It’s been a little over a week now, but I’m happy to report I finally finished my first licensing exam. We wont receive our scores until the evening of July 15th but I was pretty satisfied with my effort so hopefully my results won’t dampen my birthday, on the 16th, too much.
The day of the test went smoothly, though I did end up utilizing pretty much every second of our allotted time. That means I had my brain working at full capacity for seven hours of the day, which is a new record for me. Usually I operate on five minute bursts and set my mind on cruise control for the rest of the day.
Like I said, for me, the day went off without a hitch, which is more than a lot of my classmates can say. The rumor mill has already told me that one classmate didn’t have audio working properly during their exam, another shared a room with a test taker that had a seizure, and finally, one classmate got to her testing center only to find out that it had been struck by lightning the night before and she had to postpone her test. I didn’t tell her this, but my first impression was that an individual might have chosen the wrong career path if God smites their first licensing exam.
The week after the exam I had four days of excruciatingly painful hospital orientation and this week I begin my Neurology clerkship at the VA. Within the next four weeks, you can send any questions you might have pertaining to your brains and I promise to make up something really good.
A little while ago, on one of my exams, I had a clinical vignette that started off with some family members expressing their concerns to the physician over their mother’s health. The mother was becoming malnourished because she had been spending all of her money on cat food instead of on food for herself. I rolled my eyes as I answered the question, thinking to myself how outlandish some of the question vignettes are. I mean seriously, it’s just ridiculous to think that there are people out there that would spend more money on animal food than… I’m sorry, what’s that? A picture of my parents’ pantry you say?
Wow, I guess I stand corrected. Not a lot of human food in that cabinet. I’d sure hate to be the one spending an entire week house sitting at that place.
On a lighter note, here’s a pretty adorable video of the Chief Harpooner, himself, partaking in the intoxicating effects of Reese’s Puffs. Looks like I’m no longer the only one in the family that can’t resist. That brings the grand total of things Queequeg enjoys rubbing his face into up to three: animal carcasses, cat poop, and chocolate/peanut butter flavored corn puffs. Not sure what that says about my favorite breakfast cereal.
Yesterday, with the conclusion of our Pharmacology exam, our second year is finally over. For those of you doing the math at home, that makes me 50% of an M.D. (scary, I know). So, depending on how you look at it, when signing my name I’m pretty much legally obligated to write an M after my name or a D. I’ve chosen the latter.
It’s going to be strange moving on to our third year because it marks a pretty big transition in our learning. Our first two years were called the “pre-clinical” years because they basically consisted of lectures and exams. I have enjoyed this time immensely and believe I will miss the routine that I’ve become accustomed to. To summarize my routine of the last two years, Monday through Friday we had three hour long lectures from 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. every morning. Then, about every other afternoon we would alternate between self study and group activities. The group activities included things like gross anatomy dissection, histology lab, problem based learning, and things of those nature.
Our final two years, deemed the “clinical years”, will be vastly different. These years consist of the rotations that most people think of when it comes to medical school. I begin on Neurology and every two months or so I’ll switch to a different medical discipline (OB/GYN, Pediatrics, Surgery, etc.). To me, the first of these final two years is in place to allow/force students to sample everything medicine has to offer and the final year allows students to personalize their rotations by choosing electives that coincide with individual interests.
Of course, before we can begin our rotations (July 1st) we have to pass our first licensing exam, which is referred to as Step 1. This is a minimal competency exam covering everything we’ve learned over the past two years. We’re all but guaranteed to pass, but at the same time, the score you earn does have some pretty solid implications when applying for residencies. I’ll be taking my exam on June 19th and until then, I can be found with my nose in a book my computer. Wish me luck.
I type all of my notes for each week into different Microsoft Word files. Still, sometimes these documents can get rather lengthy so I shouldn’t have been surprised when this error popped up the other day:
At first my feelings were hurt because I imagined my computer was saying, “You’re too dumb for me to keep up with you.” But then I quickly realized that it was my computer that was the one that wasn’t smart enough. It’s the one that can’t recognize completely legitimate words like Pheochromocytoma, Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or ROFL.
As you have probably realized, our school, unfortunately, chose not to provide us with medical dictionaries pre-installed onto our computers. Some of you might question why I don’t manually add these words to my dictionary as I go. Personally, I enjoy being smarter than my computer and I find this as good preparation for when the machines take over.
That’s right. Don’t be too jealous, family. As a whole, the movie was pretty good but I think I’m more excited about the revitalization of the franchise and if everything goes well, at least six sequels. The casting was brilliant even though Anton Yelchin was a little over the top with his Chekov impersonation.
A friend asked me if I was really going to wear my “Doctors of Star Trek” t-shirt to the movie. I told them that’s like asking a Chiefs fan if their team makes it to the Superbowl, will they really wear their jersey to the game. This movie was like a Superbowl for nerds, myself included. Everyone should go see this movie at least once (Or even multiple times, right Jacob?), if only to just boost their revenues so we get more sequels. Anyway, I really hope everyone enjoys the movie and is doing well… or as my girlfriend so endearingly said while attempting her best Vulcan salute, “live long and prosperously.”
