On my very first morning of medical school, I dropped a very large mirror. A SIX foot tall mirror.
Just so happens, medical school plus three years of residency equals 7.
Lets see what happens. Not a good start.
Happy had a contest and I won! I only guessed 30 times. I am little suprised I was not knocked out of the comp. with the inappropriate mom joke but Amazon here I come! I got plenty of books to buy for next semester...
1. Wake up. Drink tea. 2. Drive to cafe. Study. Drink Coffee. Drink Coffee. Study more. 3. Blog 6 times. Read news. Check northwest snow conditions for upcoming backcountry ski trip in Washington State. It is dumping snow out there. Let out a whoop!!! in a quiet cafe. Ignore stares. 4. Go to 1.5 hours of Hot Yoga. Sweat my arse off. 5. Go to Whole foods. Eat rice and indian curry. Purchase kombucha tea. Ignore that fact that I am overspending my loan money. 6. Proceed back to Cafe for more studying. Tea. 7. Blog again. 8. Return to frozen hut with no power.
KevinMd (also caught in ice storm central) pointed out an article describing some plans by a Texas Osteopathic school. READ HERE Apparently, the school feels it will improve its financial situation by also offering an MD degree... and of coarse, Kevin (like many others will)points out that this additional degree may be in effort to become a more "traditional" medical school. Cause we D.O.s all want to be M.D.s yo!
My comment on this news (copied, too busy and lazy to write something formal) are incldued below:
"there is definitely no shortage of students applying to medical school period. DO or MD. My DO school gets about 4000 applications for 120 spots. I think they accept about 450?
I really can't speculate why this texas school is doing this. I think there are some who feel D.O.s and M.D.s have become so similar in practice that there is little difference in schooling these medical students aside from the additional manipulation and biomechanic education the D.O.s get.
While I agree that we end up doing very similar jobs, I personally really do enjoy my D.O. education and feel I am getting some extra helpful hands on techniques. I think the healthcare system often dictates whether we have the time to actually use them...
I also pay the price for these extra skills with higher tuition (private), a longer school year, frequent questions of "are you really a doctor",having to take two sets of boards (COMLEX and USMLE), and some discrimination from dinosaur M.D.s that still don't get it.
I think a school offering both degrees might be a good way to go. They could do all the core science and didactics for the D.O.s and M.D.s in the same classrooms and then add on a component for the D.O.s covering osteopathic philosophy and manipulation."
Rolled out of bed. Grumpally (my word) said goodbye to the lady, my sister, and her boyfriend who stayed over and headed out to study somewhere warm.
I was sort of rushing as I did not get anything much done yesterday and Hematology is haunting me right now. That is when this nice little blurb about slowing down, being patient, and enjoying time as it passes came on the radio.
How fitting. It changed my perspective on the morning and I had a nice drive not caring about the grandma in front of me driving 5 miles below the speed limit.
Listen to it. It will help during the holidays! This guy must be amazing to hang out with...
I had a conversation with a classmate (who I totally love) the other night after a tough day at school with multiple tests. She is very different than me in that she uses her religious background to guide her decision making, including those made in medicine. She is anti-abortion, anti-plan B (which is not abortive), and not exactly "pro-gay" (but not a hater either!). I really would not expect anything different as she grew up in a family with 3-4 aunts who were nuns and several priest uncles because, after all, we really are just conditioned monkeys. Anyhow, also in conversation was another classmate who also happens to work on woman rights issues, is a pro-choice activist, and is gay herself. Needless to say, the conversation was interesting. The great part though, came at the end of the night when we all hugged and said goodbye no worse for the wear and still good friends.
Abortion, in particular, is a touchy subject and one that is not going away anytime soon. As a social liberal, I too have my strong opinions. I believe a woman has a right to chose. I believe there are already too many sad, unwanted human beings on this planet. I believe it is wrong to encourage young mothers who are not ready to have a baby but whose hormones have deceived them to keep a child… only to provide them with limited social services and healthcare later down the line. I believe the earth is struggling under the burden of our species’ needs, wants, and wastefulness. I believe strongly that there should be a solid line between church and state, one that the Republican Party and the conservative right seems intent to erase to gain ground on issues such as abortion.
I sometimes have a problem with my classmates who are very religious and pro-life but are getting their scholarships through the armed forces. What? You can't wield a uterine vacuum but you can shoot a gun? You can be part of an establishment that has also killed innocents in Iraq? Is it any worse to snatch away the life of a conglomerate of cells we call a fetus than it is to bomb people or shoot our enemies and surrounding innocent civilians down? There is a serious failure in logic here.
I was intrigued , however, when last night I heard this INTERVIEW on fresh air. It was a great interview because it represented some logic and intelligence from within the conservative, evangelical religious right...a supposed once “leader”, Frank Schaeffer, son of the late Francis Schaeffer.
