Today was a good day...

So much has happened in the last two weeks of clinicals, but today takes the cake. We were at the bank on our lunch break and we had to assist a young, pregnant woman who was on the verge of losing consciousness, was numb, in extreme pain and had contractures. Next when we returned to the clinic, I got to perform my first pap-smear and Farley had a great time trying to understand a gentleman's extremely complicated cardiac condition. I don't want to complain too much, but the disorganization of this semester is getting exhausting and this was the first day in a long time that I'm really happy and excited I did decide to go into medicine. There will always be aspects of any job that one doesn't like, so it was nice to have such an exciting day. Today was a great reminder of why I wanted to be a doctor so badly that I moved to a 3rd world country and piled on enough student load debt to buy a huge house.

After our exam tomorrow, I'll write more about the last two weeks (and take a nap). We are 12 days into our 18 days in a row stretch of class and I'm really, really tired. Luckily, it looks like we have at least a three day weekend next week (it might be four days if class is cancelled Sunday the 5th). Farley and I haven't had 2 days off in a row all semester. It will be so nice, except that we have more papers to write and physical exam skills to practice. Oh well.

10 days and counting

I'm at day ten of at least 15 days of classes and clinicals in a row (I don't know my schedule for the week of the 29th yet, so I don't know exactly how long this stretch will last). Many interesting things have happened and I'll post about them after my test on Friday. I'm not sure exactly when or how I've been studying for this exam, but somehow I've managed to review most of what we have covered. I just hope I have enough time to study in enough depth for the exam, especially considering my extremely busy schedule lately. Heck, no one said medical school would be easy.

Blah, Blah, Blah

I've been feeling rather blah this week. I don't know exactly why, but I'm just overwhelming tired and I don't feel quite right. I had a cold a couple of weeks ago that really sucked the energy out of me, but I'm over that little virus now so I'm not sure why I feel so blah. Perhaps it is allergies or maybe I do still have a little viral illness, or maybe my body is just catching up on sleep since we got so little in Dominica (I was lucky to get 6 hours of sleep in Dominica and I never slept more than 2 or 3 hours in a row in Dominica). I really don't know why I'm so blah, tired and sleeping so much this week--I'm not a doctor, I'm just a medical student!

We had a relatively light week of classes last week compared to the craziness of next week. Not only do we have our usual Large Group lecture on Wednesday and our Small Group lecture, we have over 30 hours of assigned clinical work next week. In addition, we have our Medical Spanish and UMBR (University Medical Board Review classes for Step 1 (our first boards) that we will take next fall). Anyway, it is going to be a crazy week. The schedule for next week came out Thursday (one of my gripes for this semester is that our schedule comes out so late). After realizing what a busy week it would be, Farley and I headed to the store. I decided that now is as good a time as ever to try my Mom's pulled pork recipe. This recipe calls for 8Lbs of pork shoulder (bone in) and cooks for hours before being pulled apart and mixed with BBQ sauce. Farley was a good sport and helped me pull the pounds of pork. I tried just a little of the pulled pork before putting it in the freezer for next week and it was amazing, just like when Mom makes it. In addition to the pulled pork recipe, Mom gave me a recipe for beef stew, which I also made on Thursday and it was exceptional as well.

Keeping the excitement alive, I've started studying for my next exam. I know, living in South Florida sounds fast paced and exciting, but being in medical school doesn't leave much time for excitment. After living in a 3rd world country, I am excited to have hot water on demand, a clean house, grocery stores with lots of exciting food and a quiet place to sleep so I can sleep for more than two hours at a time. This semester isn't as academically challenging as the previous semesters, but they are keeping us extremely busy. As this is a transition semester, we only have about 8-10 hours per week of "testable material". Now don't get me wrong, everything I do is testable, but since students are doing different rotations each week, not everyone will cover the same information in our rotations until the end of the semester. For example, Farley and I already did the Basic Trauma and Life Support rotation last week but other students in our class may not do that rotation until the last week of the semester so the information we learned in our rotation on Basic Trauma and Life Support will not be on the exam. The only information on the exams is the information the entire class receives, which are from the large group lectures (usually 6-8 hours per week) and the small group lectures (2 hours per week). Thus, we have about 8-10 hours of lecture that will show up on our exams whereas on the island we had 30-35 hours of lecture per week that would be fair game for the exams. This transition semester is as much about learning basic clinical skills as it is continuing the books, which is different than the first two years of medical school. Now, don't get me wrong, this semester isn't all butterflies and roses we are extremely busy, it is just different and in many ways more fun.

