Suggestions needed

So,
I am the director of a medical student group for the promotion of interest in family medicine (not its real name, real name much more catchy). We are looking at things to do within our group next year to promote family medicine. Last year we covered the following topics in speaker presentations:
1 - residency
2 - family + obstetrics
3 - wilderness medicine
4 - rural medicine

and we had skills sessions covering:
1 - suturing
2 - immunizations and well baby checks
3 - mechanics of childbirth
4 - wilderness medicine

I really really need suggestions of fun/interesting topics in family medicine that we can add to our roster next year. PLEASE if any family docs or med students read my blog and have any suggestions at all PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE comment.

again, PLEASE.

Ok, this is a good post about why people are miserable in the 21st century. I agree with so much of it.

I removed a large rant about crap here because I re-read it and I sounded like a real a-hole.

Check out nathan's blog here for an interesting argument about abortion that then turned into a discussion of more than just that.

The Dreaded Poster Presentation

Ok...
So I have to make a poster presentation on my summer research next Thursday. Which means I have to finish my poster by the end of today to have my supervisor print it out on Tuesday because I'm going away for the long weekend. You'd think this would light a candle under my ass but so far today i've written my title, my purpose and read about 50000 blogs. It's 10 am and I've been here since 7:40. I also played around with my colour scheme for a while! I really must get down to business but I'm finding it hard. I'm like an actor - WHAT'S MY MOTIVATION, DAMMIT! On the positive side, I finished my model and put an idealized cornea on it and made it look kind of like an eyeball by playing with my colorscheme and making the cornea transparent:



I'm all undecided about this weekend. We had a huge storm and it took down a bunch of power lines between here and our cottage. So, my Mom who went up on Thursday took refuge at her family cottage where my grandma and my uncle's family are. We were supposed to have a huge family gathering this weekend with my brother and my sister and their spouses and my nephew and we were gonna have a dinner on the beach and go golfing and do other fun stuff. Now we've all been told that only people without dogs can come to my grandma's cottage. That basically means that only Ben and I can go because both my brother and my sister have a dog. What's the fun of going up now? My cousins are um... young. And it's going to be crowded and there probably won't be a double bed for Ben and I so we're going to have to either sleep together in a single or sleep apart. I'm wondering if we should just stay in the city and go biking.

Bees

Oh, and I forgot to say in my last post, Ben also got stung 20 times by wasps on the weekend. I got to be nurse K and smear a paste of meat tenderizer all over him. It actually does work - apparently it breaks down the constituants of the venom. I have also heard that toothpaste, vinegar, and baking soda are recommended. Hopefully he'll not try to cut down a tree by squatting in a wasp nest again and we won't have to use any of these other handy remedies!

Acid Reflux

I have been popping every stomach acid reducing medication I can think of. My chest is on fire. I was suspicious this morning that my bra was too tight but that was not the case. I have a history of awful stomach upset - the majority of it comes out of the blue and I'm not sure what I've done to offend my sensitive organ. I keep tums in business. Today I'm trying rolaids soft chews and 75mg of ranitidine. So far, no success. I also somehow managed to miss a very important meeting of the family medicine working group this morning. I'm SO dumb. Perhaps this is adding to my pain, who knows. I need a remedy for being an idiot.

in other news, I went mountain biking with Ben in Haliburton Forest this weekend. It was lots of fun. I finally stopped being stupid and only fell once. I'm starting to finally get used to clipless on the mountain bike. I have done some damage to my right ankle though with all those clipped crashes. The course was muddy and it was mostly deciduous forests. Ben prefers pine so he wasn't that happy. I'm encouraging him to join a mountain biking club up at a course he really liked, that way he won't be frustrated with me being slow when we go together and he won't be tempted to never go with me again. He also wants me to buy a new bike. He wants me to buy the Specialized womens FSR XC - which i can't afford. The problem with my bike is that my fork is too stiff and has no damping. I only use about 38.1 of its 85 mm of travel. And if I put a less stiff spring into it it's just going to make it oscillate and be crappy. When I have a spare 1099 american dollars around I probably will buy an FSR XC. Unless I can find one used.

