All you need is pasta and salad

So, I used to be pretty skeptical about these "one-pot" recipes. But they really work. Here is one I've tried a couple of times.

ONE POT WONDER TOMATO BASIL PASTA
(taken from www.apronstringsblog.com/one-pot-wonder-tomato-basil-pasta-recipe)

Serves 4-6

12 ounces linguine pasta
1 can (15 oz) diced tomatoes with liquid
1 medium sweet onion, cut in thin strip *I skipped this
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced *I used crushed garlic from Trader Joes
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons dried oregano leaves
4 1/2 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons EVOO
1 bunch basil, diced
Parmesan cheese for garnish

1. Place pasta, tomatoes, onion, and garlic in a large pot. Pour in vegetable broth. Sprinkle on top the pepper flakes and oregano. Drizzle top with oil.

2. Cover pot and bring to boil. Reduce to a low simmer and keep covered and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring every 2 minutes or so. Cook until almost all the liquid has evaporated.

3. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add basil leaves and stir pasta several times to distribute the liquid in the bottom of the pot evenly throughout the pasta as you are serving. Serve with parmesan cheese.


I also paired this with a a salad:


SAVORY PEAR POMEGRANATE GORGONZOLA PASTA
(taken from www.serenabakessimplyfromscratch.com/2014/01/savory-pear-pomegranate-gorgonzola.html)

1/3 cup while balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup EVOO
2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon honey
1/2 pound baby salad greens
2 whole red anjou pears, sliced thin *I used 1 bosc pear instead
1/4 cup gorgonzola or bleu cheese, crumbed *I was more generous ;)
1 whole pomegranate, seeded
1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped *pecans would be okay too

1. In a blender, combine white balsamic vinegar, EVOO, water, sea salt, pepper, and honey. Blend until creamy. *I found this was A LOT of dressing. I used it for additional salads two-three more times.

2. Add salad greens and pears to large bowl and toss with desired amount of dressing to coat pears to prevent browning.

3. Add gorgonzola, pomegranate seeds, and walnuts. Toss well and serve.

But now I'm back

Well, it's been a while. I feel like I've been less inclined to write and more likely to amass pictures that I want to post. This will probably ring even more true as boards study time inches closer and closer. We are already on Block 4 aka Pathophysiology aka the last block of pre-clinicals! Block 3 was all neuro and psych and totally up my alley. And as the new class started, it really sunk in that we are not the babies of the school anymore. Eek!

Orientation week party for the new kids on the block.

Med school is really hard.

Like really hard. Like so much so that your MS3 friends will bring you treats from their vacation.

In other news, my good friend L from like preschool (seriously) is getting married!!! I'm a little bummed that I won't be able to attend the wedding. It's on the East Coast and it would be nearly impossible with my class schedule. :(

BUT, I was able to attend the bridal shower, which was so much fun! And here are the cupcakes to prove it.

September Break Fun:

Chicken katsu.

Restaurant by my house that I did not know existed. 

Brunch with the fam.

Shakshuka for the win. 

And hot cocoa. Of course. 

I like to eat.

July (thus far)

Pizza night extravaganza with Year 1 Anatomy group!

K and I have an unhealthy relationship with colored pens.

Fam bam came up for a few days and wanted to do touristy things. Exhibit A: Sacramento River cruise.

Projected the World Cup finals at our lecture hall at school! Oh snap. 

Congrats to Germany! By the time the next WC rolls around I'll be finishing my intern year, ha!

This is what happens when you have neuroanatomy lab with clay. Brain modeling or professor modeling? ;)
All credit goes to the group that so expertly made this.

Harry Potter trivia night! Medical Muggles: Wingardium Mediosa placed a respectable 4th out of 46 teams.