South Florida hasn't had the best weather lately which has been okay since we really don't have tons of time. We haven't had a chance to go to Miami Beach and enjoy the water for a few hours or grab some Rocky's Italian Ice on South Beach. There are many things that I didn't get to see the last time I lived in Miami and I'm hoping we might have a few free afternoons to do a bit of exploring after our next exam. I would like to see Coco Walk, go to Lincoln Road for some window shopping, there are museums to explore in Vizcaya and of course, I'd love to drive down to the Keys for the day or go to the Everglades (which are only a 1.5 hour and 2 hour drive respectively). I want to explore and see the area if possible, but I also realize that I probably won't be able to do most of the things on my to-do list because we are so busy this semester and then we will be preparing for the boards. But heck, I can always come back and visit in 50 years after I pay back my student loans!

There is a cute shopping district with tons of Ma & Pa restaurants and shops just a couple blocks from my condo. I'll take a few pictures of the area the next time I venture out for a movie, a walk around the giant bookstore or to grab some of my favorite gelato. It is a rich area with BMW and Mercedes Benzes as ubiquitous as Hondas in most towns. Obviously given the wealth, Ferrais, Lamborghinis and Porsches make frequent appearances at the shopping district as well.

You know what they say about payback...

On Monday night at our Medical Spanish class, Farley volunteered me to read the Spanish practice conversation in front of the class with him. I am not the most linguistic person and I am really not comfortable reading in Spanish so I was really annoyed that I had to get up in front of the class and practice my Spanish. Now Farley on the other hand, isn't quite fluent, but if you listen to his pronunciation, you might think he is fluent--as did the Argentines. Anyway, so there were were practicing the Spanish conversation in front of the whole class and I had to be corrected several times because my Spanish pronunciation isn't great. Oh did I mention it was videotaped?? Yeah, I wasn't very happy.

I'm sure you know what they say about payback.....

Our teacher did her Masters thesis on whether students retained the second language better if they were taught using music and songs or without. Research has shown that students learn and retain things better with song, so we sing throughout our Spanish class. On Wednesday night at our Medical Spanish class, we reviewed all the things we've learned and then we started practicing the body parts, such as "El oido" is the inner ear, "la rodilla" is the knee and "la frente" is the forehead. So after reviewing basic body parts, our teacher decided to teach us a song and dance. She grabbed someone from the audience and made him get up to dance and sing the song with her. This song was similar to "head, shoulders, knees and toes" but not quite the same thing. This guy obviously looked extremely uncomfortable. After that, she wanted "dos voluntarios" (two volunteers) to get up and dance for the class. I was looking at Farley trying to get him to volunteer but he wouldn't budge. Somehow she noticed that I was trying to get Farley up and so she volunteered me. She was looking for another volunteer, but I already found the other volunteer: Farley! Farley had to keep up his tough guy image and he acted as if he didn't want to dance in front of the entire Medical Spanish class, while being videotaped, but I knew the truth: he has dancing in his blood. As, I expected he was more than a good sport. He pointed to his ears with a purpose, did the hip shake with a purpose (his Salsa dancing background paid off) and he even dosy-doed with a purpose. In fact, we are still hearing about our amazing performance.

I told him I didn't want to practice my Spanish in front of the class and I was volunteered, but I think I paid him back by volunteering him to dance in front of the class. He would argue that I more than paid him back and that I should watch out because, you know what they say about payback.....

Up, Up and Away!!

Farley and I had a great dinner at home before heading out on Saturday. We weren't sure if we wanted to go to a movie or have a battle of "dance dance revolution" at Gameworks. I've been giving Farley a hard time about betting him at dance dance revolution and other video games for weeks now, I'm not sure when he figured out that I'm just giving him a hard time and I really have no video game skills to speak of. I must admit, it was hard not to burst out laughing when his competitive side came out and he was telling me to get ready for defeat--I already knew I know I am going to loose but apparently he thought I was serious when I was teasing him about my excellent video gaming skills. Considering that there were a lot of teeny-boppers at the mall, we decided to go to a movie and other than Up, there wasn't anything that either of us wanted to see. Up was completely original and the graphics were amazing. I really enjoyed it, but it wasn't my favorite of the Disney-Pixar movies. During the previews, they showed a preview for "The Princess and the Frog" which is first Disney's Princess movie in a long time (at least that I can remember) and the princess is African American. Since we saw the preview, Farley has been ranting and raving that every other ethnic group has a princess and it is about time that little African American girls have their own princess too.