Cartoon

Check out this really funny cartoon from The Underwear Drawer

a new low

I just fell asleep at my desk and drooled on my own leg. A new low has been reached folks!

In sad news, Mr. Colson of the Toronto Cricket, Curling and Skating club has died. He coached there all though my childhood and when I skated as a teenager. He was 90 y/o and died of heart failure. He was a great man and will surely be missed. Here he is in one of his hat and turtle neck outfits he always wore. He's sitting with his latest protege, Patrick Chan, at Canadians.

The skating community will miss him dearly.

Angry

I am so angry at the big institution that I work for. They have screwed up my pay 2 months in a row and I'm not going to be paid until the 28th of this month (I started working the 28th of May). And, eventhough I've worked 2/3 of my term they're paying me 1/2 of my total pay. This means that I am SO broke it's ridiculous. I have almost maxxed out my credit card and have no money to buy gas to get to the cottage this weekend. Furthermore, the fact that I backed into someone's car this weekend and need to have my tail light fixed is going to strain my budget even more. I was stupid and didn't think I damaged the person's car so I drove away and when I noticed i'd actually broken a tail light I went back but they were gone. I really hope I didn't damage their car. Even worse, my grandmother was in the car at the time. She was pretty understanding but if the person comes knocking on her door (it was opposite her house) she'll tell them that I did it and it's going to cost me huge to fix it if I scratched their car. I feel incredibly guilty.

I do not, however, feel guilty about taking the day off work yesterday since i'm not actually being paid! I guess not being paid is my karma coming back to haunt me for hitting that car. Dammit. Damn karma.

How quickly we forget...

So,
Every year that I've had a research job it has come to the end of the summer and I've told myself that I'll never do research again. Then, over the course of the school year, I seem to forget all of the things I hate about research and just remember the sweet hours, the lack of supervision and the glory (ok, maybe not the glory) and possibility of publishing papers (which I always seem to never get around to writing). So I'm writing this post so that next year when I think it's a good idea to go look for a research job, I remember, I HATE RESEARCH. There, I said it. This is when the god of residency programs sends a lightening bolt from hell (because that's where he/she/it lives) to strike me down. I might as well sign up for family medicine right now :)

In good news, Ben comes today! Which means a weekend of fun and mountain biking and swimming and enjoying re-introducing ourselves to each other (and no, that wasn't supposed to sound dirty!). I'm going to take Monday off to be with him and I'm trying not to feel guilty about it.


Oh, and he graduated the other day. Congratulations Ben!

Smoooooth

So,
I finished my once over of the eye. Then I went to a meeting in which the big boss man told me it was pointless that I'd segmented the entire optic nerve and that the resolution isn't high enough so I should remove it (waaaaaaaaahhhh all my hard work) and focus on the sclera. So, that's what I'm doing. I'm currently working on smoothing my sclera model so I can make volumes out of the surface meshes (enginerd speak for... uh... something nerdy) to construct my final model that I can apply the boundary conditions and material properties to. Here is my smooooth model so far:

And here is the part that is not smoothed.... :

I can see the difference... can you see the difference??

The biggest problem that I have is that I have to write an abstract by 10 days from now about my project and make a poster by august 10th. I have no data! hahahahahahahah. my job sux.

This made me laugh out loud

This is how I feel sometimes

Grades

Well,
I got my grades for second semester today. Glad to report that I got honors for both the academic stuff and clinical skills. Looks like the twizzler-eating/studying marathon paid off. Woohoo. I'm 1/4 doctor! 'Aint that a scary thought.