On to MS2

Today is the first day of summer - the season, I mean. It's also the penultimate day of our "summer" break. These last six weeks have just flown by. I guess that was partly my fault since I split up my break. I did a two week "mini" psych clerkship where I followed around psychiatrists on the consult service in the mornings and outpatient clinics in the afternoons. Since I was going to be around, I figured I might as well be at clinic as much as I could as well. This meant the timing of things would be a little tricky. I ended up going home for 2 weeks after finals, then coming back up for a couple of weeks, and going home again for another 2 weeks.

I did learn a lot doing the summer program, though. My attending wanted to make me feel like I was part of the team so she had me do an oral presentation on the neurocircuitry of OCD and also present a paper for journal club. It was pretty cool being challenged at the level of an MS3. It makes me less nervous about the transition to third year. Anyway, psychiatry is definitely a tough field to go into. It's not necessarily physically demanding, but very much so mentally and emotionally. I really really liked being on the consult service though. It's a nice mix of medicine and psychiatry since these patients are usually brought in for a medical condition and need to be evaluated for an underlying psych issue or develop something throughout the course of their inpatient stay.

The rest of break was a mix of being sick right after finals, hanging out with friends, and eating a lot as usual.

Life lesson learned: I like inpatient much much more than outpatient - at least for psych.
Movies seen: 3 (X-Men, The Fault in Our Stars, 22 Jump Street)
Books read: 6
Binge-watched: alllllll of Sherlock and Game of Thrones season 4

The Fault in Our Stars was amazing. Amazing. Amazing. It's such a charming story and I bawled all throughout the book and movie. I'm a sap for YA lit. I tore through the Maze Runner series during the break. The movie comes out in September. Cannot wait. In the meantime, it's 12 weeks of Brain and Behavior and as many World Cup matches we can watch on the huge screens in our lecture halls.

Wet burrito at CaCao.

Traditional post-finals Porto's outing  with med school friend A. So happy!

Mmmmm cappuccino mousse.

Baked my brother brownies and a cake made with turmeric as soon as I got home. What a spoiled brat.

My brother's all-time favorite food. My grandmother made this for him even though it's blazing hot. It's yogurt-mint stew with meat/wheat balls and chicken.

Move night with high school friends. Those on the left are roasted strawberry-balsamic reduction-greek yogurt popsicles. The ones on the left are margarita mix-greek yogurt popsicles. 

I decided to chop off my hair for new beginnings. Wish me luck with Year 2!

Block 2 reflections

Block 2 ended about two weeks ago and the few weeks leading up to the end were really, really, really stressful. Instead of our finals being written by the professors - like how our biweekly exams regularly are - we were treated to boards-style questions. Now, I know this is good practice for when we actually do take the board exam next year, but it was nerve-wracking nevertheless. I knew I had a good buffer going into each exam, but I was still nervous. Thoughts about the classes this block -

Pharmacology - I absolutely loved this class. I love learning about the different drugs, classes, their mechanisms, etc. I find it so clinically useful and important, especially during clinic when I have to go through my patients' medication lists.

Microbiology - I admit, at first I was a little confused with this class. Based on the recommendations of previous years, the class was shifted to "self-study," with all of the lectures pre-recorded as online modules. Now I know that this shouldn't be so different from our regular coursework - just pretend that you didn't go to the live lecture and watched it online. But there were A LOT of online modules and on top of that, each week we had mandatory case discussions. It seemed very overwhelming at first and I did okay on the first quiz but not super hot. Then I figured out how to actually study for this class. Micro is a lot of memorization but if you understand some basic concepts, it makes things a lot easier. I ordered the Lippincott Microcards which were a godsend. I used the online modules as a guide on what to study and focused more on the microcards. I liked having everything about a bug on a single flashcard, instead of having to swipe through slides. Also, I realized that the key to Micro is repetition. I would spend 15 minutes everyday going through the cards and it really solidified the material for me. I'm definitely a believer in spending more time on something now to save time on it later.

