I've been having a great time these 2 weeks shadowing a family doc. I can't say how great this place is enough times. I got to irrigate someone's earwax yesterday with a giant metal syringe - so much came out. It was GREAT. You wouldn't think that earwax would be so fun, but putting a giant metal plunger thing in someone's ear - fantastic! It was very satisfying.

It's good this week because I'm seeing patients I saw last week for follow-up appointments. It's nice to see familiar faces and to know a bit about people and their progress. For the most part people have been very supportive and many people have asked about which stage of the game I'm at, which school I go to, and how I like the town we're in.

I'm planning a nice surprise for the nurses and other staff on Friday. I'm going to make them some chocolate dipped strawberries and other fruits and bring them some tea and tea cups because everyone was so keen to make me tea every day.

I think the doc is starting to like me because she invited me to play in a golf tournament with her and my sister and a bunch of their friends. I hope that one day I can go back to her practice and visit or do a bit of clerkship there or something. She's just awesome. It feels good to finally have a mentor in family medicine besides my academic mentors.

Interesting Article

An interesting article about medical decision making from the New Yorker.

Someone I don't know but feel like I do is dying. I am so saddened by the news, I was hoping for a miracle. I am not a religious person but I hope that Sarah goes to the place she has always dreamed of, a place with no pain and suffering.

I hope the Derek can find the strength to go on and carry Sarah's legacy in his heart out into the world.

I'll miss your insightful posts, your humor, and your selflessness.

She does her name proud. It is of Hebrew origin, and its meaning is princess. Originally called Sarai, Sarah shared an adventurous nomadic life with her husband Abraham. She is described as being exceptionally beautiful even into her older years.

Sarah thought it was important to remind everyone to be careful of sun exposure. I want to remind you, in her honor, this summer season to cover up, wear sunscreen, and avoid going out in the middle of the day. Have moles checked by your family doctor. Take charge of your health.

Ok so, I've been away at the cottage for the long weekend and now I'm visiting with my sister and shadowing a family doc for the next 2 weeks who's a friend of my sister's. I love this doctor, I wish she was mine. She's so funny and good natured and loves her patients - you can tell. she just glows and is so good humored even with the ones that are trying. People trust her and she cherishes that trust. The past 2 days I've seen her do a lot of counseling and dealing with mental health and that's really an aspect of family practice I'd never been exposed to before. It's pretty cool. She does a few 1/2 hour talks with patients each week and has some people who really depend on her for support. I already know I want to do family medicine, I just want to figure out which parts of it I like and which not, etc. You know, I thought I'd never like office work but these past two days have been really enlightening. I really like being in the office with this doctor and her colleagues. If my office can be like this, I think I could really enjoy it!

Today we did a half day so here I am sitting on the couch. I'm going to take a nap then go to the gym. My nephew woke me up at 5 this morning with an outburst from bed - but I still love the little guy! Yesterday I made dinner for my sister's fam and today i'm going to do some cleaning to try and help her out. Life is busy with a 2 year old!

Fear

If there's one word that can strike fear into my heart it's CLERKSHIP. I will be starting clerkship next year. For those of you who don't know, clerkship is when medical students start actually working in the hospital full time. Essentially the lectures are over and the real learning begins. Clerkship is the new thing that keeps me up at night.

Having recently got my schedule for clerkship, things are becoming a lot more real to me. Fortunately, I almost got the schedule I wanted. Unfortunately, my school has a policy where one can switch their family medicine block with electives, meaning that everyone in the class put family medicine in their top 5 rotations***. This switch really disadvantages people who want to actually do family medicine. I have family medicine in the very last block, after CaRMS (Canadian Residency Matching Service). This means that when I apply for residency I will not have completed my family medicine core rotation. I wonder if this will look bad to residency program directors when I'm applying to do family medicine. Most of them probably understand that it's the luck of the draw, but what if they don't. I know that family medicine isn't very competitive but the programs I'm looking at are extremely small and I want to get the one I want! CaRMS is the point of no return - you have to take whatever position you match to, so I want it to be a good one!

Right now I'm trying to plan electives in order to show my interest in family medicine but also my diversity as a student and my other interests. So far know I'm doing a rural family elective way up north which is confirmed. My other elective time I hope to spend in Obstetrics, ER and dermatology. A fellow blogger suggested that derm would be a perfect elective for family medicine, and I really appreciate the suggestion as I hadn't really thought about it until then! My big dilemma is whether to do an ER elective that's family medicine based (part of the time is spent in the office) or one that is purely ER based.

I find it hard to make decisions so far in advance, but elective forms for some schools are due up to 12 months in advance and you really have to get on it if you want to get your first choice! And then, on top of that, is the huge amount of money in administration fees we have to pay other schools to process our applications. I wish there was some kind of reciprocal agreement between schools that this would be rolled into our tuition. Medical school is a giant money pit!

*** I've been asked for an explanation of this so here goes: Because at my school we only have one set of electives before CaRMS and they're in the second slot after block 1 of our clerkship you don't have lot of experience before you go out and try to impress people. If, say, you got family medicine in block 4 you could put your family medicine in the electives time and electives in block 4, meaning that you would have much more time to get experience (blocks 1-3 + family) before you went on electives and thus would seem a lot smarter. In addition, some electives require you to have done your core rotation in that subject before you can do an elective in it. By doing the family switch you can get in more core blocks, meaning that you can complete your core prerequisite more easily.

But, only a set amount of people can have family medicine in each block. People who want to do the switch really want to have family medicine in blocks 3 or 4. We get to put in a request sheet for our top 5 subjects and which block we want our number 1 subject to go in. So, if say 50% of my class wants family in block 3, and they submit request slips saying family is their top choice and they want it in block3, it is likely that trying to accommodate all of those people will fill up a lot of the family spots in early blocks because if they don't get it in block 3, the algorithm is likely to give them family in other blocks around the same time, i.e. block 4 or 5. To make a long story short, this makes it hard to get a family medicine rotation in a top block. Especially since I wanted to rank Obs/gyn as my number 1 block in order to get a prerequisite for electives. I know it's all complicated and this probably doesn't make sense to a lot of people!

Grrrr

Despite the fact that I just had some tomatoes on toast which were really yummy, today has been frustrating. I've finally been able to get down to work on my summer research project (mandatory for graduating from my med school) and I have run into a few stumbling blocks.

#1 - Scope: The scope of the project is really large and I'm trying to write my background. I'm not sure how much information about the topic of the survey itself I should put into the background. If I put it all in, it will be a very large background. For my lit review I'm focusing on papers that look at clinician education in this area more than the actual research in this area because it's so broad. Ugh. This has been my stumbling block since the beginning.

#2 - Supervisor: My supervisor(s) are very unhelpful. They keep asking me what I think and the when I ask them what they thing they sort of say 'yeah, what you said sounds good'. I ask for guidance and they just kind of avoid the subject. It's really frustrating. I know that they're busy clinicians who don't have a lot of time and don't do very much research so maybe they aren't aware or can't answer my questions, but it's still frustrating. Anybody want to volunteer to be my new research supervisor?

