As I was sleeping today I had a dream that we were at some swim meet. I say 'we' because like half the class was there. Anyway, we kept all of our stuff in these lockers, and I kept forgetting the combination to mine. I couldn't think of the combination in my dream, but if I got distracted, I would open it. Anyway, we thought it would be a good idea to use a stethoscope to see if we can hear the lock click into place as we spun it. For some reason the very cartoonish nature of that idea didn't seem ridiculous to me. Well, it didn't work. After I woke up, I had to try it. I grabbed a lock and broke out my stethoscope. Yeah...it doesn't work in real life either.
Does anyone else get really giddy around exam time? I don't know if it's just the constant studying and stress, but everything seems hilarious to me. Around 1:30 in the morning the night before the Biochem exam I was looking around at the failblog (www.failblog.org) and laughing till I could barely breathe. The stuff wasn't even that funny. I try to enjoy the little moments during this year of torture.
Do you think the first time someone first cleaned out the skull he was like "Jackpot!" and just went to town naming stuff? There are like 900 parts between your skull and your brain. That's ridiculous. I did like the lecture where we all had skulls, though. It seemed like a rehearsal for Hamlet. (I was going to make a Bill Brasky joke here. For the two of you who would have gotten it, I'll drive an ice cream truck to school for the next skull lecture.)
*24 SPOILER ALERT* I can't believe Jack got exposed to the bioweapon... I think he'll be ok, but this might end up being he's 4th official death.
If I had to choose between invisibility and flight (and fast flying speed), I'd have to go with flight. I know I could be a great special ops guy with invisibility, but those guys are pretty much invisible anyway. And I'd feel like such a creep using my invisibility in most circumstances. I'm trying to think of a non-creepy use of invisibility, and all I can come up with is walking home through Over the Rhine without getting shot. Granted, that's extremely useful but I can just call a cab. But with flying I would never have to walk anywhere again. It'd be so much more practical on a day to day basis. And how cool would it be to battle with a bird? Every flight would be an epic event between me and my avian adversaries.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
It's Everywhere!
You know how you have those weeks where you're a day behind? You could swear all day Thursday that it's Wednesday and then you don't know when the week ends? Yeah, that's a pretty poor excuse for this being a day late, but I did just wake up from a nap.
All the time when I drive now, I see medical abbreviations on license plates. "EDV-452" "PKU-118". Just yesterday I saw a car that had "ADA" on it's plate. I thought, "I sure hope that car doesn't have SCIDS..."
You know how our parents/grandparents aren't exactly good with technology? I don't exactly blame them because microwaves were invented in their lives, and the best thing they had was sliced bread. But I can't help but think some of the things they say are intentional. "Can this phone get the internets?" I feel like when I'm older I'm going to say stuff like that or use slang incorrectly just for fun. "That homework assignment is such a noob."
Can you imagine learning anatomy if all the stuff was in English? "Under the stern mother is the spider matter which covers the brain." Really? I couldn't even take that seriously. Last block was mostly correct with the flexors and brevis and whatnot, but sphenoid probably means something like butterfly. "Seriously? They named it the 'butterfly bone'?" I'm happy this is all thinly veiled Latin terminology.
Globoside: the glycolipid that's better than you, and he knows it.
All the time when I drive now, I see medical abbreviations on license plates. "EDV-452" "PKU-118". Just yesterday I saw a car that had "ADA" on it's plate. I thought, "I sure hope that car doesn't have SCIDS..."
You know how our parents/grandparents aren't exactly good with technology? I don't exactly blame them because microwaves were invented in their lives, and the best thing they had was sliced bread. But I can't help but think some of the things they say are intentional. "Can this phone get the internets?" I feel like when I'm older I'm going to say stuff like that or use slang incorrectly just for fun. "That homework assignment is such a noob."
Can you imagine learning anatomy if all the stuff was in English? "Under the stern mother is the spider matter which covers the brain." Really? I couldn't even take that seriously. Last block was mostly correct with the flexors and brevis and whatnot, but sphenoid probably means something like butterfly. "Seriously? They named it the 'butterfly bone'?" I'm happy this is all thinly veiled Latin terminology.
Globoside: the glycolipid that's better than you, and he knows it.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Spring Break
As it turns out, Pedialyte does wonders for preventing and curing hangovers. For those of you who saw me on the Friday after exams, that was my negative control night. Our first night in Panama City Beach, I made sure to drink of bunch before bed, and I woke up feeling great. It's a must have for every fridge.