ENRG - otherwise known as Endocrinology, Nutrition, Reproduction, Genetics, a 9.5 unit whopper of a class, the one everyone fears. I started out okay, then totally f*cked up on the second exam. Yes, I am keeping the expletive because it is so necessary. I had sort of a panic attack-like state after that. I was really frustrated at having messed up on that section of the test. It would be one thing if I hadn't put in the work and not studied, but I really had. So being me, I started catastrophizing (that's a real word btw) and was convinced that I was on the road to failing the class. I had to realize that my studying for that class was not necessarily efficient or correct and had to adjust accordingly. I quit going to lectures since I was not learning anything in class and was taking notes verbatim. Instead, I listened to them at home at 1.5x speed, but pausing every so often to look things up, take some notes, and really trying to actively learn the material at my own pace. And instead of just learning whatever was on the slide, I tried to ask questions and manipulate the material to really gauge my understanding. And it worked! Phew!

Immunology - not super exciting in my humble opinion, but I do have an appreciation for the subject. I just can't take it when the names of things give you absolutely no clue to their function. Difference between IL2 and IL6? Yah, go ahead and figure that out without memorization.

Pathology - OMG, I thought Histology was over??? Hahahhahahahah. One of my closest college friends is applying to Path residency later this year. I, however, will not be. ;)

Doctoring - this block was focused on interviewing skills and note-writing. I'm glad to say going to clinic biweekly makes this such a breeze. It's so fun to have actors come in and pretend to be real patients that you get to examine. They are so good and do provide useful feedback.

Overall - I've learned that I may not be such a classroom person after all, and watching the podcasts may actually be a better fit for me. And even though I am terrified of the boards in the back of my mind, I actually feel a little better about them after having done fairly well on all the NBME exams. I've come a long way since August and there is still plenty to learn. Everything will come in its own time. You just have to enjoy the present.

Move over Jon Snow, because I know something

One of my favorite parts of clinic is seeing patients longitudinally. This is really hard, considering that we students go one or twice per month, the patient may be coming in only every few months or so, and it's by sheer luck which patient you get assigned to see that day. I've had the pleasure of seeing some patients more than once, and tracking their progress.

One of my patients today commented on how much I had improved since the last time we had met (which was almost 7 months ago if I remember correctly). The patient remarked that I seemed more confident and calm...and then apologized if I thought this was insulting. Which was sweet. I wasn't. It's so great to get that feedback and realize that you are learning a lot, even if you feel like you know nothing - which is the sentiment of pretty much every MS1.

It's the little things.

Honduras trip

aka How I spent my Spring Break aka "Remember that time we almost died in Honduras?"

Spring break was a few weeks ago and I spent it doing a medical mission trip in Honduras. How I got involved was totally accidental, too. I recall receiving a mass email from the organization heading the trip, but didn't give it much thought. There would be some lunchtime presentation discussing it sometime during the middle of Block 1 so we'd probably get some reminder. But, it had completely slipped my mind until anatomy partner K brought it up. We went to the talk together and I was hooked.

I had never done something like this before and that was a huge factor in me wanting to go. Some friends had gone during undergrad, but it hadn't interested me much before. Now, I felt like I would actually be part of a team since I have an entire (!) few months of medical school under my belt. It would be an amazing opportunity to travel to Central America (haven't been!) and also get to know my fellow classmates better. If there is one thing I learned while on my senior class trip to Armenia, it's that trips like that tend to bring people closer together (or the opposite, but let's think positively!).

So I signed up. And then I learned Honduras has the #1 highest murder rate in the world. Oh joy. Well, there was no backing out now. I convinced myself that being in a group setting is not the same as being some random tourist and I also made sure to neglect to tell my mother that statistic. Ha! (As to the second "aka" above, that was a running joke between one of my roommates and me during our bus rides to the various clinic sites. Speed + steep mountains = palpitations for yours truly.)

Our team was composed of physicians, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, us MS1s, a couple of MS4s, and two undergrads. We had had biweekly gatherings prior to the trip to prepare and get to know each other better. And in Honduras, we met up with Honduran physicians and dentists, along with some translators too, to round out the group. Here we go!