Random Things Meme

I've been tagged by Xavier Emmanuelle

Here are the rules: Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. Write a post about your own random things. Post these rules. At the end of your blog, tag 8 people and post their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment and tell them they're tagged.

WARNING: Some of the things in this post are a bit gross... just so you know now. Don't say I didn't warn you.



1. I pick the skin off my feet because my heels are constantly itchy... it's gross but I can't help it and nobody has ever been able to tell me why they're SO ITCHY

2. I really like to count things in a sort of subconscious way. I walk down the street and suddenly realize I've been counting my footsteps, it's a bit OCD, I know.

3. I'm really interested in sexuality and other people's sex lives.

4. I LOVE THE CBC - if I could have an 'I heart CBC' t-shirt I would (sorry Xavier, kind of stole this one from you, but it's true)

5. Tomato sandwiches with a bit of salt and margarine are one of my all time favorite things

6. I often wear shoes that are 1/2 size too small to make my feet look smaller

7. When I do something new I always convince myself that I'm fearless, then about 15 minutes in I realize that I'm scared shitless and can't get out of it

8. I am a crier, anything touching, sad, bitter sweet, etc. makes me cry. Especially in books or other works of fiction.

9. I have pooping attacks all the time where I suddenly have to poop so badly I think I'm going to die and I get hot flashes because of it and need to find a bathroom pronto - sorry if that's more information than you wanted to know about me.

Xavier already tagged most of my blogging buddies! I'll tag Couz, Cal, Angry (although I suspect he's not the meme type), Nathan, MWWAK, Obgyn Kenobi, TriThinkingPink's Captain Pants AND Captain Cactus

The Story of Ben and I

So, a while ago someone asked in the comments section how Ben and I met since he's Scottish and I'm Canadian. Well, it all started when I got a scholarship to do my masters in the UK. I chose Scotland because they have a great engineering school in Glasgow, anyone who's an engineer should know which one it is (hint, not Glasgow Uni). I also knew two people who had gone there before so they were able to give me guidance about where to live and hook me up with a few friends etc. So, I decided that for my great adventure I'd pack off to Scotland for a year and goof around doing my thesis based Masters degree and traveling in Europe.

When I got there I moved into a flat with 4 Glasgow Uni students. They were all awesome, two of them medics. One of the medics and I became instant friends and she convinced me to go out with her to the Glasgow Uni canoe club one night. I though it would be good for a laugh to canoe around in the Glasgow Uni swimming pool and, being Canadian, I had canoeing experience. Little did I know, crazy Glaswegians call kayaking canoeing. So, anyhoo, I went along a few times and it was awesome and I learned how to roll and all that good stuff. They also took me out to the bar and got me so drunk I thought I was going to die - those Glaswegians can really hold their liquor... never before have I seen someone drink a mixture of coolers with extra vodka...

Sometime after that I realized that the time had come for me to join the paddling club at my own Uni because soon someone was going to realize that I didn't actually go to Glasgow Uni. So, I joined and was signed up for my first river trip. We were taken to the river Tay rapids at Grandtully where there is a white water course at the end of a nice paddle down the river.

Someone padding the Grandtully white water course.
(Picture from the UK Rivers Guidebook)

On the bus on the way to Grandtully I sat beside this guy who I thought looked a bit like Tom Cruise and had a really hot Scottish accent. His name turned out to be Ben. Later on I got to see him change into a very tight wetsuit by the side of a road... hot (just kidding). Later still when I didn't want to go down the rapids because I was slightly FREAKED OUT on my first kayaking river experience, he convinced me to go down it. Thankfully I didn't swim until I had cleared the rapids and then did something silly. On the way back we stopped in a pub and he bought me a drink.

This is me on that first crazy day of paddling... I'm not sure why I had my eyes closed!
As you can see from this and the previous mountain biking pictures, I look great in helmets!

The next week when the canoe club met we hung out together in the pub and I brought him apple pie because it was thanksgiving and I had leftovers and we had talked about pie the week before. Then we snogged and the rest is history! Almost 3 years later we're still together but neither of us paddles anymore!

A face only a mother can love
My awesome moves

Disappointed

I was given a temp assignment and today it fell though. I'm very disappointed. I want to feel like I'm earning money and contributing to my household. I feel useless being around here all day baking cookies even if people say they're the best they've ever had. I can hardly afford to buy Ben a birthday present and pay next month's rent. Bah humbug.

Steamed

A radio interview with Dr. Chaoulli, a Québécois entrepreneur/physician in Montreal, yesterday on the CBC's (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) As It Happens really got me steamed. Dr. Chaoulli is opening a new private health care business that is basically an agency to match up paying customers with private health care in the province of Quebec. He says they have members for whom they will find ways to match them up with specialists who will either see them on top of their regular medicare practice at an expedited pace for a fee+medicare payment or with specialists who run private clinics.

The part that I found very interesting about his interview was his claim that this would be good for the public health care system. How, you may ask? Well, Chaoulli claims that this is not a case of skipping the queue but merely a way to facilitate practitioners moonlighting on top of their regular medicare clientèle to both expedite the care of the paying and to shorten the wait times for others who are waiting in the public system. I have a few problems with this argument. First, there is a shortage of specialists in this country and most specialists are working as many hours as they can in a safe manner. By moonlighting on top of their regular hours in the public health care system they may be 1) putting patients at risk because they are working too much or 2) cutting back on the hours they are working in the public system to accommodate the higher paying 'medicare plus' or private patients. And, since when is getting care faster than everyone else not skipping the queue? There are a finite number of hours of doctors time in a situation like ours where there aren't enough doctors to go around, so by paying more to see a doctor earlier you are skipping the cue and bumping someone out of a spot - not freeing up the time of a doctor to treat more patients in the public system since you are essentially using the SAME resource, not a different one from a different pool.

Furthermore, Dr. Chaoulli also claims that his organization is a 'watchdog' of the public health care system. He states that patients don't know enough about hospitals' track records with hospital acquired infections and other problems before they choose to go to that hospital for an operation. A patient who pays can have the hospital they go to hand picked to ensure that it is the best public hospital around. So, essentially what he's saying is that rich people deserve good clean hospitals and to know everything about the hospital they are going into for an operation and poor people do not. I think this reasoning is deplorable. Perhaps if he wanted to be a real 'watchdog' of the public health care system he would allow his information about hospital safety to be shared amongst all people so that individuals and groups in society can lobby the government for better and safer hospitals with better infection control policies.

Dr. Chaoulli tried to make it sound like he was doing all of Canadian society a favor by opening up his service but I just don't buy it. You're doing the general public a disservice by taking doctors' time away from the public system and by keeping information about public safety hazards to yourself. You, Dr., are greedy.

Dreams again...

