Great! Now I have guilt!

During fall quarter I had an experience that made me think of Rex's line in the Toy Story Movie: "Great! Now I have guilt!"

(Picture of Rex downloaded from a Google image search to jog your memory about the famous line).

During fall quarter I went home quite a bit to help mom out after her hip replacement surgery. However, towards the end of the quarter I saw the impact it was having on my studies and decided to stay in Seattle and just focus on class for the rest of the term. Unfortunately, this meant that I could not come home for Monica's birthday at the beginning of December (right before finals week). Monica was very upset by this and tried diligently to convince me over the phone to come home for her 5th birthday party. I examined my schedule and determined it was completely impossible to come home for her birthday and had to give her a firm, "No" over the phone. She too hard but at the end of the conversation she said in her little cute voice, ""Its ok that you can't come. Christy, I love you and I miss you and I love you. OK?" I hung up the phone and felt absolutely terrible. Was this to be the first of many situations through out my life where medicine would prevent me from being with friends and family when they wanted me? I bought Monica a birthday present (a little pan flute from Peru) which I gave to her after finals were over. I felt really guilty when I gave it to her. It was almost as if I was trying to buy her off or something - as if the present was saying, "I am sorry I couldn't be here when it was important to you. Here, have something that costs money instead." Is that what busy physicians and medical students do? Hmmmmm. I just hope I don't have to proclaim my guilt about this too much in the future.

Me after fall quarter = a juiced orange

Fall quarter is finally over! Yeah! I just took my last final and it is really good to be done! How do I feel right now? I guess the best way to describe it is that I feel like a juiced orange. (But a very happy juiced orange!) I started medical school as a whole freshly picked Florida orange and right now I feel like a the peel with a little bit of pulp left over inside. I am not saying that this is a bad feeling, I am still very overjoyed to be in medical school, I just have new respect for what medical school takes out of you.

(written a couple weeks later) Everyone has been asking me how fall quarter went. I guess it went well. At least they haven't kicked me out of school yet! Fall quarter was very stressful. Towards the end of the quarter I could see what the stress of medical school was doing to my body. I was having trouble falling asleep at night while I worried about classes and life and general. Also, my stomach started to hurt, particularly before exams. These symptoms started going away immediately after the quarter ended and now are completely gone. I just hope they won't reappear during winter quarter stress.

Sometimes during fall quarter I really started to envy people who can come home after working all day and can just relax and spent time with their family and friends without the stress of feeling like you need to study all the time. I am sure it will all be worth it in the end.


These oranges are what I felt like before medical school started. (Photo from google image search)


This is what fall quarter felt like, particularly Anatomy. (Photo from google image search).

Some disappointing news for those taking final exams

An article with some disappointing news for those taking final exams: "It is only Tuesday"

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/it_only_tuesday

YIKES! (again) My Winter Class Schedule

Once again I was traumatized by looking at next quarter's medical school class schedule. (perhaps by spring I will be used to it? We will see.) The only good thing about winter quarter is that it doesn't begin for another 3 weeks. First (this upcoming week) we get to take cumulative final exams in our remaining fall quarter classes: Biochemistry, Histology and Social Aspects of Health and Behavior. Two of these classes, Biochem and SHB, are continued in winter quarter. One thing that I am actually looking forward to in winter quarter is my family medicine preceptorship. I will get to tag along one morning a week with a family practice doctor as she sees patients. Sometimes I might even get to help/participate (we will see). The preceptor I have been matched with is the Harborview Family Practice Clinic.

Here is my schedule of classes:
_____________________________________________________________

HUBIO 512: Mechanisms in Cell Physiology (5 Credits)
Physiology of the cell membrane, including ionic and electrical potential gradients; active transport, excitability, and action potentials; biophysics of sensory receptors; neuromuscular transmission; muscle energetics and contractility; spinal reflexes and central synaptic transmission; autonomic nervous system; energy metabolism and temperature regulation; epithelial transport; gastrointestinal motility and secretions.

HUBIO 520: Molecular and Cellular Basis of Disease (6 Credits)
Patterns of cell and tissue response to injury. Mechanisms of cell injury, the inflammatory process, immunology, immunopathology, thrombosis, normal and abnormal growth, neoplasia, clinicopathological correlation.

HUBIO 522: Introduction to Clinical Medicine (4 Credits)
Medical history is introduced and instruction in data collection is begun. Experience in conducting medical interviews with patients to obtain the medical history and patient profile. Special problems related to interviewing are addressed.

HUBIO 523: Introduction to Immunology (2 Credits)
Basic concepts such as antigens; antibodies; complement; B- and T-lymphocyte function, including interactions with each other and with accessory cells; immunological tolerance; major histocompatibility complex; and role of these basic concepts in immunopathology (immunodeficiencies, hypersensitivities, autoimmunity, blood transfusion, and transplantation).

HUBIO 524: Biochemistry (4 Credits)
Classical molecular and cellular biochemistry, cellular physiology and molecular genetics. Metabolic interrelationships as they occur in the individual stressed and related to disturbances in disease states.

HUBIO 526: Systems of Human Behavior (2 Credits)
Effects of behavioral factors in major management problems faced in medical practice relating to cultural background, social role, sexual identity, and belief systems. Acquisition of skills in analyzing behavior, defining objectives, and designing precise treatment strategies.

HUBIO 590: Introduction to Critical Reading and Evaluation of the Medical Literature (1 Credit)
An introduction to methods for identifying and retrieving Web-based high quality, relevant evidence, and to methods for describing and applying rigorous criteria when reading primary research studies or reviews of primary studies that report on the effectiveness of therapeutic or preventive interventions.

FAMED 501: Introduction to Family Medicine: Preceptorship (2.5 Credits)
Students spend one morning per week for one or more quarters working with a practicing community family physician.

_____________________________________________________________

If my calculations are correct, I am registered for 26.5 credits for winter quarter - fewer credits than we took in fall quarter, but apparently winter quarter is much shorter so the work load is worse than fall. Good times.

A picture that sums up Thanksgiving

Some of you have asked what it is like to cook Thanksgiving for a family with 13 children. I thought this picture was explanatory of our Thanksgiving cooking experience. Monica (4 years old) was included in the picture to put the gigantic pot in scale. The pot is so large Monica can actually climb inside and put the lid on. We know this because she once used this pot as a very clever hiding spot in a highly competitive game of hide and go seek (when the pot was clean and in the pantry of course).

Documentary Film about IDP Camps in Northern Uganda: War/Dance

I thought that you all might be interested in this documentary. I haven't seen it yet, but I have heard it is good. It relates to my experiences in the IDP camps in Northern Uganda.

Anyway, here is the info:
___________________________________________________________________


WAR/DANCE

Directed by: Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
Release Date: November 30, 2007
Running Time: 105 minutes
Rating: "PG-13"


WINNER - "Documentary Directing Prize" at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival





Set in Northern Uganda, a country ravaged by more than two decades of
civil war, WAR/DANCE tells the story of Dominic, Rose, and Nancy, three
children whose families have been torn apart, their homes destroyed, and
who currently reside in a displaced persons camp in Patongo. When they
are invited to compete in an annual music and dance festival, their
historic journey to their nation's capital is also an opportunity to
regain a part of their childhood and to taste victory for the first time
in their lives.