DAY 1
We literally left the first day of Spring Break, in the wee hours of the morning, and returned in the wee hours of the morning on the last day. This year we would be traveling to Santa Barbara, a new location from previous years that is about a 4 hour bus ride from the capital of Tegucigalpa. And we couldn't even fly out of Sacramento. So we took a 2 hour bus ride to San Francisco, 5 hour flight to El Salvador, 30 minute flight to Tegucigalpa, and...spent the night there to avoid having an even longer travel day. To our delight, there was WiFi in the hotel.

We finally made it to Honduras! Photo credit: A

View from our hotel room in Tegucigalpa.

View from hotel balcony.

DAY 2
Bus ride to Santa Barbara. With a pit stop at Wendy's for lunch. Seriously.

Leaving Tegucigalpa for Santa Barbara.

Homes damaged by a mudslide. 

The streets of Siguatepeque. Photo credit: Z

DAY 3
Today was our first day in clinic and we set up in a school in the Santa Rita area. I was assigned to Lentes for the day - doing eye exams and providing prescription glasses. I was a little glad I wasn't in Medicine on the first day so I could brush up on my Spanish before tackling patient histories. I can't believe how much I've forgotten in just a few years. I need to try and practice more often. We ended up seeing a little under 300 patients today, which is fewer than the average day, but also pretty decent for a first day.

The Lentes team! Photo credit: Z

What I learned while in Central America.

DAY 4
Pharmacy day in Guacamaya! Drugs, drugs, and more drugs. Most of my day was spent counting pills, writing instructions in Spanish, and deciphering the hieroglyphics that is some prescriptions. I vow to write as legibly as possible when I'm grown up and an MD.

DAY 5
Free day! The original plan was to go see the Mayan ruins at Copan, but when people heard it was a 4 hour bus ride (meaning 8 hours in the bus roundtrip), they weren't so enthused anymore. I really really really wanted to see them and I'm so glad our team leaders were able to work things out so that whoever wanted to see the ruins could go while the rest could take a free day to shop or relax or whatever. I mean, c'mon, these are architectural goldmines. Could even be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. No competition.

Traffic.

Photo credit: Z

U-C-L-A. Bruins at the ruins ;)

DAY 6
My Medicine day in Sapote! I was pretty excited to work with our team leader, and kind of got a little shock when he said, "Well, you're the doctor, I'm just here to translate if need be or if you have any questions." Oh dear, I wasn't prepared for that. Glad A and I tag-teamed on a few patients so that between the two of us we could gather a more or less decent history. And then we had to come up with diagnoses and treatment plans so it was kind of cool pretending to know what we were doing. Fake it till you make it, right? Highlight of my day: diagnosing a UTI from an interview I did (alone! in Spanish!) and knowing to prescribe TMP-SMX! It helped that we had had Quiz 5 which covered all of this right before the trip. ;)

DAY 7
Don't remember the town but we passed by Lake Yojoa on the way. Was supposed to finish up Medicine today but due to some team members falling sick, I covered Pharmacy. Which wasn't so bad since I had some more responsibilities so I felt less like a human counter and more like I actually know why I'm giving certain meds to people. We saw a record number of nearly 500 patients today, bringing our weeklong total to over 1600 patients! We also broke the record for number of patients seen for this trip ever and had four clinic days only instead of the usual five. Yay team!

DAY 8
Time to go back to Tegucigalpa. We stopped midway in Siguatepeque to shop shop shop. I managed to buy a few souvenirs and would have liked to buy some more, but I ran out of cash and chickened out on using my card. I really wanted to save that for absolute emergencies and not risk falling victim to identity theft. I had let the bank know exactly when I would be out of the country but was still wary about using my card. But oh well, still got some nice canvas painting for my parents, some small woven baskets and wooden jewelry boxes, and a very interesting gift for the brother. ;)

Laka Yojoa. Photo credit: Z

Painting of Lake Yojoa for my parents. Any resemblance?