I had a weird marriage dream last night. I was marrying Ben (but although I knew it was Ben in my head, it didn't look like him) but half my family forgot to show up or couldn't be bothered. For some reason we were really just having a reception (we skipped the actual 'I do' bit) and we were having salmon with dill (not sure if that's an important detail, but I remember it) and steak. Then I leaned on something and got a big stain on my dress - uh oh. The dress was quite nice. Then my aunt and cousin showed up the next day and they said they went shopping instead of coming to my wedding... so I told them I'd never speak to them again. It was very surreal because I never imagined a wedding with 10 people at it, most of them men, and most sitting in one corner snickering.

is it a sign?

So, I got scolded by the angry medic for not updating my blog and aiding in his procrastination. Just for you, I will update today.

Much like last week, I really don't have a lot to talk about. I'm starting today on my research elective for school. I have to complete a lit search strategy by May 28... shouldn't be too hard. Hopefully there's lots of stuff out there on my topic, but I'm not sure there is. To do this, I have to formulate a research question, which is where things get tough. I wrote to the lead investigator on the project I am supposed to do some work on and she hasn't replied to my email - thus, I have no idea what the motivations, goals, or anything for the project are, what the study hypothesis is, and have no idea how they came up with the survey questions they used. It's hard to write a proposal, an abstract, and do a lit review when you're not quite sure what the project is. I hope I didn't offend this woman in some way by asking her these questions. It's a bit awkward because my supervisor is kind of on the fringe of this project but she doesn't have anything for me to do directly on her work at the moment so this was the best I could get. I hope it doesn't all blow up in my face!

Anyways, on to other things. Ben and I went biking this weekend and played golf, it was fun. By the end of the weekend I was tired out, but that's probably a good thing. Weekends are just so much better than weekdays right now because I have someone to spend them with!

Tardy

You would think that since I do nothing all day I would have lots of time to post on my blog. But, the problem with doing nothing is that you become a big blob of nothing with no opinions or interesting tidbits to tell or stories from your day because... you didn't do anything.

I'm still waiting for the temp agency to call with something. I broke up this week's monotony of nothingness with some gym, a little bit of lunch with medic friends, a bit of brunch with a highschool friend I haven't seen in forever, and I'm going to go visit my grandparents tomorrow.

I don't know how people live their lives doing nothing. I mean, out there there must be someone who's unemployed at not looking who has no desire to work... but I just couldn't do it. Even if I had a hobby or 30, I feel so unproductive and like such a leech off society. And I'm not even on welfare!

I was going to write a long post about facebook, and I probably still will, just not today. I just turned into the menstrual monster and it's sucking all the life out of me. So, maybe tomorrow when I've regained some of my will to live.

another day...

So, another week begins tomorrow and there's no sign of temp work on the horizon. I have got a one time gig tomorrow as a member of a focus group on vodka which will pay 100 dollars. Not bad. If only I could get one of these groups for every day of the week I'd be employed. Hopefully if I keep calling the temp agency like they tell me to (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) I'll get a job soon. I just need to work a couple of days a week to keep my lifestyle afloat. I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to be able to afford to go to Scotland with Ben at the end of the summer, which sucks. Hopefully he'll get his visa sorted out for next year and he'll be able to come back to Canada and work for 2 more years. If he doesn't, it's back to the international love exchange program. Stay tuned for the next couple of months to hear what happens.

Today we went mountain biking at Hilton Falls conservation area just outside Toronto. It was an ok day of very hard trails. Their intermediate trails are harder than some of the advanced trails I've been on. Lots of rocks, lots of boulders, lots of rocky climbs, lots of west coast style bridges and platforms. I walked a LOT today compared to normal and the same goes for Ben who is way better than me. I have lots of bumps and bruises, which are par for the course. Overall I thought the trails were really low on flow and had poor transitions which to me are the essential elements for a fun trail. There was no real intermediate track - it went from very technical to wide double track with hikers. As a testament to the difficulty, we didn't see a single other biker on the single trail in comparison to Kelso (which is just down the road) last weekend where the trails were packed. Same kind of day. Next time I'll probably go back to Kelso - today left both Ben and I a bit frustrated and low on good vibes.

*the above picture is actually Scotland because we didn't take any pictures today.

Progress

Well, I had my interview at the temp agency yesterday for temporary work as a medical secretary. It went really well. I discovered a few things about myself: I can type at 88 words per minute, I can make a really nice looking business letter in a test situation if I put my mind to it, and having learned microsoft access that one summer in high school may pay off.

Today I'm back to my lazy life so I'm helping Ben with some work. My autocad skills are coming in handy as I finish a drawing for him and then get on his nerves when I tell him he didn't dimension it properly. Sometimes I think being a perfectionist is a bad thing, but then people do really appreciate a job done right, don't they? In my undergraduate engineering degree we had some professors who were really picky about how drawings are done and scaled and stuff and now I have carried that pickiness with me. I still do want to smack myself when I say things like "Well, it's just not worth doing if you're not going to do it right!". I'm sure Ben wants to smack me too. It's just that I'm a fiddler. I can fiddle with something for hours to make it look right. Ben is not that kind of person. He gets inspired and then wants to do something fast and get it done. Together we make a good team.

Hopefully the temp agency calls me soon to go do a job. I think it's going to be a challenge but exciting at the same time. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Midwife with a Knife has tagged me with 5 reasons I blog so here goes:

1) My parents, boyfriend, siblings and friends are tired of hearing me moan about how I failed my exams, don't get enough time to do yoga (although time is busting out of my ears right now) am sick and tired of classrooms, have crappy teachers, etc. So I dump it all here for you wonderful people to read. And then you probably get tired of it and stop reading, which is OK. Basically, it's a place to vent.

2) There are friends I have who I don't speak to very often because we're busy people but some of them read my blog to catch up on my life and post encouragement or what they're doing with theirs. I like that. I'm not always the greatest friend, but I hope they know that I appreciate that they're reading and I hope we can get together soon (I'm home for the summer, email me!)

3) Sometimes I need to rant about societal or political issues or things that are important to me like riding my bike. I think other people should hear my opinion on these things (don't ask me why) so I post them here. I'm a participating member of the global community.

4) Meeting all these gosh darn nice people from around the world. Blog buddies are awsome. I read up on them and support them and they read up on me and support me. Maybe we don't know each other in person and never will have the chance to meet, but that doesn't matter to me. It's nice to know there are other people out there having the same experiences that I have and that they're surviving. In the spirit of fairness I feel like I should share my experiences to help other people feel less lonely.

5) I like to flex my writing muscles sometimes. I don't keep a diary so maybe this is my way of keeping track of the things that have happened in my life. Maybe one day I'll look back and think about how silly I was back then or remember how hard it is to be a medical student and remember to be nicer to any med students I might encounter. Who knows.

I tag: tea at ten, cal over at short white coats Liana over at Med Valley High, and Nathan.

And finally, go check out Grand Rounds at Med Valley High, Liana has done a great job!

I'm SO BORED. There are only so many days of sitting on my ass watching TV I can take. I wish I wasn't stuck in the burbs at Ben's house while he's at work all day. Ugh. Thank god for the gym. I'm certainly going to be fit after these weeks of going to the gym for 2 hours a day.

