Hershey, PA

Since we moved to New York over a year ago, I've intermittently talked with my friend Dawn from Spokane.  The same month I left my job to go to medical school, she left to move to Hershey, PA to be closer to family.  We have been talking about getting together for a while, but nothing has panned out.  Finally, Farley and I had a week break and I contacted her to see if she and her boyfriend were available: they were.  Farley and I took the Amtrak out to Pennsylvania.  We had such a great time!  I've never taken Amtrak before so I was excited--it was peaceful taking the train.  We had a smooth ride, lots of leg room and although it took longer than flying, the time flew by (granted it was only a three hour trip).    The first hour and a half was mostly industrial areas, but after we left Philadelphia, it turned into lush, green farmland.  It was beautiful and in such sharp contrast to our everyday life in New York City.  I am kicking myself again for not taking more pictures.  I hope that the few I have will do.

After we arrived on Wednesday afternoon, we took a short driving tour before heading back to Dawn's house to meet her boyfriend and have dinner.  It was such an excellent dinner!  We had so much fun--the conversation just kept flowing and before we knew it, it was late into the night.  Dawn and Chris had to work on Thursday, but they loaned us one of their cars so we could see Hershey.  First things first, went to Outdoor World or one of those hunting/fishing/outdoor shops--I bet you can guess this wasn't my idea!  After seeing the fish in the giant tank, the hunting equipment and heads on the walls, we left for the outlet mall.  We slept in late, so we had limited time in the mall.  We both needed to look for a new suit and neither of us had much luck (but Farley did find a pair of great dress pants for a great price).  We needed to meet Dawn at the hospital for a tour, so we had to stop shopping and head out.  

Dawn works at a beautiful hospital in the middle of a corn field.  Farley and I both applied for residency there (they have everything on our dream list) and it was a great opportunity to see the hospital in advance.  I hope that we both interview there because the facilities were amazing.  It felt like it was built to push, grow and make physicians.  I think we would thrive in the hospital.  The town was a bit small, but that is okay (everything is small after living in New York).  We won't have much time as residents to enjoy any town or city so I don't really care if it is tiny with nothing to do or huge with countless things to do.  After the hospital tour, we had another excellent dinner at home and even better company. 

On Friday, we returned to the outlet mall.  I had my eye on a pair of work pants and Farley had a feeling a suit could be found.  Farley was right and he found an awesome suit, for residency interviews, at an unbelievable price.  His shopping skills are impressive!!  Then we met up with Dawn and Chris for lunch, as they took the afternoon off to do fun things.  After lunch, we headed up to go wine tasting.  The directions had a few errors so we were wondering out in Pennsylvania farm land.  We saw some Amish farms, which was very cool.  The land in Pennsylvania is beautiful.  I had so much fun just watching the scenery.  Finally we made it to the winery.  It was a beautiful building with a beautiful view and horrible, horrible wine.  Here are some pictures:   

Grapes from the horrible winery

The deck outside the tasting room

Dawn and I on the tasting room deck.

 After wine tasting, we went out to dinner at a Brewery.  I don't like beer, but it was fun to go to a local hang out and Farley had a great time trying different beers.  Next we headed to the Hershey Hotel, which is a historic hotel on a hill overlooking Hershey.  The Hershey Hotel reminded me of the Davenport Hotel, which is one of my favorite places in Spokane.  The Hershey hotel has a large veranda with a fireplace and a jazz bands on Friday nights.  It was packed out there (and a bit chilly), so we just took pictures and headed inside at the Iberian Lounge.  We had wine, appetizers and great conversation.  It was so much fun! Here are a few pictures:

On the Veranda overlooking Hershey

Outside of the Iberian Lounge

 On Saturday, we slept in a bit then Dawn made an excellent breakfast.  I think between Chris' drinks and Dawn's cooking, these two could open a bread and breakfast.  We decided to go to Chocolate World for We our last day in town.  We really couldn't leave Hershey without going to Chocolate World, could we?  took a tour and watched a movie about Milton S. Hershey, it sounds like he was an extremely generous man--he left a trust for the hospital (which is amazing) and started a school for underprivileged children (the Milton Hershey Academy) just to name a couple things .