A quote from Voltaire

"Doctors give drugs of which they know little, into bodies, of which they know less, for Diseases of which they know nothing at all." Voltaire

I guess sometimes physicians don't inspire all that much confidence...

Being A Big Sister

Since mom had her hip replacement surgery, I have been trying to go home a lot to help out at the house. It has been slightly stressful trying to juggle family and school but it has also been really fun. I decided to write this entry to highlight the glories of being a big sister.

Being a big sister is really fun. It is like being a mini-celebrity. Or better yet, it is like being a really cool grandma, but without the gray hairs, aches and pains, hearing aides, pill bottles, and quirky habits. (OK, so maybe I have a few quirky habits). I will also caveat this by saying that being a big sister is more fun when your little siblings haven't gone through puberty yet. After puberty they get all into computer games, the internet, and their friends and they become too cool to spend much time with you. A big sister never quite reaches the un-coolness level of mom and dad, but it can get close. For example: I remember many years ago when Paul was 9 years old he got a really nice Lego set for Christmas. I was gone for Christmas visiting my relatives and didn't get back until the 30th of December. When I arrived home Paul showed me his unopened Lego box and told me that he had waited to open it because he wanted to build it with me. Ah.... warm fuzzy memories. Now when I go home I barely see Paul because he is off doing his own thing. Oh well, He is still fun to hang out with, when I actually see him.

Sometimes the popularity of being a big sister can be a bit overwhelming. In the girl's room there are two sets of bunk beds. Sarah and Kalkidan sleep on one set and then Rachel and I sleep on the other set. (Rachel sleeps on the bottom bunk due to her cerebral palsy in her left arm and leg). So last Saturday I woke up early with the feeling that someone was watching me. Sure enough, when I opened my eyes I saw a fuzzy little Afro over the edge of my pillow. With a closer examination of the situation I realized that Rachel was standing up next to the bed with her folded arms resting on the edge of the top bunk and she was discretely watching me sleep. I think this behavior might have originated with the fact that some weekends I like to get up early and sneak out of the room and have some of my own quiet time before others get up. Rachel was ready for me this weekend and wasn't going to have any of this sneaking-out-of-the room behavior. In a groggy voice I asked Rachel if she wanted me to get up. She shook her head 'no,' but continued to stand at the side of the bed staring expectantly. Apparently it was fine if I slept, just as long as she could watch me. I decided to get up and we made pancakes. Rachel had trouble with the whole pancake-flipping skill thing, but we worked out a system where she poured the batter in the pan with a little measuring cup.

(My view when I woke up on Saturday morning. Rachel was very patiently watching me while I slept).


Sarah is just entering the really fun age where she is still curious, really fun, and enjoys spending time with us quaint adults, but she can now do lots of things (i.e. cooking, etc.) that she couldn't do when she was younger. Last week I watched in amazement as Sarah blazed into the kitchen made enough cinnamon rolls for 14 people without a comment or the tiniest assistance from someone older. Also, Sarah is way smarter than I was at her age. Apparently she does her math homework every week without making a single mistake.

Anne is the exception to the less fun after puberty rule - the older she gets the more fun we seem to have with each other. Last Sunday mom was home in bed I took her place next to Anne in church. Anne was in a very good mood that morning and she was vocalizing a lot during the opening singing so I knew that she was having a 'vocal day.' Mom is usually no-nonsense and Anne usually sits quite still beside her during church. However, with me Anne has a tendency to get sort-of playful and silly. After the singing was over I put the bulletin on Anne's tray. I was engrossed in the service and then noticed the bulletin sliding to the edge of the tray and about to slide off. I quickly pushed it back to its original location and looked back at the pastor. Then Anne very intentionally started pushing the bulletin off the edge of the tray again. Ah ha! A game had begun. Every time Anne pushed the bulletin to the edge of the tray she smiled a little more. Soon she was laughing. Andy leaned over and asked why Anne was giggling. I gave my best innocent look and said I had no idea. (Deflecting blame is a privilege of being a big sister). Andy then told me to tell Anne to stop laughing. I gave him a skeptical look. When in the history of humankind, has it worked to tell a 13 year old girl to stop giggling? (You should try this sometime and see what happens). I obediently relayed the message to Anne and told her to stop laughing, which of course, immediate doubled the volume and amount of her giggling. I thought it was a pretty fun church service, although others present may not have agreed.

(Gene showing me where he was adopted from in Russia on the map in our dinning room. OK, so I didn't actually talk that much about Gene in this entry, but he is really cool too. You get the gist of the whole big sister thing).

"Merck's HIV vaccine declared a failure" :-(

I think that everybody in the HIV field is slightly depressed about this at the moment. I thought you all might be interested:

Here is the link if you are interested in reading more:

"The STEP study, a phase II randomized control trial of Merck's HIV vaccine

has revealed this week that the drug is a failure, and may actually have

increased participants' risk of contracting HIV.  The trial was based in

Seattle, but had sites worldwide.  It was decided today that subjects will

be unblinded to which arm of the study they were randomized to.  Dr. John

Bartlett, chief of infectious disease at Hopkins said, 'Some people will say

we're right where we were in 1985 and, in some ways, we are.'"

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2004012829_aidsvaccine14m.html

An interesting class...

So last week in our SHB class we had a lecture on pain. As a guest, a patient came to our class to describe the chronic pain he has been experiencing for many years. He described a very sharp pain between is big toe and the next toe on his left foot. He said it was so horrible it felt like an icepick had been slammed between these two toes. He has undergone countless different procedures and used many different medicines to try to control the pain with only varying degrees of success. So, what was so interesting about all of this? The foot isn't there! This man had his foot/lower leg amputated over 20 years ago, but he still experiences excruciating pain from the missing limb. This is apparently well documented in medicine and is called, "Phantom Limb Pain." We get to see some pretty amazing stuff!

Whew! I don't have TB!

I just wanted to let you all know some exciting news: I don't have TB! You are probably thinking, 'Uh, I didn't know that was something you were worried about.' TB actually wasn't something I was worried until a few weeks ago, but for a few days I was sure that I had it.

As medical students we have to get tested for TB twice during fall quarter of our first year (and then once a year from now on). When they administered the first test they told me it was just to 'prime up' my immune system for the second test. A few days ago they administered the second test and the nurse told me that I had ever been exposed to TB the test would show up positive. I remembered back to the time I spent in the IDP camps in Northern Uganda and then to my visit to the Kibera slum (the largest slum in East Africa) in Nairobi and thought there was probably a pretty good chance that I had been exposed to TB sometime during my trip. I inquired what would happen if I had a positive test and they said that I would have to go for a chest X ray and then have 9 months of daily triple antibiotic therapy. That didn't sound like much fun to me. So needless to say that I was pretty worried when I got the second TB test. However, it two days later I got the test read and it turns out I don't have TB! Whew. What a relief!