The most SPRING BREAK!!! moment down in PCB was when we saw this giant John Deere farm implement flying down the beach. Driven by three drunken frat guys. They decided to do a doughnut in the sand right in front of us. I was legitimately concerned. For some reason I doubt they got caught. At least the only death we heard about was from alcohol and not from being crushed by a tractor.
In real-world clinical news, we were grilling out one night near the pool. A guy was on the second floor and his friends down in the hot tub wanted him to come down. His alcohol-addled judgment thought it would be a good idea to lower himself down and then jump. We're watching as this guy hangs down from the second floor of this parking garage and then lets go. This was like a real life YouTube video. As he's falling, his legs clip a railing and he flips back and lands awkwardly on his neck/side. Thankfully he sat right up because there was a good chance we were going to have to use our cervical spine stabilizing skills. Basil and I jog over there, and the guy is holding an obviously broken wrist. Basil worked as an EMT and on a trauma team, so he checks the guy out and says it's a broken radius. The guy's impressive BAC managed to keep his pain at a 5, but he was still not doing so well. Meanwhile, his friends are laughing from the hot tub and trying to throw him a beer. We're like "Hey guys, he needs to be taken to the hospital." They disagree. "He obviously has a broken arm." They still do nothing. At this point the guy starts wandering around. We're yelling at him to help support the arm so he doesn't make it worse. Eventually he wanders back, and a girl offers to drive him. She may have been the only one down there that was legally able to drive. As we're getting him up, some friends of his come down from the elevators and are going to go with him. One of them goes to use a jersey as a sling. He ties it right around the break point. There is much screaming. We said just to keep the sling off and he'll be alright. Hopefully his buzz lasted him till he got seen because they probably weren't going to give him any pain meds.
A really sweet moment happened at the end of 4th block: I made a folder on my desktop called "First Year". It's so good to toss a whole class in there. "Get outta here, Physio. I'm done with you."
Does anyone else think the 'buccinator' needs to be renamed 'baconator'? Seriously, I can't look at that without thinking about two beef patties, cheese, and six strips of crispy bacon.
The most SPRING BREAK!!! moment down in PCB was when we saw this giant John Deere farm implement flying down the beach. Driven by three drunken frat guys. They decided to do a doughnut in the sand right in front of us. I was legitimately concerned. For some reason I doubt they got caught. At least the only death we heard about was from alcohol and not from being crushed by a tractor.
In real-world clinical news, we were grilling out one night near the pool. A guy was on the second floor and his friends down in the hot tub wanted him to come down. His alcohol-addled judgment thought it would be a good idea to lower himself down and then jump. We're watching as this guy hangs down from the second floor of this parking garage and then lets go. This was like a real life YouTube video. As he's falling, his legs clip a railing and he flips back and lands awkwardly on his neck/side. Thankfully he sat right up because there was a good chance we were going to have to use our cervical spine stabilizing skills. Basil and I jog over there, and the guy is holding an obviously broken wrist. Basil worked as an EMT and on a trauma team, so he checks the guy out and says it's a broken radius. The guy's impressive BAC managed to keep his pain at a 5, but he was still not doing so well. Meanwhile, his friends are laughing from the hot tub and trying to throw him a beer. We're like "Hey guys, he needs to be taken to the hospital." They disagree. "He obviously has a broken arm." They still do nothing. At this point the guy starts wandering around. We're yelling at him to help support the arm so he doesn't make it worse. Eventually he wanders back, and a girl offers to drive him. She may have been the only one down there that was legally able to drive. As we're getting him up, some friends of his come down from the elevators and are going to go with him. One of them goes to use a jersey as a sling. He ties it right around the break point. There is much screaming. We said just to keep the sling off and he'll be alright. Hopefully his buzz lasted him till he got seen because they probably weren't going to give him any pain meds.
A really sweet moment happened at the end of 4th block: I made a folder on my desktop called "First Year". It's so good to toss a whole class in there. "Get outta here, Physio. I'm done with you."
Does anyone else think the 'buccinator' needs to be renamed 'baconator'? Seriously, I can't look at that without thinking about two beef patties, cheese, and six strips of crispy bacon.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
My Organs have a Conversation...
This conversation began about 20 minutes into the Biochem exam on Monday:
Stomach: *YAWN* What's going on guys? I just caught a quick nappy nap to get charged up for tonight.
Heart: Shhh! Brain's taking an exam.
Lungs: Dude, leave him alone, he needs to concentrate.
Stomach: Whatever man, we should go do something. Hey Intestines! Wake up!
Intestines: What's going on, man? Is it time to PAR-TAY?