I'm not dead... just sleeping 15 hours a day. After not being able to sleep past 6am all through exams my body has finally taken a stand and won't let me get out of bed until after 10. Today I had to drag my ass out of bed at 9 and it was really hard! I've started my vacation slow with a day of sending in my resume to a temp agency and going to the gym. Today I'm going to go visit a friend who is recovering from meningitis (non-contagious) and I'm going to my parents house to receive a delivery. Tomorrow is the baseball game - Jays vs. Red Sox, should be a good one. Ben and I are going to make a giant sign out of a bed sheet just to embarrass my dad. We're taking my poppy (grandfather) out for his promised Christmas present... my dad is cheap though and we're sitting in the 500 level - poppy probably won't be able to see the field! My brother's coming too - should be a paaartay, but only if the Jays win. If the sox win they'll all blame me because I used to be a red sox fan before they won the series (I like to cheer for the underdog, now I'm a jays fan).

There have been some developments on getting observerships with docs in the niagara area (a little far from my chosen area, but can I be picky anymore?) although now if I have a job I'm not sure I'll be able to do them. It all kind of rests on this temping stuff which I won't hear about an interview for until Thursday. Yeesh. Life is looking complicated.

I'm done and it feels Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. Time to get loaded.... I mean, get my hair cut.

I guess today went moderately not as badly as yesterday. Which isn't saying much. But, I think I got a 60 so that's good. I know I screwed up a couple of questions and some of the marking scheme seemed really odd like two marks for a one word answer, but, it's over. Now on to the picture exam. The picture exam (otherwise known as the practical) is one of my worst exams. It's not that I don't know what's in the picture (although sometimes, that is the case) but it's more that I get flustered by the time limit for each question and the fact that they're going to change the slide. Sometimes I'm just not that quick or I need to go back to something once I've had a chance to think about it. The practical doesn't allow for that.

And in other news, I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow. I'm not sure what to get done to it so I'm pretty much going to leave it up to the stylist. I hope she knows what she's doing.

And! Why do they make birth control pills so small? I know, they're easy to swallow. But, on days like today when i'm not sure if it actually got into my mouth and down my throat I would have like to have felt it instead of its magical inconspicuousness. I always wonder if I should take another pill in these situations just to make sure. But I looked around and I couldn't find the pill on the floor or down my shirt so I'm betting it got in there. Sigh.

Well....

That exam was a shit show and a half. 37/120 questions I put a question mark beside because I wasn't sure of the answer. And, I'm sure there were ones I thought I knew that I didn't know. If I get all of those wrong, that's a 70. And I'm sure I am overestimating my abilities. This exam was worth 50% of our final mark. Tomorrows is 30% and Friday is 15%. Since Friday is a write off because I'm bad at practicals, tomorrow has to be really good and Friday has to be a miracle. I'm frustrated!

what does this mean?

I think I was stressing too much about cardio in my dreams last night. I dreamed that my cardiology prof. who used to be my clinical skills prof was taking care of me for the day (I think I was a little kid) and he was taking me to my figure skating practice (I used to be a big figure skater when I was a teenager) and he was going to watch me there. But we got there are the parking lot was gated up and I didn't have a membership card to get into the skating club. I finally get in and someone stops me and asks me for a card, thankfully my grandmother is there and signs me in because she's a member and has her card. But then my cardiology prof shows up and my grandma can't sign him in because it's only one guest per member... so he turns and asks a stranger to sign him in.

I'm not sure what it means but I *think* it might mean that I am going to fail tomorrow because I still don't know anything about hearts.

Renal Renal Renal

There are just too many things that can go wrong with kidneys and associated parts. Plus, all that histology, yeesh. If I were a proximal tubule, what would I be made out of? This is what I've been asking myself all day to remember what is going on. (simple cuboidal epithelium that stains with eosin stain of course). I'm tired of the kidney but I have atleast 50 more pages of notes to read about it... well, I'm actually starting urology now, yay prostates, so maybe it will be better.

I'm sorry to be so boring. I put my bike into the shop today for a spring clean and tune-up. Maybe they'll get my front mech moving again which is clogged with old grease and sand and salt from the winter. I'm SO ready to get back on the bike again and zoom around in my new puce helmet. It was on sale.

Burn out

The problem with cramming is that you get to day 7 or day 8 or day whatever (I'm not sure how long this has been going on) of studying 13 hours a day and then you just lose your drive. I'm sitting here with lots to do and just meh. I think I probably need a break - which comes in the form of me driving home to my parents house tomorrow night to spend Easter morning/lunch with my family and dear darling boyfriend. I'm a bit freaked out about that because it means that I'll lose a lot of valuable study time. But, as I said, it's probably good for me. It means, however, that I should be studying right now to get in a good position to meet my study goals for tomorrow... So that means I should stop blogging and get back to work!

Ta

Babies!

I got to scrub today for a c-section, it was so fun. It was my first scrubbing experience (usually us junior med students stand in the back and try to get a good view) and I'm not sure the senior resident was super happy that I scrubbed, but my preceptor was very encouraging and the junior resident didn't seem to mind. I retracted the bladder, retracted the skin while the sutures were being put in the fascia, and helped clean her up afterwards and transfer her. The baby was beatiful and wailing and the couple was amazing. I was also amazed at how good the spinal was - the last section I saw was more emergent and the anesthetic wasn't as fantastic. The whole thing was a great experience. I've always thought about doing obs/gyn but have decided against it for lifestyle reasons and based on geography of where I want to live. It IS fun though! I also got to see a beautiful coneheaded girl/boy (couldn't see very well) being born by vacuum. The mom had been having a hard time at it and was in a lot of pain but boy did she ever push that baby out fast especially since it was occipito-posterior (of course she did have the aid of the vacuum suction). All in all it was a pretty fun day. Now back to the books!

Today was a bad day for procrastination. I don't really remember what i did today, but a lot of it wasn't studying. Thankfully I just have one lecture of embryology to cover and then I'm done the week I was supposed to finish today. Too bad I was also supposed to do half of the next week tonight because tomorrow I am going to labour and delivery!

I'm excited about going to L and D for an observership. Last time I went there was only one baby born and it was 5 minutes after I walked in and ran into the theater for the section. I hope to see a vaginal birth this time. Maybe this will inspire me to study harder for exams. Maybe not. It will be a good and productive break at least. I've never observed with the doc I'm shadowing nor have I met him before, so that should be interesting.

I guess studying is moving along but i seriously don't remember a thing I've learned. First pass is always hard but because I'm not going to have a lot of time for the second pass, I wish I'd learned more this time around. I'm looking back and regretting all that time I spent not studying now. Oh well, there's always next semester... MY LAST SEMESTER IN THE CLASSROOM!!!!!! I am SO excited to go into clerkship next year. Our lottery still hasn't been done for rotation schedules yet though so I have no idea what order my rotations will be in. I really hope I get obs/gyn first so I don't look like an idiot on my electives.