My Sister

My Sister

(Forever a draft)

By Christine Lee Harris

Preface

I started working on this poem almost 10 years ago when I was 14 years old. I have hesitated finishing it if for so long because no matter how much I work on it, I still feel it is not good enough to express my true emotions and views on this subject. Perhaps it is akin to a painter trying to capture the essence of a sunset. He may be continually disappointed because a sunset is so breathtakingly beautiful that mere oils and canvas could never do it justice. It may be that the feelings I am trying to express in this poem could never be adequately portrayed on paper. Therefore you will notice that I have labeled the poem as a draft because I have given up the expectation that it I will ever be satisfied.

I began to write this poem after someone went on a tangent about what a burden my sister must be to take care of and what a terrible life she must have. At the time I was startled speechless by such a statement. This poem is what I would have liked to say back to that individual.

My sister is a burden, many say
She cannot walk, she cannot talk
She must be bathed, she must be fed
She is such a burden, is what they say

My sister is a blessing, I respond
Her bright smile fills the room
Her happy spirit cheers our family
My sister is the blessing, is what I say

My sister is deprived, the experts declare
Her quality of life is sub-optimal
Oh, how she must suffer, constrained in such a body
She is destitute, is what they say

My sister has a response which they cannot understand
If quality of life was measured by joy and cheerfulness,
By the size of a smile or the quality of a laugh
My sister has a better life than they will ever know

My sister is unproductive, DALY calculations state
Society will never get back the labor invested in her
She has reduced the economic productivity of our country
She doesn’t contribute to our society, is what they say

My sister is a teacher, I reply with a grin
She provides the opportunity for others to show perfect love
For, is this not our most valuable skill?
My sister brings out the best in our society, is what I say

My sister should be pitied, the righteous announce
She will never win a swimming competition
Never get first place in a spelling bee, or learn ballet
We should be grateful for our abilities, is what they say

My sister knows a secret, they do not
True happiness does not come from possessions, competition and success
But from unhindered love, unconstrained by worldly concerns
My sister knows true happiness, of this, I am sure

This is a picture of my sister.

A photo of our class doing what we do best

Here is a photo of out med school class doing what we do best - sitting in our classroom.

My Future?

My best friend, Stephanie, is also in a graduate degree program. She is getting her PhD at the University of California San Diego. She is finishing up her minor prop, a large project/practice thesis proposal after her first two years of grad school. As you all know, I am going through the horrors of medical school.

Stephanie and I have been regularly discussing our fear of failing and have come up with a plan: In the unlikely circumstance that we both fail out of graduate school at the same time we will both work for a while and save up some money. Then we will buy an old beat up RV and drive across the country and see the all the parks and historical sights. We were trying to figure out how we would fund this adventure with gas prices being so high and all. We decided that we will go to a TV station and suggest it as a new Reality TV show. I think it could really catch on. (Sort of like Survivor, only better).

Reality TV Presents:
"Grad School Dropouts Explore America
Why? Because they can't do anything else."

We could spray paint this across the side of our RV like the picture above. What do you think?

Some Hurricane Katrina Damage Repaired

This is a completely extraneous blog entry, but I thought I would put up a little reminder that New Orleans is still working towards recovery after Hurricane Katrina. Most of you know that I was accepted to the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (MPH program) and that I moved into an apartment in New Orleans late August 2005. You probably also know my marginally thrilling tale of evacuating several days before Hurricane Katrina hit, taking a semester of classes at Texas A and M University and then returning to New Orleans and taking class at Tulane from Jan 2006-Dec 2006. Living in a city recovering from a huge natural disaster was an eye-opening experience. A lot of the inequalities and problems facing our society become painfully apparent. (For example, Charity Hospital, the free hospital for the poor and uninsured closed after Katrina while the private and more elite hospitals were able to recover and reopen).

While I was in New Orleans I enjoyed attending a church that had sustained heavy damage during the Hurricane. Some of the churches I visited seem to be really battered, discouraged, or even depressed because of what the hurricane had done to their city and church. This church, however, seemed to draw strength from the hardships they had gone through. The services took place in the social hall because the sanctuary was mostly under construction/leaking/unsafe because of Katrina damage. (Also at this church one of the funniest misunderstanding that has ever happened to me occurred. Ask me about sometime and I will give you the full story).

Two days ago I received an email from this church saying that after 2 years of labor and construction they had finally succeeded in replacing their broken steeple. I though I would share some of the pictures with you:


The church's roof after Hurricane Katrina (from the Rayne Memorial Church website)

The remains of the steeple after the Hurricane (also from the Rayne website)

The new steeple as of October 30, 2007. (from an email)

Med student dress up

Me and some of the other first year med students dressed up. Can you find: a bumble bee, Abraham Lincoln, Mini Mouse, and someone wearing East African clothing not dressed up as anyone in particular?

Some entering medical school class statistics about family size

I thought this was pretty funny and decided to share it with you'll.

We got some statistics about the UW 2007 entering medical school class. Below are some of the statistics on family size ("number of siblings in your family including yourself"):

hmmmmm... I wonder who the bottom person is with 13 siblings? Looking back over the statistics from past years, I think they might have had to expand the number of siblings possible from 11 to 13 just for me (I will have to check up on that).

Jus' fer fun

The social construct of acceptable behavior...

If only I were a zebra....

Check out this article:
"Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers"
by David Ruenzel
http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/zebras

Apparently, the constant stress of medical school is killing my brain cells. Yikes! As if I didn't have enough problems already. Now I can be stressed about my stress killing my brain cells in addition to being stressed about med school stuff.

There must be something good about not being a zebra. Hmmmm.... I will get back to you on that one.

Don't look at this picture before/during/after eating

A friend from the Kenya class just sent this picture to me. I thought I would share it with you all. It is a picture of me helping skin a very recently killed goat in Kenya. OK, so I know this picture is really disgusting. However, killing animals and dealing with disgusting things is part of everyday life for most East Africans so it was a very interesting experience to get to assist in this process. If the picture grosses out too many of you I am happy to take it off the blog site.

Welcome to med school, thanks for the money, here, have a checkmark

Do you know the really irritating old guy that does the last 3 minutes of the 60 Minutes show? He goes on these crazy rants that nobody really cares about, but people listen to him anyway because he is talking and they are really just waiting to watch their show that comes on after 60 Minutes. I decided, for no particular reason, to pick a random aspect of medical school and do a 60 Minutes type rant on my blog. It is only good if you imagine the voice of the grumpy/irritating 60 Minutes guy reading the entry.

Last week I did a really nice job on my histology lab. I spent several hours drawing pictures and looking up every detail I wasn't sure about in my textbook, atlas and Wikipedia. I was sure that the professor was going to be impressed of my work. However, today we got our lab homework back, there was only a little checkmark in the upper right hand corner. A quick discussion after class showed that this is the feedback everyone had received.

