After our two weeks with Doctor and getting ready for upcoming exams, we decided to take a few hours out and go to dinner at Trattoria Sole, which is an awesome Italian restaurant just a few blocks from our apartment in South Miami (picture from our night out above). I think part of the reason I love the place so much is the creative food. We went there for my birthday in May--it was so good. In May, Farley had the pumpkin ravioli and I had pasta stuffed with pears, Gorgonzola cheese, and walnuts with a butter and sage sauce. The second time we went, Farley had some amazing chicken that had been pan roasted in wonderful seasoning, mashed potatoes and fresh veggie medley and I had ricotta filled gnocchi with pesto sauce. We decided to try one of the deserts that night and WOW... it was amazing! We ordered the Mango Cake and I assumed that it would be some sort of white cake with mango juice or mango puree---I was wrong. It was a cheesecake (I think a rocotta based cheesecake) with mango juice. Extremely filling, but amazing nonetheless. When we lived in Miami in 2007, I had always wanted to go to Trattoria Sole, but never got around to going. It is a little pricier than some of the other restaurants in the area, but since Farley and I don't eat out often it is okay. Besides, everything they serve is made from scratch daily and everything tastes like a little piece of heaven! I also probably have a soft spot for the restaurant because the neighboring wood oven pizzeria, Blu, which is owned by the same people is where Farley and I had our first date. We have been wanting to go back, but it is a little more family friendly and thus a little louder. Trattoria Sole doesn't attract families as much and it is easier to have a conversation. But I think we might have to go to Blu for our second anniversary at the of August--since we are not going back to Argentina this year!
Last week, we had the week off from clinicals. However, it wasn't a light week at all! We had to give our SOAP presentation to an attending physician (a SOAP notes is a shorter note on a patent's condition and what you recommend). Next, we had to do our physical exam examination. It was a 45 minute, 200 point exam(by 200 points, I mean we had 200 things to do in 45 minutes) and a 90% is a C-. We were lucky enough to be assigned to the first day of examinations (testing goes for over two weeks). On one hand I was happy to get it over with, but on the other hand, people who go first fail more often. They don't tell you how you do on the exam, just if you passed or not--both Farley and I passed without any problems. I can't tell you how happy I am to have THAT over! Last Friday, we had class all day, which was a bit of a bummer because Farley and I both needed that day to prepare for our upcoming projects.
Saturday, was a rather gloomy day here in Miami, which was a good thing because I spent the whole day getting ready for my presentation on cutaneous anthrax that I have to give Monday morning a 9:00 (and I had to have the PowerPoint presentation ready to turn in by 9:00am SUNDAY). I wasn't sure if I could get the presentation ready to turn in, but late Saturday night I finished. We were not suppose to have class on Sunday, but our schedule changed and we did end up having to go into school for three hours. After that we had to go find our new clinical location, which is a pediatrician's office about a half hour from school. Farley and I were both pretty stir crazy after having spent every day either in class, clinic or studying for the physical exam (since we went to dinner at Sole), so Farley suggested we catch a movie Sunday afternoon since the sky was grey and we couldn't go sit by the pool and read. Thus, we were off to the movies. We were going to see Harry Potter, but it was sold out so we ended up going to see Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. I wasn't too thrilled about going to see it, but it wasn't that bad. We saw it on IMAX, so maybe that is what made the difference. I really don't like violent movies, but the majority of the action was between robots and I really don't feel empathy for injured/killed robots like I do for injured/killed humans in movies. Overall, it was much more fun than I expected. I spent the rest of the night reviewing my PowerPoint and trying to look up anything that I thought I might be asked about during my presentation. I barely slept Sunday night, which surprised me because I didn't think I'd be that nervous.
Monday morning came and the ten of us assigned to give our presentations sat in a huge classroom waiting for the professors. I wasn't nervous about giving my presentation--I was nervous about the questions. I'm a third year medical student and specialists in the field are asking questions---clearly, I know a lot less than they do so it was extremely difficult to prepare for questions. Who know WHAT they would ask. Since Farley and I had clinic at 1:00, I was assigned to go first. That was good because I got it over with and the presentation went very well (other than my movie not playing, but I had a back up plan in place). It was bad because they were not as worried about time, so I had about 5-6 questions were as my peers had only 1-2 questions because of time constraints. My topic was anthrax and I decided that since I only had 15-20 minutes to present to talk just about cutaneous anthrax (which makes up 95% of anthrax cases, but it is NOT the bioterrorism type of infection, which is the exact same bacteria only inhaled. Inhalation of B. anthracis is much more deadly than a cutaneous (skin) infection). Since we were told it was okay to narrow our topic given the time constrains, I prepared for questions regarding cutaneous anthrax. I should have just prepared for inhalation/bioterrorism questions because that is what I was asked about. I felt so stupid because I didn't know all the answers to the question I was being asked. None of the questions were unfair and they were related to my topic as the bioterrorism agent is the same bacteria that causes the skin infections; however, I expected more questions regarding cutaneous infections and vaccinations since that is what I talked about. I'm sure I scored well because I think it went well overall, I'm just disappointed that I didn't think to research more about bioterrorism (I just read a few things, I didn't study it well enough to really answer in full detail).
After that, I headed home to change before going to the pediatrician's office. I've got to tell you, the afternoon with the pediatrician was a kick. Those kids were so cute and (other than one) they were all so well behaved. I just had a great time. We got to listen to a little asthmatic's lungs--he was a very serious two year old. Another little four year old had an innocent murmur (kids can get these heart murmurs and they are NOT pathological). I've never heard one on a real person, just the simulators, so it was fun to get to listen. I think our little patient liked being the center of attention. I also like seeing the little one month old baby girl. Little babies have primitive reflexes, which I've seen before but I have not seen since studying them in medical school (I'll write a post on baby's reflexes soon since I know so many people who just had little ones). It was SO cool to see the little reflexes and this little girl was such a good sport. I'm shocked she didn't start crying with the doctor doing his physical exam, but she was just watching everything. It made me miss working with children--I'm looking forward to going back Tuesday afternoon. Since our day wasn't over yet, we had to go to Medical Spanish class after working at the pediatrician's office!!
Wow, after writing all this down, it's had to believe how much we've done in the last two weeks!
Oh and one more thing, a few weeks ago, I bought a melon that I thought was a honeydew. I was wrong. Once I cut into it, I realized that it was a hybrid--the texture of a honeydew and the taste of cantaloupe. I have always loved the taste of cantaloupe, but never liked the texture so this was an awesome melon to find--except that I bought a regular cantaloupe at the same time so I had twice as much cantaloupe in my fruit salad!! Here is a picture of the hybrid melon
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