Farley in front of his favorite candy: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

In front of my favorite candy: York  Peppermint Patties

After finishing up at Chocolate World, we headed to lunch at Red Robin.  It has been so long since I've gone to a Red Robin and I was impressed that they had healthy alternatives on their menu.  After lunch, we went back the house, finished packing and headed to the Amtrak station.  I took a few pictures from Dawn's patio--there is a wildflower field in their back yard.  It was so peaceful when we sat out here.

We had such a fun trip that Dawn and Chris decided to come to New York in November to visit us and see the town.  I am already excited for their visit!

Central park

Farley and I wanted to go back to Central Park because the first time I forgot my camera.  Unfortunately, we had so much fun walking around that we didn't take too many pictures.  It was a beautiful day and there were tons of people out and about.  

A picture of the buildings just south of the park.

The Bow Bridge, one of the places that I really wanted to see since I've seen it in movies.

Me on the Bow Bridge

Farley and me on the Bow Bridge

It was a great day and I wish I would have taken more pictures to share!

Vermont/New Hampshire

My dear friend Mary got married this summer and luckily for me, it was after our boards so we could go.  We had to take a bus from Grand Central Station the morning of the wedding to New Hampshire.  I have never taken a bus before and I was surprised at how nice it was.  Farley told me that this was not a typical bus ride--there were movies, Internet, leather seats, snacks and drinks.  I don't like riding in buses much, but if I had to go on a bus this was the way to go!  Due to our rotations, we couldn't leave until Saturday morning.  We missed the rehearsal dinner, which apparently was amazing.  I guess Mary's mother-in-law is famous locally for baking goats underground.  They had goat and Mary's Dad made Gumbo (her family is originally from the south).  There was dancing, wine and great food, but we missed it.  Anyway, we had to leave the morning of the wedding and dressed in our wedding attire on the bus.  We were told it would be easy to catch a cab, so our plan was to drop our stuff off at our hotel, clean up and go to the wedding---we were told wrong.  There is ONE cab in this town.  Needless to say, we couldn't catch a cab.  Luckily the bus dropped us about 4 blocks from the church, so we just went directly there and took our bags with us.  

The wedding was lovely and Mary and Jakob were so obviously happy.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a great view to take pictures of the wedding.  After the wedding, we met up with everyone and had a chance to talk to Mary.  Her sister put us in contact with her uncle, who had extra room in his car and was staying at the same hotel.  We caught a ride with them back to the hotel and to the reception a few hours later.  

Farley and me in the hotel 

 They had the reception at Jakob's childhood home.  This home was out in the Vermont woods a bit.  They have a wildflower meadow with streams that turns into woods in the back yard.  They set up a giant tent and had a wonderful dinner with candle light and flowers everywhere.  I finally started running into people that I knew at the reception.  It was so much fun.  To my surprise, we were seated at the Bride and Groom's table, which was about the only chance that I had to talk to Mary and Jakob.  I am so grateful that we were seated there.  After dinner, we danced and danced.  It was so much fun!  Here are some pictures from the reception.  I didn't get many good pictures, but here are the best I have.

In front of the wildflower field.

Mary and Jakob listening to the speeches

My only picture with Mary!  You cant see the dress very well, but it fit her like a glove.  She looked amazing.

We had to leave at 9:00am Sunday morning to get to back to New York on time for the hospital on Monday.  I was sad we had to leave so early as there was a bagel breakfast, which would have been fun to go to.  Mary's uncle was our hero and dropped us off at Dartmouth University, where we had to pick up the bus for New York.  We were back in New York by the afternoon on Sunday, which gave us enough time to go to the gym, cook and get ready for the week.  The only regret I have is that we couldn't spend more time in Vermont and New Hampshire at this fun wedding.