A visual illustration of the checkmark at the top of my Histology homework. The penny is a size reference for the checkmark. There wasn't a 'good job' or 'nice work' or 'good coloring' or even a 'try to do better next time,' 'needs improvement' or a 'you don't deserve to be in medical school' comment. Just a checkmark.

I realized that the checkmark had become the new standard grading protocol since anatomy finished - not just in histology. In biochem we have weekly small group sections where we read 3 scientific journal articles and then answer questions about them. In this section we also receive just a single checkmark without any comments. In my AIDS: A multidisciplinary approach class we read a scientific journal article (or two) for every class and write a one page paper answering questions about it. For this class we also receive a simple checkmark with no comments.

Here is a paper from my AIDS class with the checkmark. Again, the penny is used to indicate scale. In this paper I developed some very interesting theories about the possible reasons for the trends of HIV and AIDS prevalence rates in King county. What did the teacher think about them? I have no idea. However, I have decided I like the checkmarks from the AIDS class best because they are bigger. If a checkmark is the only feedback we are going to get, it might as well be a big one.

Just to be fair, although I am (jokingly) complaining about it, I don't blame the professors for the checkmark-only grading style. With over 100 students in the class it would be very hard to give personalized feedback to everyone. Likewise, personalized feedback ("Great Job!" on one paper and, "I guess I will you credit for this substandard work" on another) might encourage competition among the students which is the absolute last thing in the world this medical school class needs.

I will also say that in our ICM (Introduction to Clinical Medicine) course we get thoughtful, thorough and personalized feedback on our write ups about patient interviews. Also, in anatomy, we got a lot of personal attention and feedback during class on our presentations. In addition, during histology lab sessions our professors and TAs are very good at answering our questions and giving us immediate feedback.

Agoro Camp Slide Show

This is the slide show that I find to be the most powerful. Once again, it was one that I made for the presentation, but couldn't show. I was going to read 'The First Time (you see someone mutilated by the LRA)" blog post while the slide show played. Oh well. At least you all can enjoy it.

Tanzania Slideshow

Here is another slide show video that I tried to show during the presentation. Once again, I couldn't stand to let all my moviemaker efforts go to waste.

Potika camp slideshow

On the Sunday the 14th of October, I presented about my trip at church. Unfortunately, the picture slideshow video things wouldn't play at that time. Now I am trying to put them up on the blog for your viewing pleasure. (Most of the pictures have been posted on the blog before, but it took me a really long time to figure out how to work windows moviemaker so I wanted to make sure somebody saw them).

A Lunch Story: Lentil and Sardine Soup at the Bottom of My Backpack

I started getting worried the other day that all of you might start thinking I was some sort of profound person who only writes about deep philosophical issues. So, I decided to share an example of how medical school has made my life plummet into chaos. I no longer seem to be able to concentrate on simple tasks such as grocery shopping and fitting into normal society.

A (True) Lunch Story: Lentil and sardine soup at the bottom of my backpack

This weekend I was stressed out trying to study for classes. Saturday night I stopped studying to make dinner, but looking over the contents of the refrigerator (half a bag of very slimy carrots, a spoonful of month-old yogurt, some mashed potatoes growing a scary layer of green something, an egg, and some broccoli turning a beautiful shade of yellow)I realized that I had very few groceries left. Med school had kept me so busy I hadn't been shopping for several weeks. Through a careful analysis of the situation, my medical student problem-solving brain reached the conclusion that it was time to make a trip to the grocery store.

I briefly considered making a list, but decided I was too busy. (BTW this is never a good sign). I decided if I just bought stuff to make sandwiches and the ingredients for soup that would be good. I disembarked from the 48 bus with my empty backpack only to find that this Safeway had been remodeled! I wandered the aisles of the 'new and improved' Safeway in a disorganized daze. My chain of thought bounced between being worried and stressed about med school, to which items I should be purchasing, to trying to review the amino acids in my mind, to trying to figure out where things were in the new Safeway, to thinking about which subject I should study next when I arrived back home, to trying to keep track of how much money I was spending. I arrived home and put away the groceries. I figured out I had forgotten a few things:

For sandwiches:
I successfully purchased:
- pickles
- tomatoes
- cheese
But had somehow had forgotten to buy:
- bread
- lunch meat

hmmm....Oh, I also managed to buy another container of relish. I guess I really had pickles on the mind between thinking about med school stuff.

While in the store I made another freakish/impulsive purchase - a tin of sardines. While we were working in the Potika IDP camp and eating mostly beans and rice (and small animal that was essentially cat) someone got out a tin of sardines. We split the tin equally and I remember that spoonful of sardines being so wonderfully good. While in the grocery store I remembered this experience and decided to buy a tin of sardines.

After discovering that sandwiches were off the menu due to forgetting the 2 most important ingredients, I decided to make lentil soup. I started by adding some lentils and a small piece of steak to a pot of water. I added the slimy carrot and the yellowing broccoli (I hate wasting food ever since returning from my trip). I added some seasoning and tomato sauce and it was turning out to be quite the special dish. While expressing my amazing culinary expertise, I decided to open my tin of sardines and try a bite. It wasn't quite the pleasurable experience I remembered sitting on a dirt floor of a mud hut in Northern Uganda. I decided the sardines would probably be easier to consume if they were diluted by the soup, so I added them to my boiling lentil soup concoction. However, instead of the soup diluting the sardines, the sardines seemed to have taken over the soup. The finished lentil soup emitted a very sardine-ish odor and had an intense taste of sardines as well.

I have a lingering problem of not being able to cook a small amount of food. (I am not sure of its true origin, but I think it might have something to do with being raised in a family with 15 people). So therefore, I did not have enough sardine lentil soup for one person for one meal, but I had enough to feed a medium sized family for a number of days.

On Monday morning I decided that my only option for lunch was to take a portion of my lentil and sardine soup store into school. I picked a trustworthy looking container and tossed it in my backpack. At lunch break I pulled out my container of soup to find it very much less full than when I had packed it that morning. A quick glance in the bottom of my backpack confirmed the location of the missing soup. I tried to clean some of it up, but quickly ran out of time and had to return to class. At the beginning of class a student in front of me said, "What is that smell!? Is that someone's lunch?" I realized that he was smelling my backpack. Before running to choir practice I left my contaminated backpack in my locker on the 5th floor of the health sciences building. When I returned, a very familiar sardine-ish smell was emitting from the locker area. I guess my soup was pungent enough to fill an entire section of a floor in the health sciences building with its lovely fragrance. I wonder what people were thinking when they walked by the lockers that evening.



The remaining lentil and sardine soup goodness in the guilty leaking container. The soup doesn't taste too bad, it just smells a little bit.