I'm trying to decide where to do my electives right now. I've pretty much decided that I'm going to do a 3 week obs/gyn elective at U of T, and a 2 week elective at Mac in ER or Obs/gyn and then I have a 3 week rural elective set up so I have another 5 weeks of electives to decide on (a 2 week and a 3 week) I want to do ER somewhere but I'm not sure where, maybe Western. My last 3 weeks I'd like to do something in either family or something that I don't necessarily want to do but will help me in the future like a subspecialty of internal or radiology. Later on after CaRMS we also have another block of electives so maybe I'll do my radiology then. I'm not sure. I want to look well rounded but I also want good reference letters. I also want to try out how I like different schools for residency, although if I'm going to go rural, this matters less.

Anyway, enough of this procrastinating, to embryology!

COULD THERE BE ANY MORE FREAKING ECG CRITERIA FOR LEFT VENTRICULAR HYPERTROPHY??!?!??!?!?!?!

Weekend Holiday

Every weekend is like a miny holiday for me - even when I don't deserve one. When Ben comes we do things that tourists and families do, and I love it.

This weekend we went to a sugar bush and Ben saw his first maple-syrup making operation. They had a mixture of old fashion tree taps with metal buckets and newer plastic piped collection systems. They had the original wood-fire with cauldron syrup making technique along side with the flat-bottomed steamer version. The syrup was the highlight - they had amazing pancakes absolutely swimming in their home made elixir. Nothing better.

The birds were coming out this weekend too, we saw chickidees, robin red breasts and blue jays all singing away and taking baths in the garden. I'm loving spring.

To top it all off, we went to see the musical theater society at my university's version of Cabaret. It was SO GOOD. My friend from med school choreographed it and wow, she did an amazing job - I don't know how she finds the time! There was nothing amateurish about it and the singing blew me away. I've been to many bad amateur theater presentations in my life and this wasn't one of them.

I did do a bit of studying from 12 - 2am on Friday night while Ben was in bed but I'm far behind what I should have done this weekend. Thus, I'm hitting the books now.

Good news, I managed to rip apart and patch my power cord temporarily. Although, I guess this is bad news too because I find the internerd very distracting.

One Track Mind

Forgive me if my posts are more sporadic than their usual sporadicity (I know I know, not a word). My computer power cord has decided to give up the ghost. At first I thought it was my laptop and I was very concerned, but then I plugged it in with my friend's cord today and it works, so I guess I have to buy another stupid 89 dollar cord for this thing. This is the third Toshiba satellite I've heard of within my class that has a broken power cord... I think they may have a product reliability problem.

I'm also cramming like I've never crammed before (or similarly, probably, to how I crammed for Christmas exams) trying to learn all of resp, renal and cardio in the next week and a half. Exams start April 13th and I'm scared shitless (as usual). Thank god I've got my tunes. I was thinking today that exam time is that time when I listen to one album obsessively over and over. It becomes my study soundtrack. Sometimes it can be one song. I tune it out mostly but I'll forever associate that album/song with that exam thereafter. This exam period it's the Dixie Chicks album "Taking the long way" which I bought right after I saw their movie "Shut up and Sing". This album has some great catchy tunes and some really nice sad ballads and a few real country numbers. I'm not what I would call a country music fan, but I've always liked the chicks and this album is their best yet.

Past exam albums have included: K.T. Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope
Mashups by various artists including soulwax
I am Sam Sountrack (beatles covers by various artists)
The Weakerthans - Fallow

Soundtrack

Do you ever feel like your life is a movie? Today I was walking home from the OSCE and it was lovely out and the sky was clear and blue, I was listening to James Taylor, and suddenly I felt like I was in a movie. Everything was perfect, the air was clean and refreshing and there were runners and bikers going past, and I was finished my OSCE!!!

It went well I think. Nothing I wasn't expecting, nothing out of the ordinary, a resp exam, a cardio exam, a depression history, an angry patient with a UTI, a guy with post cancer surgery pain, a girl with a sore throat and ear, and an upper extremity neuro exam. I finished most of the physicals early... the sore throat station seemed a little short but there wasn't anything else I could think to do, and, 60 is a pass so even if I screwed up 1/8 stations I'll still be ok. And, the best thing, is that I'm done! Yay!

Now on to studying for finals, I'm really behind.

Painting by Luke Chueh

Tomorrow is my OSCE. I'm officially freaking out. 8 stations. 8 stations. No break. 8 stations. What's going to be on it? Am I going to have any clue what I'm doing? Am I going to finish the exams in time? 8 stations!!!

I just ate so many cherry nibs while studying that I have no appetite for dinner. Shame on me.

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Med School Interviews

I had a great day today interviewing prospective medical students for my university. I saw 6 people during the day and each one of them brought something unique to the experience. The interviewee performances ranged from fabulous to awful (I won't give numbers in case someone who interviewed is reading this and crapping their pants) and the doctor I interviewed with was hilarious. I kind of knew him before through his wife, but getting to know him today was awsome. He refers to himself as an "old-timer" because he recently retired and he had a really unique perspective on clinical medicine. He favoured applicants who had no idea what they wanted to go into (specialty-wise) and asked people tough questions about medical resource allocation. He gave people encouragement when they answered a question really well, and he agreed with me about most things which obviously makes him a very smart man :)

I'm sorry that this will be my last opportunity to participate in the interview process... until I'm one day a faculty member I guess (which I may never be). It was really good to have a hand in the shaping of the next generation of med students.

I'm also kind of glad it's over because by the end of the day I had the worst headache known to man. It was so bad I actually feel like my eye is bruised, it's tender to the touch and hurts to close it, in addition to my pounding head. I feel like I should have had a really good time last night (instead of studying at home) to deserve it.

Bringing out the crazy

Bring up the subject of clerkship to a whole bunch of people starting clerkship next year and you open a big can of crazy. Our clerkship schedule has been messed up due to some changes with the timing of CaRMS interviews. This means that we have to come up with a new schedule that accommodates both the upper year students' existing schedule (as no two classes can be on core rotations in our hospital at the same time, it's too small) and the never ending list of opinions my class has about what makes a good and a bad schedule. Someone actually got up in my class during a meeting the other week and suggested that it was "us vs. them" between the students and the administration because one administrator suggested a schedule in which a core block would be split into two chunks by electives. This student accused our clerkship committee representatives of not trying hard enough to shut down all of the administration's proposals because, clearly, in this student's mind they're out to get us for shits and giggles. In my opinion, everyone involved has been doing a great job to give us as many options to choose from as possible and address all of our concerns.

I have seriously never seen people come so close to crying in class as some of the gunners got on the day of our student meeting.

To add to the craziness, I sat down to lunch with a few classmates and one of our esteemed colleagues gave us a lecture for 10 minutes on how she doesn't think that "playing the game" to get a clerkship spot (meaning doing research when you hate research and shmoozing with program directors whose programs you don't want to go to but would consider as a last-chance resort) wasn't being misleading or a bad person, it was just what needs to happen. This individual wants a competitive surgical subspecialty (a very competitive one) and proceeded to tell me that her backup is another very competitive surgical specialty... hello, a backup is supposed to be something easier to get into! Anyways, the two of us who were sitting at the table, including a girl who wants something very competitive herself, were stunned to hear this coming out of one of our classmates mouths. I guess that's what it's like to be type A. The thing is, if you're going into a specialty that wants you to do research that badly, maybe it's because research is highly regarded in that specialty and you'll be expected to do it when you're in your residency and after you've graduated. If you don't like research, maybe the specialty isn't for you! And, maybe if you want something so competitive you shouldn't look down your nose at certain schools' programs (especially if there are only 21 spots in the whole country) - you might end up going there! If you think it's second rate and you would be upset to say you went there, don't apply, I'm sure there are many people who would be very proud to take that spot.