On Sunday, we went to see some of Farley's family in Miami, which was wonderful. I had such a great time! I was a little surprised at how much I missed my grandparents after seeing his grandparents. I especially missed my grandpa after seeing his grandparents--it's hard to believe grandpa passed away over 10 years ago! Anyway, it was a great day.

Talk about a let down.....

After all the talk about "birthing" mannequin babies, they did even let us birth mannequin babies. We watched a video of a real doctor performing a real delivery then used the mannequins to get a 3D view of the process. Yeah, I'll admit I was disappointed. I was so looking forward to birthing that mannequin baby. Oh well.

I think the best station today was the needle room. We got to practice suturing on pig legs ... and stapling!! Then we got to practice giving IM (intramuscular) shots, in oranges as that is the typical way to practice. Next we learned how to start IVs, which was fun. I'm not sure if the mannequin was the best practice mannequin, but it seemed to be a high quality mannequin. After that, we got to use the IO (intra-ossious) lines on chicken legs. First we used the manual IOs, which I think, are exactly the same or very similar to the needles used for a bone marrow aspirate/biopsy. I got the bone on first try and, as expected on a healthy chicken, I was able to aspirate bone marrow. Then, they let us practice using the drill IO, which sounds like a power tool and spins right into the bone marrow. Apparently, they cause little or no pain, but I'm not signing up to find out first hand!

The rest of the day was fun. We learned to place foley catheters, scrub down for surgery, transport and place patients on backboards and we took both written and oral exams. Not a bad end to a week of classes. I think Farley and I are going to head to the gym, then maybe go out for dinner, or a movie or I'll finally challenge him in "dance, dance revolution."

Rain, Rain Go Away, Come Again Some Other Day!!

As you can see, Miami hasn't been all sun and rays lately. It has been raining intermittently for weeks now and by rain I really mean a shower. I probably could wear a bathing suit, take my shampoo outside and take shower!! This picture is from my balcony about two or three minutes after the rain started. It continued at this rate for a half hour, but continued raining for a few hours. Last night, I was lying in bed thinking, "Why is the living room light flashing?" Well, It was yet another lightening storm, big shock. The rain in Miami is more intense than in Dominica, which was a rainforest. It was this way the last time I lived here too!

I am on a stretch of 7-days of classes in a row. Some days were sort and others long. Here was my schedule of classes for last week.

• Sunday: ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) training and testing (yes, I can run a code)
• Monday: BTLS (Basic Trauma and Life Support): Just four hours of training and Medical Spanish--Hola!
• Tuesday: Ophthalmic exam practice with Junior Faculty
• Wednesday: Large Group class in Downtown Miami all day and Medical Spanish at night
• Thursday: Small Group class, where we discussed a patient case and pathology
• Friday: BTLS day two

Tomorrow, we get to do the BTLS day three, which includes practical skills and another exam. Doctors, medical students, and pretty much anyone else in the medical field get to take exams all the time. I'll be testing until the day I retire from practicing medicine, decades from now. Anyway, we get to learn to place IV lines in mannequins, IO lines in chicken bones, suturing and stapling pig legs, drawing blood, IM injection, intubation, placing patients on back-boards and moving them off the back-boards, placing folly catheters in males and female mannequins, and the ever exciting---delivering mannequin babies! Yes, that is correct, I am going to deliver mannequin babies tomorrow. I understand how practicing stapling and suturing on pig legs will be helpful when I get to actually suture on a patient, but delivering mannequin babies?? I'm not sure that can be practiced as easily as the other skills, but I am going to be the best mannequin baby delivering person that the mannequin has ever had delivering her mannequin baby!

I also had to finish my enormous paper this week and boy it was a dozy. I'm so glad that it is done and I know that I did the best I could. It was an especially difficult paper because I can't explain how my patient had bilateral paralysis and bilateral sensory loss below the knee. This is not typical of a stroke and based on the history I received from my patient with dementia, I can't explain why. That is just one problem that I ran into writing this paper. Anyway, as I said, I'm glad it is finished.

I better go get some sleep so that I'm on top of things tomorrow; I have mannequin babies to deliver!!