I SURVIVED ANATOMY

I just wanted to let you all know that I survived anatomy. I didn't think that it was going to happen for a while there, but it did. Whew. I took the final last Thursday and ended up doing quite well in the course. Now all I have to worry about are my other courses: Histology, Biochemistry, Systems of Human Behavior, Introduction to Clinical Medicine and AIDS: a multidisciplinary approach.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. I still need them. :)

Between Two Worlds

When I go home, the house is always noisy
When I go home, I cook chicken soup and apple crisp
When I go home, I take my little sister in a wheelchair for a walk
When I go home, I help my brothers with their math homework
When I go home, my 12 siblings ask me why I have to leave
When I go home, I read a bed-time story to my little sisters
When I go home, my mom tells me the family has run out of money again
When I go home, my mom asks me when I am going to get married
When I go home, my siblings ask what it is like to live in the city
When I go home, I feel, well, at home

When I go to church, I greet my friends
When I go to church, I pray and sing with my family
When I go to church, I spend time with God
When I go to church, I hear a sermon about women staying home
When I go to church, I hold my friend’s baby and wish that I was married
Now when I go to church, I feel just a little out of place

When I go to class, I get to study with my classmates and friends
When I go to class, I get to learn fascinating things about humanity
When I go to class, I learn more about the human body
When I go to class, I realize how behind I am and worry that I will fail
When I go to class, I think everyone is smarter than me
When I go to class, my friends invite me to a bar, but I don't drink
When I go to class, the girls talk about what kind of birth control they are using
When I go to class, the other students tell stories about their parents who are physicians
When I go to class, the other students talk about how much money their parents can give them
When I go to class, I feel a little out of place

When I see a patient, I love to hear her story
When I see a patient, I realize her story is not so different from mine
When I see a patient, she tells me about how her family is poor
When I see a patient, she tells me how she worries about her family
When I see a patient, she explains how much her church means to her
When I see a patient, I think that I just might be able to make a difference in someone’s life
When I see a patient, it reminds me why I struggle to balance these different worlds
When I see a patient, I don’t feel so out of place

I am going to get to sing at Benaroya Hall....

Even though I am insanely busy and overwhelmed, I decided to continue singing in the University of Washington Gospel Choir (I sang in it during undergrad and found it to be very relaxing and fun). We always have a performance at the end of each quarter which is usually on the UW campus. (Sometimes in a big lecture hall or sometimes in the UW performing arts center - Mean Hall). This year, in addition to our UW campus performance, we will be performing at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. We will be performing with another Gospel Choir (that is WAY better than us).

A picture of the UW choir performing several years ago. I think I am actually in this picture somewhere. Registration is limited to 100 people, but usually 120 people come to practice and sing in the final concert.


(from UW school of music website) This is a picture of Phyllis Byrdwell, the director of the UW gospel choir and another (better) Gospel choir based out of her church. She is amazing and amazing director. She also has a Gospel choir at a local high school.


(from google image search). This is a picture of Benaroya Hall from the outside. Unfortunately, the tickets are probably going to be too expensive for my family to come, but I think it will be a fun experience anyway. Anyway, the concert is on December 16th at 8:00pm. The cheapest tickets (where you probably can't see anything) are $20. There is also going to be a concert on the UW campus which will probably be cheaper.

Did you know that...

Did you know that: The inferior rectal arteries are branches of the internal pudendal artery which is a brach of the anterior trunk of the internal iliac artery which is a branch of the common iliac artery which is a terminal branch of the abdominal aorta?

Unfortunately, the middle rectal arteries are not a branch of the internal pudendal artery. The middle rectal arteries are a branch of the internal iliac artery.

Likewise, the superior rectal arteries is not a branch of the peudendal artery or the internal iliac artery, instead the superior rectal artery is a branch of the inferior mesenteric artery which is one of the 3 unpaird branches of the abdominal aorta.

If any of you have the ability to remember this, please contact me so we can discuss options concerning swaping identities before my Anatomy final exam this Thursday at 12:30. Just kidding. sort-of.

Would you like some tea? Still readjusting...

I still have these random flashes of really wanting to do something the way it was done in Tanzania, Kenya or Uganda.

A few weeks ago I went to UPC (an extra extra white church right next to the University of Washington) and they tried to sing a song in Swahili. The pronounced the words correctly, had perfect timing and sang in perfect harmony, but they didn't sing the song right. If they were in Kenya or Tanzania they would be clapping and moving back and forth. They would be singing with more spirit and energy. They definitely wouldn't have been reading from sheets of paper. The song would have gone on for longer with the best parts being repeated several times. And lastly, the audience would have participated. The people sitting in the rows would have been singing along or at least clapping if they didn't know the words. I thought about trying to get everyone to clap, but I figured that one person clapping wouldn't be enough to overcome a lifetime of white-church tradition. *sigh* I guess it is hard to completely readjust.

Here are some things that were part of everyday life in Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania that I now do or have seriously considered doing:

1) tea - offer it to everybody who comes to visit. People actually say 'no' here!

2) shaking hands - left hand supporting the right

3) Greet everyone in the room before sitting down.

4) wanting to bring a live animal to church to give as an offering instead of money.

5) wanting to put Kenyan/Tanzanian money in the offering plate

6) wanting to put a soda in the offering plate instead of money

7) wanting to wear an extra piece of fabric on Sunday and dramatically take it off and put in the offering plate

8) wanting to respond in Swahili when someone greets me

9) trying to get people to clap during the songs in church

10) wanting to extend church from 1 hour to 3

11) wanting to argue with the grocery store clerk to give me a lower price for the produce

12) holding hands for a really long time (several minutes) with someone of the same gender

13) What? This bus/car/van isn't full! People are barely touching each other. We could fit twice as many people in here!

Global Health Pathway

Yesterday I signed up for the Global Health Pathway through the UW medical school. There are 3 "Pathway Options" available at the school:

1) The Indian Health Pathway - preparing physicians to meet the health care needs to Native American Communities.

2) The Underserved Pathway - preparing physicians to best meet the needs to underserved populations in the US and abroad.

3) The Global Health Pathway - preparing physician to work internationally, particularly in developing countries.

Signing up for a Pathway is not required and it is just a way to help focus your medical education on what you would like to end up doing. Since I want to end up working internationally, I decided the Global Health Pathway might work out well for me. The Global Health Pathway is part of the new Department of Global Health which just formed in January 2007 at the University of Washington (they got big $$$ from Bill Gates to start up).

They have this really cool program called IHOP (not the pancake place) which stands for International Health Opportunities Program. This program allows students to go overseas for an international experience in the summer between their first and second year of medical school. The program pays for your airline ticket and sets you up an activity at one of the international clinic sites. Unfortunately it is really competitive (the endless story of everything about medical school) so lots of people apply who don't get to go.

I was talking with the Global Health Pathway Coordinator and she said that there are 8 other students in our first year medical class that speak (or at least know a little) Swahili! Crazy. I think we might try to get a Swahili conversation group going so we don't forget everything.

"A Short History of Medicine"

Today we had an awesome lecture in our "Systems of Human Behavior Class." In addition to a very interesting discussion of alternative and traditional medicines, we got to review, "A Short History of Medicine." It is:


Patient: "I have an earache:"

Physician:
2000 B.C. -"Here, eat this root."
1000 A.D. -"That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer."
1850 A.D. -"That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion."
1920 A.D. -"That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill."
1965 A.D. -"That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic."
2000 A.D. -"That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root."

(From: Nutrition News Focus, October 29, 1999.)