At times like these I'm thankful that I've chosen a specialty that isn't very competitive and I'm able to do the things I want to do with my time. I'm doing research this summer, but for a month in a subject I'm genuinely interested. I hope to shadow at least one doctor and spend a few weeks at an abortion clinic. I'm glad I'm not going to feel like I'm going to be punished for the rest of my life for pursuing things I enjoy.

Tiredness

Today we had a "career planning" session from 5-8:00, well, I left at 8:00 but it wasn't finished yet. They had people from different specialties come in and talk about what they do and how to get into their program etc. etc. Mostly, it was useless. I came to support my friend who's the chief resident in family medicine here who was coming to talk and I wanted to hear a bit more about the R3 programs in family medicine. As I have a huge interest in obstetrics, I am curious about extra training in that field. I think it would be really cool to practice rurally and be able to do sections. I think I'd probably go out and practice for a while and then come back to do extra training, but the prospect of doing a 3rd year to get a little more experience under my belt before embarking on the world is certainly tempting. We'll see what happens.

On Saturday I'm being unleashed on unsuspecting medical school applicants! I've been honing my interviewing skills and thinking of good questions all week long. I'm stoked to see what these kids are made of. I hope that my questions give them a chance to really shine and show me what they're all about. I've tried to design questions that will give them opportunities to tell the panel about what makes them unique and great and the perfect candidate for doctoring. We'll see if it all works out. And, there's free lunch. perfect.

Randomness

I haven't updated in a little while because things have been busy here! I'm back at school after a nice one week holiday in which I went snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, hiking, and studied for a few days. Coming back and having to go to class again is a bit of a shock because exams are only a few weeks away.

My OSCE is a week today and I'm pretty scared. I have to go over scenarios because I'm still too slow at certain examinations. My neuro exam is always too slow for the allotted time. I think I get caught up with the myotomes and range of motion etc. and then run out of time for sharp/dull, reflexes, vibration, etc. etc. This happened to me last OSCE and it's not going to happen again! A few of us are getting together on Monday to practice and I'm going to do that damn neuro exam until I can fit the whole thing into 5 minutes if it kills me. I have to also review my associated symptoms for a bunch of conditions so I don't forget to ask about anything. There is definitely going to be something psych oriented on the exam so need to bone up on the depression screen, psychosis, etc. and there's definitely going to be a knee exam so I'd better remember my lachmans and drawers etc. There's so much to remember that I'm bound to forget something - hopefully it becomes second nature with experience.

Match day was last week. 5 people from my school (100 people) did not match in the first round. This is about 1/2 of the national average I was told. All of those people applied only to surgical specialties and none had backups. I hope they are able to find something that's an OK fit for them in the second round, but I doubt there were any ENT spots that went unmatched :) We had a record 3 students this year who matched to ophtho which is great! Also suprising, some of the people who wanted obs/gyn did not match to that specialty. I have been told by numerous docs that if you really want obs/gyn you will match to it. I can only suspect that they didn't apply to every program and were more concerned with location than specialty. My good friend matched to his second choice, family in rural BC and I think he'll be really happy there. He was ok with getting his first or second choice so hopefully he still feels like that after the fact. I'll find out when I see him in a few days. All of this makes residency seem so much more real. I actually started looking at residency programs today, which I haven't done before because I thought I was more concerned with location and what I want to do isn't competitive. Now, I've got the bug! Especially because we're starting to get more and more into planning for our impending clerkship!

Oh, and to those who wonder if that's me in the picture: yes. If someone really wanted to find out who I was, they could, but what I write here is mostly about myself and if there's something that is sensitive I change the situation and the names involved. I like that picture and it has the most important person in my life kind of in it, so I decided to put it up!

Another setback in a sea of setbacks

I thought that at least 1 month of my summer was worked out. There are 4 programs where I live that place medical students with preceptors for 4 month summer rotations in rural communities. Their sole purpose is to place clerkship and pre-clerkship students in rural centers so they can experience what it's like to work in a rural community. Last year I did a week in the country with my medical school through one of these organizations and the people were great. They were super organized, most of us were in great communities with great preceptors. So, I decided to try again this year with the organization that covers the part of the province that I want to go to this summer. I specified not 1 but 2 four week blocks that I was free during, I submitted a letter of good intent and proof of good standing from my medical school, and then I waited, and waited. Finally, I emailed them yesterday to see what the status of my application is.

Not yet processed. They have 3 clerks to still place for manditory rotations during the time I specified before they will try to place me. The first time slot I specified is in a month... I guess I'm not getting placed. So, I asked about the second time slot I asked for and I still haven't heard back... cross your fingers.

I really find this disappointing that an organization that's purpose is to place students for volunteer positions (the other organizations in the province reimburse students for travel expenses and living expenses while they're in the community, but not this one) can't manage to place clerks let alone pre-clerkship students. I'd heard bad things about this organization in the past, and now it's solidified, they just can't keep up with their counterparts in other areas of the province. I don't know what it is. They probably get more students than other regions, but their region also has a bigger population and therefore more doctors to canvas. Maybe doctors are tired of taking students and being asked to take students. I think that's a shame. Maybe the government should look at putting a bonus into the alternative funding agreements for taking students - maybe they need a bit of incentive to make up for the time they lose having a student. The family health teams already use an incentive-based-approach so if they government is serious about having more family doctors, maybe they should give an incentive for teaching and helping students gain exposure to family medicine.

All I know is that I'm frustrated. I'm not asking for money, I'm just asking for someone's time.

Barbados Butterfly

I went to check out one of the blogs I read on a regular basis (although I can't say I read it every day - I'm one of those on again, off again blog readers), barbados butterfly, only to discover that it has been changed to an 'invitation only' blog. As I don't actually know barb or how to contact her for an invite I guess it's a case of another one bites the dust. Blogs come and blogs go, they change, they evolve, some become more interesting and some less. Barb is a spunky surgeon who speaks about being a woman in a field that has maintained some of its boy's club tendencies. I enjoyed reading her blog and I'm sorry to see it go. So, if you notice that it's gone from my links, that's why.

Exams are in 1 month, I've been trying to hit the books hard this week (we're on a break) and it's semi-worked. I have a lot of work ahead of me. If you've got any great tricks/tips about renal/cardio/resp let me know!