Heart: No! Stop it, Brain needs quiet.
Nerves: Brain, we have reports of action occurring in the digestive system, please advise.
Brain: Guys! What are you doing!? I need to take this exam, it just started. Now what's going on down there?
Stomach: The rest of the body is being lame, and me and Intestines want to go have some fun.
Brain: Totally not okay right now. I need to get back to work, I better not hear you again.
Hand: This sucks man, I hate having to draw just in these tiny circles....
Lungs: Did you hear that Stomach and Intestines? Settle down and leave everyone else alone.
Intestines: Sure, that sounds exactly like something I'm going to do. *making the wanking motion* Stomach, if they're not going to go out and have some fun, let's have a party in here.
Stomach: I can dig that. Let me turn on some beats. *Huge bass bumping*
Heart: Turn that off! Brain is going to get pissed!
Nerves: Brain, more bad news. There is a lot of rumbling going on in the intestinal tract. This hurts quite a bit and isn't getting any better.
Brain: WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING DOWN THERE?! I'M TRYING TO REMEMBER WHAT MYC DOES!
Intestines: Dude, you need to calm down. We're just hanging out down, having a little party. Pancreas brought a keg and we're just rocking out.
Brain: I can't handle this right now. You guys need to give me 3 hours of peace. Is that really too much to ask? Stomach, I mean it, if you don't calm down, I'm not going to go to Chipotle for a month.
Stomach: Oh, we're threatening each other are we? Fine. Intestines, you think you can help me with a little 'evacuation' procedure?
Intestines: OH YEAH! My little sigmoid arm is primed and ready. External Sphincter isn't going to know what hit him.
Brain: NO! No, anything but that. Fine, can you guys just give me an hour to finish this? I swear I'll go as fast as I can.
Stomach: Alright, you have an hour, but after that, we can't be responsible for what happens.
Brain: Why couldn't this happen during Micro...
I won't be posting again till after break because I'll be down in Panama City, Florida enjoying the beach and lack of school. I'll let you know how the Pedialyte experiment goes upon my return.
Stomach: *YAWN* What's going on guys? I just caught a quick nappy nap to get charged up for tonight.
Heart: Shhh! Brain's taking an exam.
Lungs: Dude, leave him alone, he needs to concentrate.
Stomach: Whatever man, we should go do something. Hey Intestines! Wake up!
Intestines: What's going on, man? Is it time to PAR-TAY?
Heart: No! Stop it, Brain needs quiet.
Nerves: Brain, we have reports of action occurring in the digestive system, please advise.
Brain: Guys! What are you doing!? I need to take this exam, it just started. Now what's going on down there?
Stomach: The rest of the body is being lame, and me and Intestines want to go have some fun.
Brain: Totally not okay right now. I need to get back to work, I better not hear you again.
Hand: This sucks man, I hate having to draw just in these tiny circles....
Lungs: Did you hear that Stomach and Intestines? Settle down and leave everyone else alone.
Intestines: Sure, that sounds exactly like something I'm going to do. *making the wanking motion* Stomach, if they're not going to go out and have some fun, let's have a party in here.
Stomach: I can dig that. Let me turn on some beats. *Huge bass bumping*
Heart: Turn that off! Brain is going to get pissed!
Nerves: Brain, more bad news. There is a lot of rumbling going on in the intestinal tract. This hurts quite a bit and isn't getting any better.
Brain: WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING DOWN THERE?! I'M TRYING TO REMEMBER WHAT MYC DOES!
Intestines: Dude, you need to calm down. We're just hanging out down, having a little party. Pancreas brought a keg and we're just rocking out.
Brain: I can't handle this right now. You guys need to give me 3 hours of peace. Is that really too much to ask? Stomach, I mean it, if you don't calm down, I'm not going to go to Chipotle for a month.
Stomach: Oh, we're threatening each other are we? Fine. Intestines, you think you can help me with a little 'evacuation' procedure?
Intestines: OH YEAH! My little sigmoid arm is primed and ready. External Sphincter isn't going to know what hit him.
Brain: NO! No, anything but that. Fine, can you guys just give me an hour to finish this? I swear I'll go as fast as I can.
Stomach: Alright, you have an hour, but after that, we can't be responsible for what happens.
Brain: Why couldn't this happen during Micro...