Buccinator + gubernaculum = 'Gubernator'

When loosing your sanity trying to memorize the names for every part of the body, it is essential to make fun of and share the funny-sounding anatomy words. I decided to through caution to the wind and publicly exhibit my nerdiness by sharing some of the coolest anatomy words with you all on my blog:

Second coolest anatomy word: Buccinator (pronounced bussinator) it is best if you say it with an Arnold Swarchenegger type accent.

(Image from wikipedia)
The buccinator is a muscle that forms the walls of your checks. It helps you position your food in your mouth while you eat. Although it helps in mastication (aka 'chewing food'), it is not considered a muscle of mastication, but instead it is considered to be a muscle of facial expression. It is innervated by cranial nerve VII, the facial nerve, which innervates all the other muscles of facial expression. A visual representation of the buccinator muscle is provided above.


The #1 coolest word in anatomy: Gubernaculum

(from a Google image search) The gubernaculum is important embryologically. It helps in the descent of the gonads. Here is a picture of the gubernaculum on the adult testes.

After I decided that the buccinator and the gubernaculum were the two coolest words in anatomy, I started saying them together quickly and came up with a new word: The gubernator. This is a completely made-up word, but I thought it was pretty fun sounding too. Ahhhhhh the things you do to entertain yourself while studying anatomy.

:)

My Denali College Mentoring Group

In the medical school we are 'sorted' (by the random number generator) into smaller 'colleges' which act as our sort-of family within the medical school. There are 5 colleges named for each of the WWAMI states: Rainer = Washington, Big Sky = Montana, Wind River = Wyoming, Snake River = Idaho, and Denali = Alaska. Within each college you get a 'mentoring group' which consists of a medical school faculty member and 6 first year medical school students.

I was sorted into Denali College which is, of course, the coolest and best college! (My third year roommates are also in Denali College). My faculty mentor is named Sam and he is a pediatric anesthesiologist at Harborview Medical Center (sometimes he works at Children's Hospital when they need him). Sam is really busy right now because his wife (who is also a physician) is working in a clinic in Zambia for the month.

Back row, from left to right: Sam (our mentor), Avi, Tara, me. Sarah is sitting in front. I am really lucky because everyone in my mentoring group is super nice. We had our first 'meet your mentor' meeting yesterday morning at Burgermaster in University Village. It was really fun to meet everyone hear everyone's dreams and plans.

Tara is really nice and has travelled all over the world. She is married to a 'starving artist' who designs furniture and Tara wants to do some work internationally.

Sarah is engaged and her wedding is scheduled for this November. She is an MD/PhD student which means she will be in medical school and graduate school for 8 years, but will have both an MD degree and a PhD when she graduates. It also means that she is brilliant (because only amazingly smart people get accepted to the MD/PhD program) and that her schooling is completely free and she gets a living stipend.

Avi is also really nice. He likes to do sporty type stuff and he has a long-term girl friend.

There are also 2 other first year students in our mentor group that we haven't met yet. They are WWAMI students who are doing their 1st year in Alaska.

During second year, the 6 of us will spend one morning per week following around Sam in a hospital. This is part of the UW's emphasis on bedside teaching thing.

My Totally Awesome Lab Partners

I decided to spice up my med school blog entries with some pictures. I don't know if it helped make the blog more interesting or not, but I enjoyed bothering everybody asking them if I could take pictures during anatomy small group today.


Here is our awesome lab group! From left to right: Ana, Laura, me and Aya. Like I mentioned before, there were more girls than guys so there a number of all-female lab groups. We took this picture after drawing all the abdominal organs on each other during living anatomy. All of the girls are completely awesome and crazy smart. (I am by far the dumbest person in the lab group).


This is Ana holding the really confusing 'gut tube model' during the discussion portion of living anatomy. I guess the clear plastic tube was supposed to be the small and large intestines and we were supposed to figure out how it folds between the embryo and the adult. We couldn't figure it out so we Googled the gut-tube folding and watched an internet video about it instead.

This is Teri, our group leader/teacher for anatomy. Every 5 tables (so 20 students) has their own professor who helps with dissection questions and things like that. She is totally awesome! (By far the best small group leader!) She is also really encouraging.

Milly, My Newest Hero

Several years ago I made a MySpace page and it asked me to list 'My Heroes.' I had to put some serious thought into who had been an inspiration in my life. I decided that Jesus didn't belong on this list of heroes because he is more than a hero to me. However, I did come up with a pretty long list of amazing people:

Mother Teresa - An example of the potential of humanity when we give up all our trivial and selfish pursuits and allow ourselves to merely be a channel of God's love to those around us.


(picture from google image search)


Dr. Paul Farmer - A passionate advocate for the health and well-being of the poor.

(Dr. Paul Farmer examining an AIDS patient. From Google image search)

Bono - I dislike his music and I know nothing of his personal life, but I think he is an example of how fame and fortune can be used to for good by directing attention to of the public to larger political issues concerning the developing world.

(Bono, speaking at the World Economic Forum as a proponent of canceling third world debt. From Google image search).

My College Professors - Often under appreciated and underpaid, they work tirelessly to teach students skills, such as writing, as well as how to discover answers to questions and larger issues on their own. By making a small difference in many people, they are making an essential improvement in the world.

My favorite professors at my, 'congratulations for getting into medical school party.' (However, I think that the above heroes category should also include all my other Skagit professors and my professors from the various universities I have attended).

My Mom - Also often under appreciated, she has dedicated her life to raising and educating her 13 children and helping them become the best people they can be.

My mom is in the middle of of this picture. The children in the picture are (from left to right, back row first): Paul (likes building Legos and writing science fiction), Peter (adopted from Russia and a really hard worker), Gene (adopted from Russia and a helpful boy who can make silly voices) , Sarah (can already cook apple crisp and happens to be a genius at math and science), Rachel (adopted from the US and a really good little helper who has been able to sing on pitch and harmonize since the age of 5), Monica (now 4 years old, she was adopted from Guatemala and has a lot of energy which she applies well in gymnastics class) and Anne (in a wheelchair and the sweetest little sister in the whole wide world). The children missing from the picture are: Aaron (physics genius, math genius, music genius, literature genius, spelling genius, and philosophy genius who also happens to be a really nice guy), myself (probably about to fail out of medical school), Kalkidan (adopted from Ethiopia and a really cute hard worker who pronounces English better than most Americans), Tadele (adopted from Ethiopia and soccer star), Berhanu (adopted from Ethiopia and soccer star), and Tesfaye (adopted from Ethiopia and soccer star). Uh, did I miss anyone?


After my trip to East Africa, I think I need to make an addition to my list of heroes:

Pastor Haffermann - Exhibiting many of the same qualities as Mother Teresa, he has dedicated the later years of his life to being an advocate for the Maasai people in central Tanzania.

(see blog entries in Feb and March)



Now, I would like to add another hero:

Milly - A very brave and kind woman who generously donated her body so that my 3 lab partners and I could learn anatomy from her.