Reinvention

Driving back to school this afternoon after a weekend at home, we had a very interesting conversation. Have you ever moved to a new place and convinced yourself that you were going to change your personality and become the person you always wanted to be? That you would reinvent yourself and suddenly everything you didn't like about yourself would melt away because these were new people, they don't know your past? I sure have. Every time I go to a new place or a new school I tell myself that everything I don't like about myself is going to change. I will be more outgoing, I will participate in all of the activities that create lots of friendships with my peers, I'll be surrounded by people who like me, I'll never spend another Friday night wishing that someone would call me and include me in their plans.

What I've realized, after trying this 4 or 5 times, is that you can't change the big stuff. You inevitably will go back to being the same core person you were before; after a few days/weeks all those good intentions seep away because they don't mesh with who you are. But, you can adopt a few small changes, things that make you more likeable, loveable, easier to live with, and if you persevere, you can modify how people see you as a person. You can't change the foundation of your personality, but you can maybe change the curtains or the colour of the front door.

Ever have that problem that there are some words that you just can't spell? For my entire life I have been unable to spell "Shiny" I always sit there and debate whether there's an 'e' between the 'n' and the 'y'. Even after I look it up, I forget for the next time. I am missing the part of my brain that is dedicated to spelling the word shiny. Even as I look at it now it looks like it's spelled wrong. I'm glad I won't often need to write shiny in a medical chart because then I'd have to carry a sticky note in my pocket as to how to spell it and because there are several other words I have trouble with, I'd have a huge collection of sticky notes. I'll probably just need a PDA with a dictionary on it (although how I feel about PDAs is a subject for another day).


Today I had an interesting experience. I interviewed a candidate for the new head of the family medicine department at my med school. Every time there's an important interview, students are encouraged to come along and talk to the candidate and ask them the questions that they feel are important. As the student rep on the undergraduate family medicine committee I felt that I had a few things I wanted to ask, so I went along. I was the only student who showed, so I had a nice one on one conversation with the first candidate. It is an interesting thing to interview someone who is already in a position of authority with respect to one's self. I think it's hard for them to step out of the role of advisor and teacher and into the role of answerers of the freaking question. Some people get carried away with getting their own agenda across and don't really address the questions asked. Some people are very good at staying on track to what you say and tell you exactly what you want to hear. This candidate was a mix of both. I think he would do a good job, but I'm looking forward to hearing from the other two candidates in the next month. All of the candidates are internal, so I have the advantage of knowing most of them already. It's hard not to be neutral going into the interview though with people you already know. Overall it was a really positive experience. Too bad the free lunch landed on a day that someone else was buying me free lunch. I gotta spread my free lunches out more!

quotable quote

Instead of writing about how exhausted I am for no reason and how I have taken a nap in the evening for the past 3 days and then gone to bed at 9:00, I am going to share a funny quote:

"And, I would like to end with a final note to Angelina Jolie who has recently put in an application to adopt another child, this time from Vietnam: Is it that hard just to have sex with Brad Pitt?"
- This Hour Has 22 Minutes

I will update for real soon.

this was too funny

Rapid Interpretation of EKGs

Edit: I have heavily edited this post after learning that the author of this book is a convicted pedophile. I no longer think Dale Dubin is the greatest man on earth. But, it's still a good book so I've kept my post about it. My advice - get a used copy.

For anyone who ever tried to learn how to read EKG's the name Dale Dubin probably rings a bell. He is the author of the wildly popular "Rapid Interpretation of EKG's". This summer when I was working with an internist for a few days and he was doing stress tests I said I didn't know how to read an EKG so he gave me the book he learned EKGs from - a very tattered copy of Dr. Dubin's masterpiece (blanks not filled in so I'm not sure if he really got the maximum out of it). This book has stood the test of time and is now in a very glossy and colourful 6th edition.

Basically, this book is fill in the blanks and by being fill in the blanks prevents one from skimming the pages and tuning out and not learning anything. If only every book I've ever had to read was fill in the blanks I'd probably be a lot smarter. The only way I can fall asleep while studying EKGs is to put this book down, that's how much it captivates my attention. Not that I don't still fall asleep, I just have to put the book down first.

My only issue with Dr. Dubin's book is that he doesn't discuss the cardiac axis until chapter 7 on page 203, and it isn't until this chapter that he discusses the 12 lead ECG and the orientation of the QRS complex in each lead. Furthermore, I'm a little confused still about the correct orientation of the p-wave in all of the leads. Nevertheless, I'm not finished the book, so maybe these things will become clear with time.

This is the only book I've bought this semester so far, and I gotta say, it was totally worth it.

Urgency

Amongst my peers there's a sense of urgency. Travel now, have fun now, while you STILL CAN. (imagine maniacal laughter inserted here). We all have a fear that after this summer, our last summer off, we will never be able to have fun again because we will be working all hours god sends and we won't have any vacation time. Whether this is true or not is probably dependent on your specialty and how much you're willing to sacrifice to take time off and travel and do all of those other things, but it is true, this is probably the easiest time to do it. Unfortunately, this is also the time when we all have no money.

It is true, any bank here will give you a loan if you say you're a med student. Some of my friends have lines of credit that extend up to a quarter of a million dollars. A QUARTER OF A MILION!!!! But, do I want to pay later for the fun I'm having now? How long will I be working to pay off the fun I have now? Lots of people in my class are going travelling this summer on their loan money. I am lucky. I don't currently have any loans. My parents have worked hard to ensure that I can graduate without debt. But, now I'm heading into a summer where I'm not going to make any money and I want to do some fun things. I'm struggling with whether to take out a small loan or not. It sounds silly, but, what if my parents are disappointed that they did all that work to put me through med school just for me to go off and take out a loan to travel? Is it all worth it in the end for the life experience of one last summer of freedom?

Nobody Wants Me

I really want to do something clinical this summer in family medicine. It's turning out to be harder than expected. Nobody wants a second year med student and it's becoming VERY disheartening. I don't have the connections or my connections just aren't working out and I've come to so many dead ends now it feels like I'm banging my head against a wall. I can't sell myself any harder. I just want to practice practicing. I just want to get out there and experience what it's like to be a dctor in a small southern ontario community. I just want to figure out if this is what I want to do with my life. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so.

Sad

I just walked into the medical school main building at my university. On my way in I passed two first year medical students, recognizable from their bright blue backpacks. Both girls were smoking cigarettes outside the front door. How sad that the people who are supposed to be advising others on how to protect their precious health are ruining their own. They have no excuses; we grew up in a generation that fully knew what dangers cigarettes hold, and yet the smoke. We had the benefit of ads and publicity campaigns aimed at stamping out cigarette smoking. I don't even think smoking holds the "cool"ness factor that it once did. So then, why?

There was one smoker in my class when we started and he no longer smokes and I think that's great. There's no time like now to quit.

I know that medical students aren't gods or immune to the plights of normal human beings but I hope that we are well educated about the health effects of our actions. If you are a med student and you smoke, maybe you can enlighten me as to why.

Podcasts

My med school has recently started podcasting our lectures afterwards and I have to say, it's awsome. I missed one morning last week due to my inability to get out of bed, and I just listened to the lecture. I have to say, just sitting here listening instead of trying to write things down at an insane speed really added to my understanding. In lectures, I usually have to sit there and I'm trying to hard to write things down so that I understand the notes and get the insight when I go back to study that I don't remember what the lecture was about afterwards. Sitting in my living room just listening, I actually took something away from it. This podcasting thing is genius. Although I won't be able to re-listen to every lecture on podcast, I can put them on my ipod and use up the time on the train or at the gym to listen to a few key ones for understanding. Finally, something useful done by my medical school administration! Hoorah!

Icky Snotty Goo

I think I've lost 1/2 my body water in snot in the past 2 days. I am keeping the tissue industry alive! Who knows whether I picked this up observing in the ER or whether it's been brewing for a week or more (and is responsible for my headache) but I am most definitely ill. This really has ruined my plans for tomorrow's holiday. I was going to observe in labour and delivery and I was really looking forward to seeing babies!

I'm going to have to start studying this week. Ugh. Things always seem to get busier near the end of the year when I need more time to study.

Exhaustion

There's nothing like being somewhere that you don't know your way around and doing something you're not familiar with while trying to impress someone to tire you out. By the time that I got home from my shift I observed at on Tuesday I was pooped. It was only 11:00 and i was totally shattered. Clerkship is going to be even more exhausting I'm sure, I was only there for 6 hours! Granted, I had done a full day at school first.

It was fun though. I got to ultrasound one of the residents' belly, I saw lots of kids with sore ears/tummies/throats, I saw a man in anaphalactic shock and saw a woman who may have been having an MI but not really. The resident I followed around was great. He had no qualms about letting me go in there first and do my own physical before he went in. It's great to get that experience, although I must say, I need more practice looking in the ears. Ben is going to have his ears looked in a lot this weekend.

To add to my exhaustion, after I got home it started snowing and didn't stop until the next morning, leaving us with 10 cm of fresh fluffy not plowed snow. It was a bit of a biking nightmare. I got TO school but had to take the bus home due to the complete and utter ridiculous state of the roads.

Hopefully tonight I'll get to bed somewhat early (although it's trivia night and I'm going) and feel like I've started to recover tomorrow.

Valentines Day

For me, the best part about valentines day has got to be the abundance of cheap heart shaped chocolate. On the 15th of February I hit the sales and stock up for exam time. I love chocolate; some might say it's my kryptonite. Unfortunately, once I have the chocolate near me, i can't stop myself from eating it. This is demonstrated by the fact that I ate 12 chocolate hearts tonight. Oh, and yes, I'm pathetic and I bought them for myself because I was having a chocolate craving and my boyfriend doesn't believe in valentines day. He's morally opposed to someone telling him that he should tell me that he loves me extra super special much on this day because to quote him "he loves me every day".

I think it's an excuse not to buy me a present, but hey, maybe he'll buy me an out of the blue present some other day instead. I bought him a present because I fully believe in valentines day. Who doesn't like an excuse for presents? We also went out to dinner because I whined that everyone else was doing something for valentines and he could atleast throw me a bone.

It was a very nice dinner. Unfortunately I forgot to ask for my seafood pasta without tentacles (I just don't like the texture) and it was chocked full of squid arms! I picked them out and it was super yummy. (munching on chocolate heart #13 as I type this - please, someone, take them away from me). I've really been ODing on seafood lately, but it could be worse things... like more chocolate.

I have also been having mysterious headaches so today I broke down and bought pain killers. I usually don't take anything for my headaches because not much works except sleeping it off but when I woke up today with the same headache I had yesterday I said ENOUGH! a couple of 222s later I felt a bit better although not fully. I've been trying to modify lots of lifestyle factors such as drinking more water, eating more regularly, and wearing sunglasses all the time to alleviate the annoying pain but it just won't go away. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Well, this post has certainly been random. Must be all that chocolate talking. Happy valentines day everyone! Look forward to a post soon about my observership in the ER tomorrow!

Like sand through the hourglass...

What do people really think of Canada? There is this satire TV show called "talking to Americans" where a Canadian "reporter" goes around and asks Americans questions about Canada or stating facts about Canada that are quite ridiculous. For Example:

1) Canada is a land-locked country and they are wondering if they can use a few US ports for launching their Navy, do you think the US military should let them?

2) Canada recently legalized the stapler, congratulate them!

3) Did you know that the capitol building of Canada is a big ass igloo?

And they get certain prominent americans such as the governor of Arkansas to give their two cents. (watch the clip, it's very funny)

Now, of course, this show is meant to be a satire so they don't pick the intelligent answers, but, let us take another example of the American perception of Canada: Days of Our Lives.

I don't personally watch days of our lives, but my roommate has recently become addicted and she tells me that Canada has been mentioned twice lately:
1) A man gets a face transplant in Canada and comes back totally healed with no scars
2) A couple abducts their stolen baby to Canada and hides out in a warehouse where the Canadian police cannot track them down until they can sail away on a cruise ship into the night with their baby with fake Canadian passports.

First off, since when is Canada the mecca of experimental plastic surgery and how come everything sketchy seems to happen here? Oh, and, by the way, they're in Toronto, how the hell do you get on a cruise ship in Toronto? Is it sailing around the great lakes?

In conclusion, what IS the perception of Canada in the US? Friendly igloo living, sled dog riding, aboot and eh saying, rednecks?

*ED: just for the record since someone might wonder, i myself am Canadian and I live in an igloo and say eh

Just when things were looking down

Just when you think you'll never like medical school again, some brilliant clinical teaching comes along and makes you fall in love all over again. Today we had some absolutely great cardiology teaching where one of the cardiologists had 5 of his patients come in and we went around and listened to their findings. I heard aortic stenosis, aortic regurgitation, mitral regurgitation, a mid-systolic click, carotid bruits and it was all great. I love it when you hear/see teaching in action. All of the people were super nice and willing to just lay back and relax while we listened until we heard what we were supposed to, no pressure. The doc who taught it was also really nice, he made jokes and asked questions and let us ask whatever we wanted without making us feel dumb. I think that for 1st and 2nd year medical students, it's important for us to be able to ask questions about dumb things without feeling chastised or ridiculed, save that for clerkship!

All in all, I felt like it wasn't a waste of time, unlike a lot of our didactic teaching time. Yay cardiologist. Although, I still don't want to do internal!

I'm a lump

Ever just lose that gold 'ol med student motivation? I sit in class and think "oh, that's interesting" but when I get home, all I want to do is sit and watch tv, take naps, eat chocolate, go to the gym. Cracking the books just doesn't seem a priority. I SHOULD be cracking the books though. I should be studying the kidney, I should be studying the heart, I should be working hard. Where did that good ol' work ethic go? Quick, someone, give me your work ethic so I don't get kicked out of medical school!

In good news, after the girl I was supposed to live with gave me the news that she has to stay in her current place with a girl that I don't think I could live with, I found another place to live! Unfortunately, it means paying double rent over the summer so I'm going to have to get a subletter. I have a lead on a person but I think I might have to get a few people for different months who are coming to do medical electives at the hospital here. Let's hope there are lots of people who want to come hang out here!