I got back from Vancouver and the ob/gyn national meeting last Tuesday (time really does fly... it feels like yesterday). It was AWSOME. I got really interested in the surgical aspect of the specialty. I went to a talk on pediatric gynecology by Sari Kives of Sick Kids and it was absolutely great. Lots of discussion of congenital abnormalities of the mullarian system and which corrective surgeries/medical procedures work best and how to recognize the signs/symptoms in an ER situation. I also went to a talk on obstetrical emergencies in which there was a really interesting discussion on shoulder dystocia. They talked about all of the manouvers to deal with it and try to get through a successful delivery without any axillary nerve complications. They also talked about PPH and complications. There was also this AMAZING session on women's sexual desire and its association with biological factors. Rosemary Basson, the woman who taught it, is apparently a leader in the field of sexual desire and "desire disorders" which in her opinion aren't really disorders at all. She was SO captivating and imspiring. She opened up a can of whoop ass on the DSMIV definition of sexual desire/intimacy disorders. It was SO interesting. I hope we get to study her work later on when we do repro/gyne/uro stuff.

And other than that, hung out around Vancouver. Ate TONS of sushi and sashimi. Loved every minute of it. Saw my friend Amy from undergrad who I haven't seen in FOREVER and met her boyfriend Brian who is really nice. I lost 5 pounds which I promptly gained back when I got home. I think I'm going to have to go on an all sashimi diet again! (although in Ontario that would be quite a lot more expensive than in Vancouver).

Oh, and I got my first free dinner/night out from a drug company. I'm being wooed by evil big pharma already! All in the name of pregnancy vitamins and birth control.

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I have no pictures to show, but I'm sure I'll be back there sometime soon. Ben has got to see Vancouver! It's wonderful!

Dear guy in my office

Dear guy in my shared office,
Do you only come into this office when you want to make personal phonecalls on the office phone? That seems to be the case. You speak very loudly and have heated conversations with people that clearly are NOT work related. That is inappropriate and disturbs everyone else in the office. Please, be a bit more considerate. You have a cell phone, use it. Go out into the hallway.

Thanks

celebrity face club

So, Nathan put this website on his blog and I decided to try it. I uploaded this photo (the only one I have at work):

And by their facial recognition they came up with these matches:

Erica Durance

Renee Zellweger (but not this photo, one with her a little heavier... I thought this one was nicer)

I'm pretty impressed with the software's abilities - atleast they dont' look really unlike me!

Oh, and my third match was Hillary Duff. Wooohooo.

Books

I just finished a FANTASTIC book. It's called 'The Girls' and it's by Lori Lansens. My aim this summer is to read some more Canadian Lit and this was a great start. She also wrote 'Rush Home Road' which I read last summer and also really loved.

The novel was extremely touching. It made me cry several times, which isn't really anything new with me and novels, both for joy and sadness. The imagery was so bitter sweet that it made my heart ache. A lot of the scenery of Southern Ontario was familiar to me.

As medicine is so much of what defines me right now, it also made me contemplate medicine and humanity and how dehumanizing a visit to the doctor can be, especially for those who make a lot of visits. So far, I have found that some people define themselves by their illness and some do not. Some people wear their survival or suffering like a badge of honor and some bury it deep within themselves and strive for a "normal" life. It's difficult as physicians to appreciate these individual differences and deal with patients according to their own coping mechanisms. It's hard for friends of the afflicted to do that as well.

I'm now reading 'A Student of Weather' by Elizabeth Hay. Hopefully it's just as great!

Van to the couver

So,
On Thursay I'm going to Vancouver for the first time. I'm stoked! I'm also going to the SOGC annual clinical meeting which should be very informative. They're having an ob/gyn residency fair and some special med student sessions and stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to solidify my plans on whether to go for ob/gyn or not. I'm really leaning towards it right now. I need to figure out what kind of research I'm going to do for my critical inquiry and if I'm going to try to get an ob/gyn residency spot I'd better focus on that area. I'm not sure what kind of study I want to do, I know I definitely want to do something clinical (but hopefully more exciting than a chart review). I know it's still a year away, but I like to think ahead!