More goodies.

DAY 9
Back to the USA! I was ready to leave, but also reluctant. It was nice living in a bubble and being with my classmates practically 24/7 - every night we played Banangrams and Mafia. We bonded and our team really meshed well together. I really miss our adventures already. From geckos in our bathroom to tortillas, refried beans, and plantains at every meal, this was such a wonderful experience, especially since it involved global health. What I'm really surprised about is that I didn't get sick at all. Usually when I travel, I'm the one in my family who gets sick while everyone else is just super. Just plain old good luck I guess. And finally to round out our adventures, as soon as we took off from El Salvador, the oxygen masks dropped in the row in front of us. Funny! But really, it was an unforgettable trip and I'm so thankful for our fundraising efforts - almost every single member of our team was able to cover all their costs. Amazing!

Pupusas during our layover in El Salvador.

The other side

This week we had Rheumatology case presentations for our Immunology class. We were divided into small groups and each member was supposed to act out a part of the patient care team. My group was assigned Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (yes, sometimes it IS lupus!) and I happened to play the part of the patient.

So many times we provide diagnoses and treatment plans to patients - in Doctoring, in clinic, etc. - and may not think too much about them. We come to the conclusion based on the history, the physical exam, lab tests and values, and clinical judgement. It makes sense to us and we explain that as best as we can to the patient. But while I was pretending to the be the patient, I realized just what it's like to be on the other side. This wasn't just a regular PCP appointment, "Hey, you're fine! See you next year." kind of deal. SLE is pretty much a lifetime diagnosis. Yes, it can be managed, but I felt overwhelmed taking that in, especially when you are trying to make sense of these lab values even though you don't have any idea what they mean. You go to see your doctor, concerned about certain symptoms, and then are dealt this huge diagnosis as the cause.

Something to think about.

Do you cook?

As I rushed (why am I always 5-10 minutes later than I intend to be?) to take my usual seat next to A, she turned to ask, "Hey T, do you cook?"

My first thought was, I sure do! But I guess if you get down to the nitty-gritty of it, I still need my mom to make some staples for me that I can then incorporate into meals. Why, you ask? Well, I refuse to touch raw meat. I just...cannot. It doesn't help that we just finished the food-borne pathogens module in Microbio. I'm sure I'll get over it soon, but to quote TV-version Syrio Forel, "Not today."

But I digress. This week I worked on some pasta dishes.

Top with even more parmesan cheese if so desired!

Pesto sauce*
1 clove garlic
1/8 cup pine nuts (I usually add a little more, or throw in some walnuts too)
1/2 cup loosely packed basil leaves (dry works fine too, be sure to adjust measurement)
1/4 cup loosely packed Italian parsley (can substitute spinach or cilantro, too)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Salt as needed (I usually skip)

Blend in a food processor and that's it! I'll usually make double the recipe and keep the rest in the fridge.

My mom had made the chicken for me when she visited a few weeks ago. Basically, chicken breasts that she marinated with various spices like red and black crushed pepper, and baked. I heated them up in the pan and then combined the pasta, chicken, and sauce.

*Recipe taken from my awesome Williams-Sonoma Baking Book.

Since I had a lot of pasta left over, I also made some with meat sauce.

Meat sauce*
1/2 pound ground beef (or turkey)
1 can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons red pepper paste
Garlic
Salt
Black and red dry pepper
Oregano or Italian seasoning

Toss with pasta and done!

*Mom's recipe!

But lest you think I'm some kind of chef-in-training, I am also guilty of doing things that show exactly how much common sense (or as my brother loves to points out, "street smarts") I am blessed with. I had a few frozen meatballs in a tiny little plastic tupperware that I thought I could just stick in the microwave. FOR FIVE MINUTES. There was smoke coming out the microwave, the food, the container, everything. My little tupperware sure lost its brave battle.