Of course, Milly isn't her real name. Last week we decided that she seemed like a 'Milly' to us, so we named her. (I have noticed that students tend to give their cadavers nickname-ish type names or other names that demonstrate closeness such as 'Milly' or 'Betty.' I think this might be because we feel like we get to know our cadavers so well during the long hours we spend dissecting, that only a nickname seems fitting). All we really know about Milly is that she died when she was in her early 80's and her cause of death. I also know that Milly was somebody that cared about the world - even in her death she wanted to make the world a better place. It must have been a huge sacrifice for Milly to donate her body. Instead of her children being able to visit her grave where she would have been buried next to her husband, she lies in a room in the UW campus, slowly being cut apart each week by 4 students who really don't know what they are doing. She has no secrets before us. She was willing to do that for our education.

Tomorrow's Dissection Instructions

I don't have much time, but I thought I would share this with all of you:
__________________________________________________________

"Day 16: AM Oral Cavity and Nasal Sinuses:

...

II. Naso-Oropharynx in Sagittal View:
A. Using a hacksaw, divide the skull in the midline, completely separating nasal cavities, hard palate and soft palate. DO NOT divide the tongue. Start by sawing the skull through the midline of the frontal bone, keeping the saw level. If possible, try to saw just lateral to the nasal septum in order to keep it intact. Stop just after cutting through the hard palate. Cut the soft palate with a scalpel.

...

C. Superior meatus - Grasp the superoir concha with your thumb and forefinger. Elevate it medially fracturing the bone. What are the openings that you now see in the superior meatus?

...

D. Middle meatus - Similarly, facture the middle concha. Strip the mucous membrane and Identify and probe the opening with fishing line."

____________________________________________________________

The AM dissection instructions are 13 pages so I skipped a lot of stuff.

Lab is pretty intense and can be quite emotional.

The med school psych out game

Being in a low-key public health program and then traveling in East Africa, I have forgotten the intensity of some people who are intent on becoming physicians.

The other day I was sitting in my seat waiting for Anatomy class to start (which was to begin with a pre-class quiz). I couldn't help but overhear an animated conversation of several medical students behind me. They were discussing with confidence how they felt they were doing in the class. They were saying things like, "Yeah, man, this class is so easy!" and "Totally, I have barely studied and I have passed every quiz." and "Of course, everybody is going to pass the class - how could they not?" and "Yeah, I don't get much out of class - just on-line shop during lecture." (You get the idea).

Class started and the quiz (taken on a computer) was quite challenging. At the last minute I got confused and changed 2 correct answers to incorrect answers. When I got my score back at the end of the day it turns out that I failed the quiz. I was devastated. This is the second quiz out of the seven that I have failed.

The next day I was still discouraged and sat down to study with an individual that was in the group talking behind me the day before. She asked me how I was doing and I said that I was OK, but felt a little discourage because it seemed like everybody was doing better than me in the class. Then after a few moments, I confessed that I had failed the quiz the day before. She turned towards me and said quietly, "I haven't told anyone this, not even my lab partners, but I haven't passed a quiz yet." I was quite surprised at this since she had been acting so confident the day before. I had forgotten about the med school psych out game. sigh. maybe someday I will learn about the emotional complexities of medical school.

Avast, there!

FYI, It is International Talk Like a Pirate Day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day
(just in case you were wondering what it was that was special about today).

Why it Has to be so Hard to Get into Medical School

Last night, while preparing for today's lecture and cadaver dissection, I had a revelation: I finally understand why it has to be so hard to get into medical school.

I think that medical school can be analogous to marrying a very difficult person who sucks all the life, time and money out of you, but has the potential of being a wonderful life-long partner.

First, you have the courtship period where you follow around other people who have married a similar difficult person many years ago. They acknowledge that the first few years of the marriage is difficult, but admittedly proclaim how wonderfully happy they are now. They dearly love and care for their spouse and feel they are making a difference in the world. They say that by being married to this person they are able to do so much more than they were alone. You are hooked. You begin to court this difficult individual. The privilege of becoming a life long partner to this person becomes your all-consuming desire. Your thoughts continually dwell on how you can show yourself to be a good enough person to marry this individual. You prepare yourself for years. When you finally think you are ready, you apply to the individual's family to ask for permission for the marriage.

Before the marriage, everybody says, "It is going to really suck marrying this person. Are you sure you want to do this? You aren't going to have time to do anything you used to enjoy. You aren't going to be able to spend time with your other friends and family. You won't be able to get enough sleep. You will question this decision again and again." You have to respond, "Yup, I am sure I want to marry this really difficult person." You have to write an essay telling why you want to marry this person. You describe how wonderful you think it will be once you go through the difficult time with this person and you finally get to the stage where you finally enjoy spending time with him/her. In your essay you might even describe some of your experiences spending time with people who have married a similar person many years ago. You have to have an interview with this person's parents and tell them how much you want to marry this person. How committed you are to making this relationship work. How you are willing to go into debt, have no time, and be completely miserable for a number of years to be with this person.

If you finally convince the individual's family/marriage approval committee that you will be a good spouse and that you can put up with this person, they give you approval for the marriage. When you get the approval you are so excited you can barely contain your joy. You almost forget that there are going to be many difficult years ahead before wonderful side of your partner predominates. The individual's family gives you pre-marriage orientation and tells you how bad it is going to be. They say oh, by the way, you won't have time for anything that you used to enjoy, but take care of yourself and stay healthy. Then they ask you to take your oath/marriage vows to be a good spouse to this person no matter what happens.

Then you enter into the difficult marriage. It is different for each person. However, for you it is even worse than the most horrible situation you imagined before the wedding day. Not only do you not get enough sleep and not have any time for other activities or friends, you are constantly worried about not being able to make the relationship work. You constantly doubt yourself – you worry that you won't be able to survive and make it to the good years of the relationship. Or you think that the difficult early years of the relationship will turn you into a different person who won’t be the kind of loving spouse that you wanted be to be once you reach the good years. To add on to all of that, this difficult person is spending all of your money! Unexpected costs come up everywhere and you have had to take out loans to keep this individual's financial appetite satisfied.

Why don't you give up on this taxing relationship? Just say, "Forget this!" Ask for a divorce, and go your separate ways. Oh, to bask in the joy of having time again, of not being stressed, of having a money again, of getting plenty of sleep every night. There are two things that stop you: First, you remember how badly you wanted to marry this person. You remember everything you had to go through to convince the individual's family that you were worthy of him/her. Secondly, you occasionally get a glimpse into what your relationship will be in the future. For a couple hours a week in your "Introduction to a Mature Relationship with a Difficult Person" course you experience what some of the potential of your relationship with this person. For those couple hours, everything seems to make sense. You realize how much good you can do in the world with this person once your relationship matures and you remember why you go through the daily struggle of surviving the relationship.

Just in case you all were wondering, the Introduction to a Mature Relationship with a Difficult Person course is really the Introduction to Clinical Medicine Course that we have every week. (I have written about it a little in earlier blog posts. It is supposed to develop our clinical skills and our listening, compassion and empathy towards patients. I think this class really offers a window into what medicine is suppose to be like while we are going through the horrors of medical school.