In other news, yesterday I realized just how much of last semester I had forgotten. I was wracking my brain trying to remember the difference between TTP and DIC and it just wasn't coming to me which one affected the PT and PTT. I think it's DIC. I'm going to have to look that up. If I've forgotten that, what else have I forgotten? I feel like I'm going to re-learn this stuff a million times before I really understand it. yeesh. I wish I had a better brain for retention.

Anyways, wish me luck in Vancouver without a car and staying a half hour drive from the hotel where the conference is. I think I'll be spending a lot of time lost on city buses.

This is my model now: Progress!

Narcolepsy anyone?

I think I have become narcoleptic. I keep falling asleep unexpectedly at my desk at basically any time of day. I wake up 10 minutes later thinking 'what happened'. I think it's probably a side-effect of extreme boredom. So far this is my eye model:

Exam results and body image

So, exam results will be coming soon. If I've failed, I'll get a phonecall or an email on June 21 telling me. If not, I get my results on the 22nd if I phone in and on the 26th if I wait for the internet posting. I always get this pit in my stomach when I know the time is near. In my head I know I probably didn't fail, but my body says different. My body says "what if". My body is also disagreeing with my head in other ways these days. I am trying to get back into shape after taking a month off exercise to study for exams and it's not going as swimmingly as I would like it to. I have an easy time getting to yoga/pilates but a hard time doing cardio and making time for it. I haven't touched the bike since I got home and going from riding every day to that is not good. This weekend I think I have to go to the cottage on Saturday so that cuts out a day to ride. Sunday we have some family lunch thing but hopefully I'll be able to make it to bodyjam beforehand. Something's gotta give and I don't want it to be my body. Ben is coming on July 14th and I'd better look good naked.

Going to the doctor

It's funny when you're a med student and you go to the doctor and they tell you that you have something that you don't think you have. And then it's also funny when they give you antibiotics and they don't work because, gasp, you don't have the thing that you don't think you have. I got diagnosed with scarlet fever on Sunday after repeatedly telling the doctor that my rash isn't red, it's just bumpy, and the reason that my face was red is that I was flushed from the heat in the waiting room. How many times do I have to tell him that before he believes me? So, I'm on amoxil but it totally isn't doing anything. He took a throat swab and I get the results today I believe. Now, do I stop taking the amox when the throat swab is negative or do I keep taking the whole script? I guess I can't induce antibiotic resistance if I never had the bug in the first place.

The new question of the day is - what the hell is this rash. I think it's irritant dermatitis from air pollution exposure. It started the day after I moved back to Toronto and went walking outside on a day with a high smog alert. It's just like dermatitis, it's just all over my face and neck which is unusual for me. It's a diffuse papular rash all over the face and neck with some clusters around the corners of my eyes and corners of my mouth. From what I can tell, I just need some cortisone. Instead, stupid amox. I need to go to my family doc. She actually listens to me.

Research

Well, here it is. Summer. Everyone gets excited about summer, me included. This summer I'm doing research at a University close to my parents house. I'm doing some work in imaging and ocular biomechanics, the field of research that my masters is in. Research is a funny thing. It sounds really exciting when you get your project and you're done exams and you're all ready to go, but by the second or third day, I always start to ask myself why I got myself into this. Why didn't I take a job as a waitress or a grass cutter or a camp counselor or something other than this. Here's why: I am sitting in my lab. The walls are a pee yellow color, there is no A/C and it's 33 degrees outside, the only window looks at a red brick wall, and the person sitting behind me isn't wearing deodorant. Add to that the fact that I'm manually segmenting 300 MRI images of an eyeball and I have 36 more to go... and this is going to be every day for the next 3 months. I'm not nearly being paid enough.

In good news, I'm going to see David Francey tonight! I have only heard recordings of his music, never seen him live and I'm SO stoked. He's an amazing folk singer who's currently lives in Lanark county but he's originally from Scotland and grew up in Toronto. His website is http://www.davidfrancey.com . He's playing tonight at the Edward Day Gallery in Toronto and also in Toronto some time in July. I believe the 24th. You should all come out and see him. This is him in his youth (age 18):


And this is him now: