Signed, Sealed Delivered....I'm packing my bags for Argentina!!

Yea! We booked our trip to Buenos Aires! I can't express how excited I am to go. I did a tango (in my head because I can't dance) all the way down the muddy trail back to school to review neuroscience after clicking YES to Argentina. We will fly out the Wednesday after our last final (I intend on spending my days off in the gym and on the beach). We will land in Puerto Rico in the morning and hang out at the BEAUTIFUL airport until 7:00pm, but who the heck cares: there is a Starbucks!! Then we will take a nice hop over to Panama...you know the place with the big canal. I'm not sure when we leave there, but it is a straight red-eye to Argentina! We will arrive at 6:00am. Then it's time for some breakfast STEAK!! We get to spend six glorious days and five tango-filled nights in Buenos Aires. Then it's just a hop, skip and a jump back to Panama then to San Juan. We will stay two nights so that we can ship supplies back to Dominica. Then we have to go to every island in the Caribbean to get back to Dominica, but heck, we are students on a budget.

However, before we get to tango the nights away, eat lots of Argentina beef and wine taste our way across Buenos Aires, there are approximately 300 million exams left in the semester. That is correct, we are halfway done with the semester but we have only taken two exams and have 300 million exams left. Obviously, 290 million of them are all in one week. August is going to be awesome!!

Rain, rain go away!

It is the rainy season. I guess it isn't a shock--I am living in a rain forest; however, just a few days into it and I'm already sick of it. I have to sleep in ear plugs as to sleep through the rain because it pounds so loudly. The rain isn't any worse than Miami last summer; however, there are many unpaved roads so we get to walk in the rain AND mud. Oh well, at least it isn't a million degrees anymore! I just hope we don't get a big hurricane. Oh, and the water is back on, but it isn't safe to drink--I guess you win some and you loose some!

Here are some pictures form this morning. I don't know if it does the rain any justice. I put on my giant poncho, which an entire Dominican village could get refuge under and magically the rain stopped. I'll have Farley take a picture so you can all enjoy my "hobbit" look. Can you see the "trail to school" well, I think it turned into a river. Dominica maybe only be 754 sq Km (or slightly more than four times the size of Washington, DC) but it now has 366 rivers !

Toto, this really is a third world country!

For the most part, the island life has not been bad—a cold shower here and there (since the water heater is solar energy, you have GOT to take showers at night to get a hot one). Also, the” grocery stores” are very hit and miss—they will be out of staples, like butter, for over a month. However, in the last week, it has really felt like a third world country. The power has been flashing on and off, but there are generators. There has been so much rain they had to turn the water off because the filtration systems cannot keep up and we would get straight river water--dirt and all. The Internet has also been going on and off, which is almost as frustrating as the water being out because so much of our class notes are online. Oh, and I shouldn't admit this but the cable has been out. I realize I should be studying and enjoying the beach on my breaks, but sometimes you are just tired and need a mental break. I can't stand it when the cable is out. I've never been a HUGE TV. watcher, but it is my mental break. Besides, I hone my diagnosing skills by watching discovery health, especially Dr. G: Medical Examiner. I figure if I can pass all my courses down here, I can handle anything! Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore!!

Another week another exam....

We had our first exam last Monday and I'm happy to say that overall it went very well. I wish I would have done better in Neuroscience; however, I've never taken it before and it was the first exam. Nonetheless, I'm proud that I had a strong start to the semester! Of course, Farley did wonderful...he is so smart! Most people go out and party after the exam or hang out on the beach. On the other hand, Farley and I were so tired from having spent at least 12 hours a day studying for most of the week before the exam that it took all the energy we had just to watch t.v. Then we went to yet another study group for the Neuroscience practical on Friday.

The first exam of the semester is always the worst because of the bulk of information and having new professors, since you don't know how write questions. Our semesters are 13 weeks long, with the last week being finals week (thus, 12 weeks of classes). The first exam is always the Monday of 6th week (we are tested on information presented up until the Friday before the exam); the second exam is usually the Monday of the 10th week. The end of the semester changes depending on the semester that you are in. This semester we have to take shelf exams (national exams that will test both last and this semester) along with a third local exam but we do not have a final exam. I believe that we have 10 exams in 12 days at the end of the semester. I thought it was bad last semester having 4 exams in 8 days, but it too shall pass.

