dancing as best as one can while driving a car. In my mind this date is going great. Now here comes the moment of doom. We sat in the circle drive in front of her house having some casual conversation to end the date, when she drops the dreaded F-Bomb. "Thanks for a dinner it was fun. But if you keep paying for your FRIENDS meals you are going to wind up broke and you won’t be able to pay for Africa." A million thoughts rushed through my head and I am sure my face lost all color, but somehow I quickly changed the conversation and left shortly there after.

I didn't state my intentions upfront and this lead to a huge amount of confusion. I came up with four things this could have meant. 1) She word vomited and didn’t meant to say it and was just awkward because she didn’t know how to end the date that I never called a date 2) This is the biggest hint of all time 3) She was fishing for my intentions and just gave me the big cheese down the middle (that I just looked at and didn’t swing 4) She said it and didn’t even realize it.

After a few minutes of freak out time I made my way back to the Boot Party and had to let all my friends know "how it went" since they knew where I was because I didn’t eat during the Student Clinician Ceremony. I then had to contemplate these thoughts and try to rationalize it all through the weekend. I finally had the talk of intentions (not to be confused with a DTR) a few days later in which, she informed me she didn't think it was a date, she noticed I got really quiet after that moment but didn’t think anything of it. So from now on always state your intentions and avoid all the confusion.

Dr. and Dr. Johnny V

This weekend I had the privileged of being a groomsman in two of my best friends wedding. The wedding took place at Nolte Farms in Seguin, Texas. I had to take my second board exam on Friday and was going to try and book it down there to at least make the rehearsal dinner. To my surprise I finished the exam really early and was able to make it down for both the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. The Dinner took place at the gristmill which is always a favorite. The night really got going once the t(r)oast began. Many of them were towards JV with an occasional shot at KV all in all a fun night with great memories. The next morning AG and I drove back down to Seguin from Austin to have lunch with JV and some others. Craig’s Sauté and Grill was a hit especially since we all know how much JV loves to sauté most of his meals. Then the delimina hit what am I going to do from 2pm until 5pm when pictures start? AG and I ended up driving down about every road in the town passing the car show at the square checking out the movie theater, the amusement park with the worlds largest silo climb.

It was now time for the big show. After a few pictures we headed over to the Biblical Garden and watch the crowds file in. The sun was beginning to set and the bell started to ring it was show time. The KV's and JV' mothers were escorted in followed by a small sermonette that JV and KV wrote. We finally made our way up to the front and then it was time for KV's grand entrance. This was by far the most moving experience I have ever had at a wedding. She was gorgeous, I looked over at the bridesmaids I didn’t see a dry eye and Johnny V was barely holding it in, and chills were running through my spine. The ceremony was so beautiful because even though they were the center of attention you could tell they were reflecting all of the glory to God, and his presence was definitely felt. The wedding proceeded with some laughs along the way and it was time for the party.

In honor of them I have decided to make a list of some of my favorite memories with them.

KV
-Diet Vanilla Dr. Pepper
-Rosa's
-Mus musculus
-Driving through Westlake looking for Andy Roddick's House
-Dominican Joe's and Mozart’s
-Singing and acting out songs in the Car
-Bringing you flowers at the airport

JV
-FEAST
-BYX Summit
-Long talks after cell group about Krista
-Steaks for O-Chem
-The talk about fathers

JV and KV
-Krista's Surprise Party
-Ya'll giving up Valentines night to be with me as I checked my Match
-Copeland when JV wanted to take KV dancing

I am sure more will come to mind and I will edit this as they do. I love both of y’all very much and couldn't be happier.