I finally made it out to my first Royals game of the year last Friday. Seeing as how I had a testing week conflicting with their first two home stands and had to painfully turn down Opening Day tickets, it was about time I made it out to the new stadium and I couldn’t have been more excited. I was going with a bunch of friends, Zach Greinke was pitching, and it was Buck Night and Fireworks Friday. The excitement quickly faded after missing the first three innings of the game thanks to ninety minutes of traffic. I should have expected what came next.
After summiting to our seats (row WW) a couple of us decide to brave the ridiculously long lines for some Buck Night grub. Long story short, turns out they had some sort of hot dog shortage because, I guess after years of poor attendance the stadium has been desensitized to sellout crowds. By the time we got to the front of the line, I kid you not, it was the ninth inning. They allotted us only six hot dogs (for eight people) and I wasn’t even able to make it back to my seat for the final pitch. The best part is, we sat down to enjoy our hot dogs while the fireworks went off, but the dogs were still frozen in the center… and the fireworks were canceled. The evening was so miserable and organized so poorly by the Royals organization that it was laughable. Jokes on them though. I asked my girlfriend to write a strongly worded letter to their front office. They don’t even know what’s comin’.
After lecture the other day I caught up with a professor to get some clarity on a question I had over the treatment of Diabetes. This professor is our pharmacology module director and is kind of a big deal on campus. A lot of faculty refer to him as a walking pharmacological encyclopedia due to his wealth of knowledge on the topic. I had a quick question over one insulin preparation but he took the opportunity to tell me everything there was to possibly know about exogenous insulin treatment. Like I said, the man is a genius. This is basically how the conversation went in my head.
Dr. P: Insulin preparations can be grouped into four categories based on duration. The first category is the one with Ultra Rapid preparations. They are wah waa wah waaa (a lot of times, to me, my professors sound like the teacher from The Peanuts cartoon). The second category is short acting insulins. Waah waa wah wha. The third category has only one drug, abbreviated NPH, and it has an intermediate duration of action. As you know, this is because it contains components derived from whale sperm. The fourth category waah waa wah wha.
Me: Wait… what?
He backed up a thought or two and tried re-explaining himself but he obviously didn’t realize which part of our conversation caught me off guard. He continued talking for another minute or two but I didn’t hear anything he was saying because my mind was racing and I kept raising questions to myself about this so called “whale sperm insulin”. Who came up with this idea? Why would my professor assume I knew this? Can women get pregnant from this insulin? Is this just a giant conspiracy by Big Pharma to take over the world with human whale babies?
After our conversation, I immediately Wikipedia’d NPH insulin and the article claims that the prolonging components were actually developed from the semen of river trout. Which, lets be honest, isn’t half as entertaining as my professor’s version. So I’m going to ignore Wikipedia on this one and go with his version because he seems to know what he’s talking about and it’s also totally more extreme.
This is an artistic rendering of how I did, and shall continue to, picture my teacher while he was talking to me. I thought about attempting to draw a picture myself but Google’s image search was more than sufficient. Except in my head, I imagined mine with a gray mustache, glasses, and a sweet KU sweater most likely bought in the ’60s.
A classmate and I were having a discussion about Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa. We were trying to decide whether someone could still be classified as anorexic if there was self induced/defensive vomiting involved. Like always, to settle our conversation we used a trusted reference only medical students know about. From Wikipedia:
“Defensive vomiting is a symptom of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa in which a person who has drastically over-eaten (generally in reaction to previous extreme dieting) vomits as a reaction to an excess of food which the body is not prepared to handle.”
Alright, conversation settled. Thank you Wikipedia. Oh, what’s that? You have more information for me?
“Defensive vomiting can also refer to a tactic used by some animals. Examples include the turkey vulture, which may vomit up foul-smelling semi-digested meat to ward off predators, and the sea cucumber, which can vomit its internal organs as a defense and regrow them over several months.”
Oh Wikipedia, you never cease to entertain and amaze me. Will you marry me?
Well, we just got back from New York and it was a lot of fun. Of the list of the top 100 things to do in New York, we pretty much did all of them. In no particular order we: went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, went to the Museum of Modern Art, went to the National History Museum, went to Ground Zero and the 9/11 Memorial museum, visited the U.N. headquarters, walked through Central Park, walked through Times Square, walked through Rockefeller center, saw the Statue of Liberty, went to Ellis Island, went to the top of the Empire State Building, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, and ate a lot of food.
The subway was a great and efficient way to get around but obviously, there was also a lot of walking involved. At times, it felt like my knees were going to fall off and my baby toes have now been replaced by blisters with toenails.
All said and done, I’m jealous my sister gets to spend a chunk of her life in such a big and diverse city. I already know she’s going to love it and fit in great (she just needs to make sure to buy plenty of spandex (so hot right now) and always have an iPod on her). Unfortunately, she and my brother-in-law are probably going to love it so much they’ll never want to leave. But on the bright side, at least I’ll have a free place to stay.
In my never ending quest to copy my sister in everything she does (read: Italy), I’m headed to New York City for my Spring Break! I’ll be there from this Saturday to Wednesday and I’m dragging my girlfriend along. I’ve never been, so I don’t really know what to expect, but I’m pretty excited. My buddy Mike told me about a great authentic New York style pizza joint I have to check out. It’s called something like Barro… or Sbaro… or something like that. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