Farley and I have a great motivator to study our tails off for the rest of the semester: Buneos Aires!! We had decided to come home, but didn't book the tickets. I was getting frustrated with him because I just wanted it done, but I guess I should be glad we didn't book because we found a steal and decided to go, since it is basically the same price to go to Buneos Aires for a week and spend two days in Puerto Rico (to get supplies at Costco to ship back to Dominica). Hola, Buneos Aires! We only get about 2.5 weeks off school before the fall semester, but we get about 4 weeks off in December. It is strange to say since we just got to Dominica in January, but this maybe our last chance to travel while we are down here. Obviously we are both going home in December and in April we should be back in Miami, unless we decided to do another semester in Dominica--which I strongly doubt. I thought that there might be enough time to island hop a bit on the weekends, but the academics just move too quickly and I'm not comfortable taking a full day off studying let alone a weekend (even though I'd like to). Moreover, once we are back in the U.S. we will be taking our first set of Boards (USMLE Step 1) then we will be in our clinical rotations, then the second set of broads (USMLE Step 2), then we will be doctors and starting our residencies. I think it is time to seize the opportunity...we shall tango, eat beef and drink great Argentina wines.

Image courtsey of: www.americaspropiedades.com.ar/index-en.html

Can you Tango....

Farley and I were looking into flights to come home, but they were (initially) running almost $1600.00! That is United States Dollars NOT the wonderful, amazing Eastern Caribbean Dollar which is probably one of the few currencies that is still weak compared to the U.S. Dollar. Farley jokingly said, " for that price, let's go to Chile and wine taste." Well, moving to the Caribbean has turned me into a travel lover and I started researching this trip ASAP. The sad thing was that, yes, in fact, we could fly to San Juan, Puerto Rico, stay for a night, then fly to Santiago, Chile (or Buenos Aires, Argentina ) stay for six nights at a three star hotel near the subway and museums, fly back to San Juan stay another night then fly back to Dominca for cheaper than flying home. Luckily, we found another sneaky web site and we are going to book our flights home tomorrow. I'm excited to get home and see everyone, but for a day the thought of staying in a beautiful metropolis in the heart of the Chilean wine country with the Andes Mountains on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other, was very tempting. Besides, we would learn how to Tango, especially if we decided to go to Argentina rather than Chile (both countries cost about the same and both got great ratings from the US state department regarding the safety of traveling---comparable to a US city). I guess a girl can still dream!

I don't have as much focus as I should today since we had a big test yesterday. It was a beast, but we have another practical exam on Friday (which shouldn't be nearly as bad...I just need to identify structures/functions/diseases of the brain...no big deal...for a BRAIN SURGEON!). I should get back to my studies...

I think I'm really becoming a doctor

Last night I did a 115 question "practice exam." Our exams are always 110-120 questions (multiple choice) and you have about 60 seconds (or a little less) per question. I do much better on exams if I sit down and do practice exams. It is similar to an athlete training: if you are going to run in a marathon, you should start running before the race. I am going to take an exam, not read notes, write summaries or answer essay questions; therefore, I need to practice recalling information as I am going to be required to do on the exam: multiple choice. Anyway, I was doing some anatomy questions last night on the abdominal cavity and viscera (organs). These questions were long and detailed about patients presenting with problems. I wrote one in the style of the questions for you to have a taste of the fun:

A 16 year old boy is driving down a highway at 45 miles per hour. It is dark, snowing and his car slides on a patch of black ice which broadsides his vechicle into a tree. Thirty minutes later presents into the ER. His blood pressure dropped in the ambulance and he is having extreme pain on the left side of this back, his left abdomen and his left shoulder. He was wearing a seat belt, but hit his head. However, all imaging shows that he does not have a skull fracture. What could he have injured?

It was his spleen (or I was trying to write a question in which he injured his spleen). Isn't that fun? Do you feel like a doctor? Don't you feel like the medical investigators on Discovery Health? My question isn't a long as the question stems that we are given, but you get the idea. Although we are still deep in the midst of the basic sciences, I am starting to see the light (clinicals) at the end of the tunnel. Thank Goodness!!!