USMLE Meltdown

I took my USMLE Step 1 yesterday which is the licensing exam for medical students. The exam started at 8am and so I woke up at 6 to eat breakfast and get to the testing site early. I printed off the confirmation email and was out the door with my lunch pale at 6:45. I arrived at the site at 7:10 and looked over a few things in the car and headed into the building at 7:30. I waited in the line for about 5 minutes. I finally arrived at the desk and handed the young lady my id. She asked for my testing permit and I handed her the confirmation email. She then informed me this was not the testing permit and without the testing permit I would not be able to take the test. She told me if I could make it home and back by 8:30 they would let me take the test. I left in a frantic and found the nearest FedEx Kinko’s on my GPS and raced there. I ran in got on the computer and found the email with the testing permit. This email had a link in it to sign in on the USMLE website. Well I didn’t have my username and password. I tried to the "forgot username" page but this was no success so I called the USMLE people in the middle of listening to some menus I find my ID number on another email. I copy and paste this in to the box and start trying every password I know. None of these are working. I then realized when I copied and pasted the ID number I copied the space at the end. I then deleted the space tried a password and it worked! I printed shut down the computer ran out of the FedEx Kinko’s and drove as fast as I could back to the testing site. I got there at 8:05 and didn’t get into take the test until 8:30. Luckily another guy in my class was there and had not started the test either so that was relaxing. While waiting in the lobby I went and asked the young lady if I had been rude and yelled at her and she informed me that I had not so I was thankful I didn’t lose my temper with her.

I finally entered the testing site logged on to the test and the first question popped up. I knew the answer! It was Hairy Cell Leukemia and I was on my way. I remember a few questions in between as well, but my last question was a dreaded multimedia question of a heart sound. Luckily I knew that answer which was Coarctaion of the Aorta and I was done. I finished at about 2:00 and was relieved to be on my way home. Now I just have to take the COMLEX on Friday and then it is SUMMER.

Graduations, Boards and Rotations OH MY!

I know it has been a while since my last post, but honestly my life has been pretty boring. I take my licensing exams next week and have only one last week to study. So I have pretty much been just studying about 12 hours a day which means not a whole lot to blog about. Something I have been able to do though.

I went to my sister’s graduation for Texas A&M. I went to UT so I of course had to make fun of many of the Aggie traditions. Overall this was pretty fun, very rushed because I was really worried about studying the whole time but the break ended up being a great thing. I was able to see my grandparents from out of state that doesn't happen very often. I saw slumdog millionaire for the first time the other night. I thought it was pretty good. I didn’t really have any clue what it was about but definitely had heard a lot about it so I think the hype some what ruined it for me. I also went and saw up with the roommates JO and CB the other night. It was entertaining my lack of dog love also made this movie not as entertaining. I think I will have to stick to Cars as one of my favorite Pixar movies.

I have mentioned previously that I did some research in undergrad. So I decided to pursue a rotation during my fourth year in research, this ended up causing lots of problems as far as scheduling my third year rotations. My classmates all received their schedules about 5 weeks ago meanwhile I have been anxiously awaiting mine. Well today is the day I finally received it and it is as follows.

July 6 - Aug28 Internal Medicine
Aug 31 - Oct 23 Surgery
Oct 26 - Dec 18 Family Medicine
Jan 4 - Feb 12 OBGYN
Feb 15 - Mar 26 Pediatrics
Mar 29 - Apr 23 OMM
Apr 26 - May 21 Psychiatry
May 24 - June 18 Academic Medicine (Study Month)

I am pretty pleased with my schedule. Right now Internal Medicine is at the top of my list as far as specialties I would like to pursue, so having it first will help me make a decision for sure. I also am glad I will get a great foundation for the rest of my rotations. The other perk to having Medicine and Surgery up front is the back end of my schedule will be kind of light.

In other news after boards I will be heading down to Seguin, Texas for a wedding and then heading out to Vegas for a week so more to come on how those turn out.

Tour de Trinity

I finally decided to splurge on a new bicycle (pictured below). Some may say that cycling is in my blood. When I was a baby my mother had a contraption that attached to her bicycle that allowed me to sit behind her when she was riding around town, once my sister and I were toddlers my parents purchased a trailer that would carry me and my sister around behind the bike. My mother's father also is a cycling enthusiast who used to ride 60 miles to the coast of California from his home every weekend, and also participated in many rides across the state of Iowa. I have been a running frequently at the trinity trails that are about a mile from my house by the Trinity River. I would run the two mile loop and every time a biker flew past me as I was struggling to breathe I thought man I wish I was that guy. Well now I am.
Yesterday was my first ride I woke up at 6am to hit the trails early since I had class from 8-4 and wanted to make it to church that night in Highland Village. I mapped out my plan on Google pedometer and it was 8 miles. I thought to myself I better plan in an escape route in case I am about to die out there. I got to the 4 mile marker no problem and thought I am sure I can make it all 8 miles. When I circled back through the zoo I hit the hill of death. I switched down to the lowest gear and stood up to start peddling. I think I might have actually been going backwards when the runner passed me (oh the irony). I decided to dismount take a drink of water and walk the bike up the rest of the hill and then ride back to my house.