Back in the Saddle Again

I have been back in the hospital for eight weeks!  So much has happened, but I haven't been able to sit down long enough to write.  I started back in the hospital just four days after finishing my step 2CK.  My first rotation back was adult infectious disease.  I wasn't too excited to do another infectious disease rotation because I already did a pediatric infectious disease rotation (which I loved), but I wanted to be exposed to something new.

The first week of the rotation, the main doctor was out of town.  The doctor who was covering was nice, but he had a private practice so he didn't arrive at the hospital until late in the afternoon.  I enjoyed working with him, but I didn't see him too much.  When the main doctor came back, the fun really started.  She no longer had a private practice so she was a full time infectious disease doctor in the hospital.  The residents would divide the patients then we would go see the consults or new patients.  Late in the morning or early afternoon, the doctor would arrive and we would spend the next few hours seeing all the patients as a team.  I learned so much!  Some of the patients were really interesting and unusual, such as extra-pulmonary T.B.  I really loved the doctor that I worked with--she is a well known name in infectious disease and I feel so lucky that I had a chance to work with her.  It really was a honor.  I even attended a HIV conference at the Millennium UN Plaza Hotel!  The food was great and I learned about new diagnostic tests and treatment regimens.

After my month in adult Infectious Disease, I started my sub-internship in Pediatrics.  A sub-internship is basically when a 4th year medical students gets as close to being an intern (first year resident) as possible.  I was responsible for (helping) admitting patients, making daily plans, managing care and discharging patients.  Obviously, I was monitored closely by a resident, but I was responsible for getting paperwork done, getting old charts (if necessary), following up with the patients throughout the day, drawing bloods and basically anything else that needed to be done.

I had to do a week  (5) night calls, which was surprisingly fun.  There were two interns on call and one senior every night...well two interns for four nights and one intern for one night.  The first four days when we had two interns, it was super slow.  There were two patients at one point!  I spent part of every night rocking a baby, whose parents couldn't spend the night.  In the middle of this week of nights, the earthquake hit New York.  I work up about 2pm on Tuesday, August 23rd.  I thought that I overslept my alarm and that Farley was shaking me awake.  Then (logically) I thought someone was in my house shaking me until my bed started shaking again and I realized it was an earthquake.   I got up and watched the news for a while before going back to sleep.  Despite being from the west coast, I haven't lived through any substantial earthquakes, but I really wasn't concerned about the earthquake.  East coasters, on the other hand, were a bit up in arms.  Luckily, New York City was a-okay.  The last night of night calls was the only busy night: it was the night they were shutting down hospitals in the evacuation zones for Hurricane Irene.  We only had one patient transferred (as the hospital is far from any of the evacuation zones).  This patient was rater ill, not unstable, but had a chronic condition.  It is sad to see chronic conditions in children, but on the other hand, there are treatments available now whereas there were not before.  Anyway, I think a lot of people were a bit anxious about the impending storm because extra kids seemed to be coming up from the ER that night.  In the morning, I ended up taking a cab home  because the buses and subways were running more slowly in preparation for the shut down.  I got home and slept for a few hours before getting up and going to the gym.  My neighborhood was lucky and there was no damage--it was just a storm that lasted all day.  Other neighborhoods were no so lucky.

My first day back to the day shift started with a bang.  The subways and buses were still not running so I had to take a taxi again.  When I arrived at the hospital, I found out that is was change of service so I didn't have to present my patients (the senior residents were presenting as they were rotating).  There were a new batch of medical students starting and two very unstable patients (who happened to be coding back to back).  Needless to say, it was a rather exciting day and thankfully, both patients were okay.

Overall, I enjoyed my pediatrics sub-internship and I am happy with my decision to only apply to pediatric residency programs.  I submitted my application for residency during the middle of my sub-internship and I have heard back from four programs--50% interview rate--so far.  I applied to a bunch of programs so who knows where I'll end up...I just hope it is in the same city as Farley.