I won't be posting again till after break because I'll be down in Panama City, Florida enjoying the beach and lack of school. I'll let you know how the Pedialyte experiment goes upon my return.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Little Med School Moments
I love those little moments in med school where I'm really happy I learned something. Like how we learned that because the left testicular vein is attached to the renal vein, most guys hang left. Or how I explained to my friend where the symptoms of lactose intolerance come from. I've looked at my hands for years and understood that there were tendons there, but didn't get the whole structure. I'm still amazed that when you wiggle your fingers the back of your arm moves. Possibly my favorite is when I'm in the bathroom at a bar, and I can't help but wish I could somehow control my ADH levels.
For all of you out there having a bad week, wasn't Daylight Savings just a slap in the face? This was like the worst possible weekend to lose an hour. The only upside is that next week I get an extra hour to party.
It's Lent now, and I try to be really aware about eating meat on Fridays. But I feel like I've kinda taken it too far. Like before I went to make a cup of tea, I was like, "Whoa! Is there meat in this?" I'm not saying I wouldn't drink bacon flavored tea, I'm just saying I don't have any.
Was anyone else super excited when Dr. Menon FOILed (p+q)^2? I haven't seen that in forever.
There are moments where I'm disappointed with myself. Like during the upper limb joint clinical correlation there was a picture of a guy with his wrist cut almost completely off from medial to lateral with a radial saw. And all I could think of was, "Well, wouldn't that be an ulnar saw?" That's a terrible joke, and I still told Bill.
So I've been getting kinda sick lately, and I realized that after almost a year of med school I have no advantage in treating a cold. Sleep, Zicam, chicken soup, and orange juice. That will be made up for when we bring a whole bunch of Pedialyte on spring break with us. My only concern is that inner voice in me that's going to think, "I wonder how well this stuff really works..." And then I drink myself into oblivion to test the upper limits of its rehydration abilities. It's all in the name of science so it's totally ok.
For all of you out there having a bad week, wasn't Daylight Savings just a slap in the face? This was like the worst possible weekend to lose an hour. The only upside is that next week I get an extra hour to party.
It's Lent now, and I try to be really aware about eating meat on Fridays. But I feel like I've kinda taken it too far. Like before I went to make a cup of tea, I was like, "Whoa! Is there meat in this?" I'm not saying I wouldn't drink bacon flavored tea, I'm just saying I don't have any.
Was anyone else super excited when Dr. Menon FOILed (p+q)^2? I haven't seen that in forever.
There are moments where I'm disappointed with myself. Like during the upper limb joint clinical correlation there was a picture of a guy with his wrist cut almost completely off from medial to lateral with a radial saw. And all I could think of was, "Well, wouldn't that be an ulnar saw?" That's a terrible joke, and I still told Bill.
So I've been getting kinda sick lately, and I realized that after almost a year of med school I have no advantage in treating a cold. Sleep, Zicam, chicken soup, and orange juice. That will be made up for when we bring a whole bunch of Pedialyte on spring break with us. My only concern is that inner voice in me that's going to think, "I wonder how well this stuff really works..." And then I drink myself into oblivion to test the upper limits of its rehydration abilities. It's all in the name of science so it's totally ok.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Exams = Bad Days
Yesterday I was in a terrible mood. It wasn't like I woke up and got punched in the groin by a gnome, then I'd understand why I was so pissy. I was just in a really bad mood. I suppose that happens each round of exams, and this one probably moreso. I think it's the combination of feeling unprepared, studying a lot, and lack of sleep that just add up and make us have those random bad days. And I felt extra bad because when I was in the Gross Lab, Jess asked me if I was having a bad day. Just totally out of nowhere. I was like, "Wow, I must look really angry." I feel bad because it's not the people in my life making me angry, it's school. Next time you see someone having a bad day, give them a hug, they probably need it.
My last car, 1993 Pontiac Bonneville with 240,000 miles on it, didn't have heat. It had enough that I wouldn't die driving it around Wisconsin in the winter, but it couldn't actually get warm. So now that I have a new car, I still don't turn on the heat. This past winter I would just be cold, but I didn't mind. I got used to not having heat and just dealt with it. I actually feel bad when I turn it on because it seems like a luxury. It's kinda like how we just deal with med school. "Eh, it's just how life is."
I was really excited when Dr. Menon talked about the fainting goats in class yesterday. If you haven't seen the video, watch it. It's hilarious.
Has anyone ever noticed how sharp paper is? We're constantly surrounded by large, rectangular knives. Why is this allowed?!
You know how you narrow an exam question down to 2 or 3 answers? I've noticed that in some classes (Physio) I'm terrible at guessing the correct one. Like, if I flipped a coin or rolled a dice, I would get better results than if I went with what I thought. But in Biochem I'm totally the opposite. I can usually narrow it down, and then I guess right. That was most obvious to me when I feel horrible walking out of a Biochem exam but then do decent, as opposed to feeling a little less horrible after Physio and then getting a punch in the crotch when I get my grade.
(Sorry about all the crotch punching anaolgies. Also, "die" is the correct singular form of dice, but I didn't want to roll a "die" during a Physio exam. I was dying enough already... And I wasn't wearing a tye-dyed shirt. Or casting metal on a die. Or dicing some vegetables. All I know is whatever I answer, no dice.)
My last car, 1993 Pontiac Bonneville with 240,000 miles on it, didn't have heat. It had enough that I wouldn't die driving it around Wisconsin in the winter, but it couldn't actually get warm. So now that I have a new car, I still don't turn on the heat. This past winter I would just be cold, but I didn't mind. I got used to not having heat and just dealt with it. I actually feel bad when I turn it on because it seems like a luxury. It's kinda like how we just deal with med school. "Eh, it's just how life is."
I was really excited when Dr. Menon talked about the fainting goats in class yesterday. If you haven't seen the video, watch it. It's hilarious.
Has anyone ever noticed how sharp paper is? We're constantly surrounded by large, rectangular knives. Why is this allowed?!
You know how you narrow an exam question down to 2 or 3 answers? I've noticed that in some classes (Physio) I'm terrible at guessing the correct one. Like, if I flipped a coin or rolled a dice, I would get better results than if I went with what I thought. But in Biochem I'm totally the opposite. I can usually narrow it down, and then I guess right. That was most obvious to me when I feel horrible walking out of a Biochem exam but then do decent, as opposed to feeling a little less horrible after Physio and then getting a punch in the crotch when I get my grade.
(Sorry about all the crotch punching anaolgies. Also, "die" is the correct singular form of dice, but I didn't want to roll a "die" during a Physio exam. I was dying enough already... And I wasn't wearing a tye-dyed shirt. Or casting metal on a die. Or dicing some vegetables. All I know is whatever I answer, no dice.)
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Whole Can of.....
Dr. Menon used the phrase "...that just opened a whole can of worms." and it got me thinking about how bad that would be. If I had a can of worms that got opened somehow, what would happen? They'd writhe around and a few would fall out onto the table. Is that really a big deal? That's more of an annoyance. "Dang it. The can of worms got open. I have to shove those guys back in there." I think a better phrase would be 'can of killer bees'. "OH CRAP! THE CAN OF KILLER BEES GOT OPENED! RUN!"
I just now noticed the little 'labels' thing on the bottom of posting. Not that I'm going to use it, but the examples it gives are "scooters, vacation, fall". Scooters? Really? That's the first thing you're going to give as an example of something to tag? Not 'family' or 'friends'? Scooters? Why not just say 'paper airplanes'.
On TV today there was a commercial for a degree in Criminal Justice. I was thinking that that sounds kinda overly important. "I'm going to bring JUSTICE to criminals!" We don't call our degree "Health Bringer".
You know who I feel bad for? The last search result in Google. Unless you're searching for something ridiculously specific, noboby's ever going to see that last result. Why even have 700,000 results? If I have to look past page 4 I'm just gonna redefine my search. In honor of that last result, here's a link to the last result in a search for "Medicine". I hope it's not porn.
Last Result
(It's actually a terrible acted video encouraging people to read the Bible.)
UPDATE: So, Google actually caps off the results around 1,000, even if medicine gave over 400 million results. That was probably a good idea. I'm still not making it to page 87 in a search.
I just now noticed the little 'labels' thing on the bottom of posting. Not that I'm going to use it, but the examples it gives are "scooters, vacation, fall". Scooters? Really? That's the first thing you're going to give as an example of something to tag? Not 'family' or 'friends'? Scooters? Why not just say 'paper airplanes'.
On TV today there was a commercial for a degree in Criminal Justice. I was thinking that that sounds kinda overly important. "I'm going to bring JUSTICE to criminals!" We don't call our degree "Health Bringer".
You know who I feel bad for? The last search result in Google. Unless you're searching for something ridiculously specific, noboby's ever going to see that last result. Why even have 700,000 results? If I have to look past page 4 I'm just gonna redefine my search. In honor of that last result, here's a link to the last result in a search for "Medicine". I hope it's not porn.
Last Result
(It's actually a terrible acted video encouraging people to read the Bible.)
UPDATE: So, Google actually caps off the results around 1,000, even if medicine gave over 400 million results. That was probably a good idea. I'm still not making it to page 87 in a search.
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