This morning my friend EJ and I decided to meet up and do the 8 mile track again. He has been riding quite a bit longer than I have so he attached his trailer to his bike and pulled his son along to that I could keep up. After about 7 miles we parted ways and I headed back to the hill of death. I tried to conserve as much energy as possible, because I was going to make it up this time no matter what. Well I did.....barely and this time I actually passed to runners. Luckily the rest of the way was downhill and I coasted back home.

1/2 Doctor = Doc

Its official I passed my last exam in my second year of medical school and am about to begin the treacherous road of what is board study. I decided that I needed at least one day off before I begin tomorrow morning. So what did I do to celebrate this achievement?

First, an unofficial man day, generally my roommate JO and I have Saturday man days but on this rare occasion it was not possible since he would be at "work." What is the man day? Working in the yard, yep you heard me correctly! I bought my first home a year ago and now take tremendous pleasure in the stuff I hated and kid: Pulling weeds, Mowing, Weed-eating, and most of all watering the heck out it.

Second, MH, BM, JP and I decided an astounding cupcake fro the local joint, (that has cause my latest increase in 10lbs) The Cupcake Cottage. People always tell me they love sprinkles in Dallas and I suppose that is the "cool" thing to do but there is nothing like a local couple making fresh cupcakes every morning and knowing me by name when I come in. They always ask us how school is going ask me how I am enjoying the house etc. Maybe that is the small town kid in me coming out but I sure do enjoy it.

Third, our class rented out the Rahr Brewery today for some post-test inhibition of our ADH. Yes I am 23 years old and still have yet to finish a beer in my life, in fact I don’t think I have ever had more than 3oz, just one of those things that doesn't taste good to me. So why would I be excited about this? Well, I went to be supportive and celebrate with the fellow classmates. But upon entering I received a free commemorative glass so that I could drink all the beer I wanted for free, once again why would I care? Well I decided that today would be the day that i drank an entire beer. I ordered the blonde, I know its girly but I figured if I was going to be able to finish one it was that one. Turns out I was wrong, after three small sips I poured into to my buddy’s glass and just tried to look cool holding the empty glass.

Let the Board-Studying Begin!

burntout?

Today I sat through 3 hours of horrendous lecture about alcohol abuse and the treatment thereof. This happens to be one of my favorite subject but today everything I have learned from undergraduate and at the library last night was taught completely wrong. Boy was I excited that my 6hrs of sleep was rewarded with this.

My senior year of college I decided I wanted to participate in some research, mainly so that I could boost my not so stellar CV to get into medical school. I browsed through some web pages that UT had for students who were interested in research and stumbled upon a professor (Dr. Duvauchelle) who was looking for an undergraduate research assistant in her behavioral addiction lab. She stated that they worked with cocaine in lab rats. This seemed interesting to me, (everyone else would think I was cool at least) so I sucked up read a recently published article of hers, which I did not understand at all and somehow I go the role. Without being too technical the project I was involved with addicted lab rats to cocaine over a 16 day period and then on the last day we injected another drug into their brain to see the effects of it on the learned behaviors of the rats. I say the best part was that I was able to surgically put a catheter into the jugular veins of these rats so they could self-administer the cocaine i.v. style. None the less after a year of this I fell in love with the research.

In order to make myself happy BG, MH and I decided to make a run to our favorite hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant, Rice-n-Noodle. Sha sha knew our order immediately MH and I gave her the head nod to which she smiled and wrote down our orders. I enjoyed my beef Thia rice, level two spicy, egg roll and ranch salad and both MH and BG enjoyed their chicken pad Thia level two spicy, egg roll and peanut sauce.

I returned to my favorite study room in the library with my fellow classmates. In order to be productive I left my computer and decided to go downstairs to read my book over sleep disorders on the comfy leather couches and an hour later I woke up to the same page. Irony? Pherhaps. Burntout? Definitely!

unique just like everyone else

Today I decided to become unique just like the rest of the world and take ownership in part of the world wide web, so I started this blog (the second option was get a tattoo). I am a complete type A, non-creative, non-imaginative person, who couldn't make an A in a writing class if my life depended on it. So I hope this can bring out some of those characteristics in me and give the rest of you creative bloggers the taste of a square trying to fit into the blogoSPHERE.