A day in the life of a Medical Student

Monday, June 9, 2008

• 6:45: get up, dressed and start breakfast; Turn on CNN
• 7:00:Farley comes over to man the pancake flipping while I put on make up and we discuss the news
• 7:20: eat yummy breakfast
• 7:35: finish getting ready and be out the door by 7:45
• 8:00 -9:50: Physiology lecture on GI secretions. Take notes like a crazy person. Make sure you pay attention to all the details
• 10:00-10:50: Anatomy lecture on the ischioanal fossa (yes, the anal fossa)
• 11:00-11:50: Biochemistry lecture on the digestion of lipids
• 12:00-1:00: Lunch, that is if you want to eat after taking about the anal fossa and digestion all morning. Okay, I'm in medical school it is going to take a lot more than the anal fossa to curve my appetite
• 1:00-1:50: Anatomy lecture on the Posterior Abdominal wall, diaphragm and kidneys (this professor is too smart for MY good!)
• 1:50-2:00: Change quickly and run across to the anatomy lab
• 2:00-4:00: Anatomy lab--We GET to dissect out the posterior abdominal wall. We specifically got to dissect out the nerves on the posterior abdominal wall. It was an easy lab and we were actually done in an hour. Another guy and I stayed in the lab and reviewed the GI tract (which has been removed from the cadaver) with a professor. Yup, almost one hour of individual instruction. You can't ask for anything more.
• 4:00-5:00: Demo the anatomy dissection to other students (one third of the class dissect at t time, so the other two thrids come into see what we've done). Got another professor at our table and had another 35 minutes of instruction and he quizzed us. The best day in the anatomy lab EVER!
• 5:00-5:30: Farley and I had to go to the grocery store and to the fruit stand
• 5:30-5:45: Quickly hop in the shower as to not smell like death anymore
• 5:45-6:10: Make dinner. We had a tomato and Italian cheese pasta side with chicken and spices. I also made carrots with a brown sugar sauce.
• 6:10-6:30: Eat the yummy dinner then get packed to go to the study area
• 6:30-8:00: Arrive at the study area and study GI physio from today and review the last two lectures
• 8:00-9:00: Review the biochemistry from today's lecture (Farley typed our notes and they were beautiful)
• 9:00-10:00: Study anatomy. The chair of the anatomy department wrote a 90 page "study note" document. Review this along with Netter's (the most beautiful anatomy drawings ever) and Rohan (the most beautiful disections ever).
• 10:00-11:00: Pre-read for the physiology lectures (digestions and absorption and GI disordered), Biochemistry (lipids and lipoproteins) and Neuro (Intro to Motor systems).
• 11:00: get home. talk to Mom, clean up, shower, and pack bag for the morning
• 12:00: FINALLY get to bed.

Yup, that was yesterday. I had to get up and do it all again today. Our first exam of the semester is next Monday, so there won't be a break until at least Monday the 16th, but probably not until the 21 as classes continue as normal on Tuesday.

Upper Respiratory Infection!

We get TWO three day weekends this semester (all within the first month) and I was sick all through the second one. Farley has taken good care of me: getting my medication, helping me carrying things since I'm having trouble breathing, checking up on me, looked in my ears and he even made me chicken noodle soup--from the can! I think the combination of one sick medical student, two medical students and basic medical equipment could be deadly. We decided (okay I decided) to listen to my lungs and obviously Farley had to listen too. We noticed that I had wheezing in the LOWER lungs, but maybe we just missed the wheezing in the upper lungs. We also had to look down my throat, then down his throat to see if we had irritation. Yup, we are at that dangerous stage of just knowing enough to get ourselves in trouble. Good thing I saw the doctor today, who confirmed our suspected diagnosis of an upper respiratory infection and put me on the medication that Farley and I, the arm chair doctors that we are, thought would be appropriate. Jokingly, I like to refer to us as F.M.D.s= Future Medical Doctors and observing REAL doctors is just part of our training. In all seriousness, I really liked the doctor who I saw today and she took impeccable care of me. I hope that I am just as caring and smart as many of the doctors that I have been luckily enough to spend time around.

I guess it is a blessing that I'm not behind since we had the extra day, but I wish I could have been more useful this weekend. I wanted to use this extra time to get ahead as our first set of exams will be here before we know it. To my delight, despite my impaired breathing, I got a 90% on a renal physiology quiz. For those of you who don't know, the kidneys are the vain of many a medical student's existence: vital, complicated, and down right irritating! I was so proud that I did well on that quiz that I would yell it from the roof tops, IF I didn't have to study histology, anatomy, neuroscience, and biochemistry. Speaking of studying, I should get back to it...