Stethoscope Ceremony

Today was the Family Day and Stethoscope Ceremony for the 2007 entering class at the UW medical school. It was really nice to meet every one's families and get my very first stethoscope. (My family couldn't make it because of the early morning time and the long drive down to Seattle. I jokingly adopted one of the faculty members who I met at orientation as a mom for the day. She was really sweet and funny and after the ceremony she came up and gave me a big hug and said, "Congratulations my adopted daughter for the day!"). The stethoscopes were paid for by the UWSOM Alumni Association. The expectation is that after we graduate and start working as physicians we will donate to the Alumni Association so they can buy stethoscopes and stuff like that for future classes. I felt a little bit bad because I will probably be working in Africa making next to nothing and won't be able to donate. Oh well, the stethoscope is nice though.

The only natural thing to do after getting your very own stethoscope on the fourth day of medical school is to pretend to be all doctorish and take a bunch of pictures with it. I have included some for your make-fun-of-student-doctor enjoyment:

Here is my stethoscope in its nice little box.

Here I am with my stethoscope around my neck. Do I look like someone you would be willing to trust with your health and medical decisions? Wait, don't answer that. (I wouldn't trust me with my health and medical decisions!)

Hmmm, do I actually have a heartbeat?

Greatest Hopes and Fears

We have this class which started the first day of fall quarter called, 'Introduction to Clinical Medicine' and it continues until our rotations (in the hospital) start in 3rd year. The purpose of the course is to get us comfortable with 'bedside teaching' - interviewing patients, learning compassion and communication skills, learning how to show empathy of our patients and to help us learn the physical exam.

The instructors for this 'ICM' course are awesome. They are funny, compassionate and very enthusiastic about teaching. All the older students say that this is one of the best and most enjoyable classes in the first two years. As our first assignments for this class we were supposed to write down our greatest hope and fear about becoming a physician. They compiled the list of everyone hopes and fears and it was a very inspirational experience to read through it. Everyone has very high hopes for their medical education. I decided to share a couple of them with all of you: :-)

I hope:

"to inspire my patients" (1st year medical student)

"I can develop relationships with my patients that help them feel safe, respected and understood" (1st year medical student)

"to complete the first year and still have my sanity at the end..." (1st year medical student

"that I will learn to truly listen" (1st year medical student)

"that many years from now when I am about to die, I can close my eyes and know that the world is a better place because I became a physician" (me)

"to make a difference in the lives of others, to make a difference in the way that health care is used and administered in this country" (1st year medical student)

I fear:

"that I don't really have what it takes to succeed..." (1st year medical student)

"hurting a patient due to ignorance or negligence" (1st year medical student)

"that I will harm a patient" (me)

"failing anatomy..." (1st year medical student)

"that I won't have enough time for the people I care most about" (1st year medical student)

"that I won't enjoy being a physician" (1st year medical student)

"that I may one day abandon the Marxist-Leninist ideals that led me to become a physician and instead use medicine to buy a big house and drive expensive cars, thereby turning into the gutless, spineless, and soulless peon of American corporate capitalism" (1st year medical student)

"that under the withering effects of cynicism and the tantalizing appeal of opportunity I'll lose sight of my primary goal to work with people who are without means to pay for health care under our current system" (1st year medical student)

These are our hopes and fears now. We will see if they are the same 4 years from now (assuming we all pass). Supposedly there is a general trend in medical school for students to loose their idealism and become cynical. I really hope that doesn't happen to me or my inspirational classmates.

My House in Seattle

Although my life has become exponentially less interesting since I have returned from Africa, I still find blogging to be a soothing release for my now very stressful life. Therefore I have decided to subject you all to some very boring blog entries about my mundane life.

Some of you asked about how I was able to find a house in Seattle really close to the UW campus while I was in Africa. It really was an answer to prayer.

During my work in Uganda I started emailing some girls who were renting out a room in a Seattle house. Everything looked good until they asked me to come by the next day and sign the lease and give a deposit check. I told them I was in Africa and asked if they could email me the lease, etc., but they decided I wasn't worth the effort and found someone else to rent the room. I was a little frustrated, and quite worried that I was going to come back to the states 3 weeks before med school started and not have anyplace to live. On my SLOW Ugandan internet connection I posted a housing request on the UW school of medicine housing board saying that I was an incoming med student who needed a place to live. I stated that I pretty quiet, fairly tidy, and wanted a specific price range, but most importantly I was currently in Africa and needed someone who was understanding of my situation.

The very same morning Kate and Melissa (two 3rd year medical students) decided they should rent out their spare 'study room' this year to save money and went on the UWSOM housing board. My housing request is the first one they saw and they immediately decided that I had to be the person who lived with them next year. (Kate did Peace corps in Zambia for 3 and half years and returned only 2 weeks before she started medical school so she knew exactly how I felt. Melissa had also travelled extensively). They emailed me and told me about the house - it was absolutely perfect. They were so nice, they saved the room for me and told me not to worry about the lease or the payment until I actually moved in.

The house is awesome. It is within walking distance of the UW school of medicine, is very clean and decorated with pictures and many wall-hangings from south eastern Africa. Kate and Melissa are also extremely friendly and fun to hang out with.


This is the door to Kate's room, immediately across the hall from my door. She bought this Giraffe wall hanging during her time in Zambia.

My room is fairly small, but has a huge walk-in closet. Kate suggested that I put my bed in the closet and then make a really nice study area with the rest of the room. She said only half-jokingly, "because you will spend more time studying than sleeping for the next 4 years!"

After looking at the space I decided she was right and so I put my bed in the closet. The closet looked a little bit like it was hit with the ugly stick (a magic stick that makes things ugly), so I decided to do my own version of, "Extremely Closet Make-Over, East African Addition."

The East African fabrics at the head of my bead in the now beautified ugly closet. The blue and black print is from the Maasai market in Morogoro, Tanzania, the red and black giraffe pillow case is from Malawi, and the white and orange scarfs (yes, I know, the orange doesn't match the red) are from Ethiopia.

The map, money and picture decorations at the foot of my bed. I bet you all didn't know that I am so rich I can affort to have 1,000s in bills taped on my wall! Just kidding. I am currently the defination of someone who is very poor. The bills on the wall from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi only total a couple of US dollars even though they are thousands of shillings.

Here is the 'nice study area' which is in my actual bedroom. Kate and Melissa were kind enough to leave the white board in the room f0r me to use. We have been learning the heart and the lung in Anatomy this week.

Some more of my room. I tried to cut my desk out of the picture because it had a pile of Anatomy books and study materials on it, but it didn't really work because you can still tell that my desk is really messy.

This is Melissa, my housemate. She is a 3rd year medical student at UW and is currently doing her internal medicine rotations. She is really nice. She is originally from Montana and is at UW through the WWAMI program. University of Washington is the only medical school for 5 states (Washington,Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho). WWAMI students do their first year of medical school in their home state and then come to the UW Seattle campus for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year.