All too often, I turn on the radio to listen to 'church radio'(for fun) and find it to be mind numbingly lacking in rationality. This was different. I liked this interview. Mr. Schaeffer was calm, collected, and intelligent. He had some sage advice for Obama. He provided a solid middle ground for both liberals and the religious population to potentially find common ground. He lamented the graphic “abortion holocaust” and hysteria that he, himself, had helped create with his father. He explained that his religious beliefs were, too some degree, never meant to be politicized or directed against abortion rights or the gay population. He implied that he was sucked into the anti-abortion movement by his own ambitions, interest in film, and the sense of importance. He also noted how he maintains his love for god and his pro-life philospohy in the context of a society that allows one to choose what is best for him/herself. I think this is an interview that anyone interested in the abortion debate should listen to, especially the last several minutes.
Listen... I respect the rights of everyone to decide their own life-paths as well as the right of my religious classmate to not partake in anything that she does not believe in, but we need to maintain abortion as an option and a medical out when life goes wrong or a mistake is made.
photo credit Ice storm rolled through last night...
school canceled. test postponed.
next week: Heme system exam, OMM practical exam, and OMM written exam. Fun!
we are without power like most people. It may be a couple of days and boy does the house get a little nippy without power. Drove a little ways to check email and do some online studying...heading back to the dark cave now...
Highlight of the day: Forest run with the pups just after the sun decided to come out for a while. All the ice was reflecting the light and the dogs were wild, bashing through trees allowing them to shed the weight of all the ice. Looked like a disco...
Low of the day: drinking this horrible Panera bread coffee (I mean real bad) just so I can be writing this and studying more! 7
Well...I don't want to get you fans out there too excited quite yet but my google analytics webpage is showing a lot of visits from the Hollywood, Bev Hills, LA area...could 7do be going Hollywood? Could 7do be airing right before Grey's Anatomy or House?
Exciting news in deed.
(ps. Whoever is reading this little blog out in Cali, no worries, I can't tell anything more than someone out there is dropping by...its not like I got your phone # so keep visiting and line me up for an EMMY!)
So...I really liked my new yoga teacher and studio until the end of class the other day when she had us do 10 deep, long breathes in wheel. This is not an abnormal length for the pose but one I don't really look forward to doing...(I try to avoid anticipation in yoga but I fail at times). I take really long breaths so that was about a minute and a bit...
I completed the 10 breathes and then self-congratulated and began to feel the warmth and change in my spine. That is when she announced we could (should?) do 25 breathes in wheel. I could not believe it and had to chuckle at the insanity of the request. This meant about 4 mins of long slow breathes, in a position where your ribcage barely wants to change size, shape, and volume. I did it anyhow.
IT was freakin' hard and I was feeling it for days... I was sort of feeling the muscle soreness and self-soothing the next day when I came across this video and I reminded myself that these sensations were probably standard for many folks: people with chronic pain, muscular disorders, manual laborers, trauma victims, the abused. For much of the world, feats more impressive and awkward are preformed everyday around the world in effort to just survive or make a wage.
I can smell the somatic dysfunction of this poor man over the internet waves. Crazy stuff...bet he needs an osteopathic manipulation or two.
Anyhow, I am going back today to the same teacher to see if she always encourages such self-inflicted brutality.
As for the bacon...SAD news. Another passing at the farm. This time, Timmy the pig had to be put down. It seems his back may of broken under his weight and perhaps he paralyzed his hind legs as he could not stand all of a sudden.
(Timmy and I in better times, enjoying a laugh! (censored for med blogging anonymity))
Timmy was an experiment of sorts. Most pigs of this variety are turning into bacon ASAP. But Tim was brought to us by a hippy, artist friend after he was found abandoned in the woods after some people had left their house. He grew up at our farm with Madison, the pot-bellied pig, in green pastures and with endless dinner leftovers. He lived the best life a pig could really. To my mom, he was a sort of science project, pig behavior experiment. Her observations after his death...
"Pigs are really quite social. Timmy loved to have his skin cleaned by the guinea hens, to hang out with Madison the pig, and to be around the other farm animals. He loved to have this skin rubbed but only very lightly and only in the direction of his course hairs. He loved to make nests and routinely used several bales of hay to perfect his spot under the barn. Timmy was a character." (loosely quoted)
Tim was not fat but his legs could hardly hold his shear size and he often had pretty cool muscle fasciculations as he stood and walked. We tried to excercise him by putting his food out in the pasture a ways but after watching him struggle later in his life, it just seemed cruel so he got the luxury lifestyle...bread, veggies, leftovers near his bed of hay.
R.I.P. Timmy
AND...in other animal news..Pombe..our younger male Chesapeake bay retriever cost us another $150 bucks at the vet after partially ripping his nail off the quick so bad he was squealing in pain every time he got nudged or moved. That dog is getting into the thousands this year. He shows no caution when playing and it shows in his injuries. Just got a call from home that he was so out of it from the anesthesia that he had a big BM (dump) on our kitchen floor. THanks pombe! Little bastard...
