Med School Meltdown

This week I had my first med school meltdown. It was about a flat tire...Seriously. I was driving home from school and heard a loud noise, followed by those grating sounds. Okay, I thought, I'm basically a mile from home...maybe I can make it? Yes? Please? Nope. I felt the car slowing down so I quickly exited and put on my hazards. I figured I'd call AAA and get this sorted out quickly so that I could squeeze in some study time until the Peds SIG dinner later that evening.

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Apparently, AAA won't help you if the cardholder is not present. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. I thought I could use my dad's information since my car is registered under my parents' names, but I guess they require a physical presence. At this point, I was on the verge of tears because I didn't know what to do. I was in a No Parking zone in this city that I've lived in for a grand total of 3 months, basically all alone. Good thing it wasn't dark!

The AAA lady gave me the number of a towing shop, suggesting that they could come and switch my tire since I had a spare. I called them and they said that they would only tow the car. Well, tow the car where?!?! What do I do after that?!?! That wasn't useful to me! I decided my next best option (besides begging a friend to drive out and help me) would be to call my apartment manager to ask if he knew about any nearby shops. At this point, I was *really* frustrated, so the tears starting flowing and my voice was cracking. And so my apartment manager actually came over and changed my tire himself! I couldn't believe, that was too kind. I baked him some brownies as a thank you but unfortunately they were a disaster so I put together this instead:

Even though it was shitty afternoon and I was even considering not going to the dinner because I was so frustrated, I'm glad that I just let that go and went anyway. My top choices right now are Pediatrics and Psychiatry so it's nice to get a perspective from practicing physicians as to why they chose their specialties and get an idea about their lifestyles as well. I'll probably try to start shadowing soon, too. I'm meeting with my preceptor this week (she's in Family Practice, though), so I'll take it from there.

Red October?

Wow! I haven't realized how long it's been since my last post. Well...actually, I have. I've been meaning to write, but I always leave it for the next day, and then the day after, and so on. So here we go.

A couple of weeks back, we had the Body Donation Memorial - basically a ceremony for those who have donated their bodies which we learn from. Their families came and set up pictures and newspaper clippings of major life events. It was really great talking to some of the families and expressing our thanks for their generosity. My class will be planning next year's ceremony. I've started a journal entry to organize my thoughts about our person and what that means to me. Hopefully, I'll get to share that once the block is done.

Here is my anatomy lab group, btw. We are a super cool bunch and many other groups have complimented both our dissections and how well we work together. :)

Credit to my very artistic med school bestie

After our second practical, we all went to the Dixon Corn Maze and had some good Fall fun walking around the corn husks and trying to find our way out in the dark, haha. Definitely have never experienced anything like this before.

And today, we actually had the day OFF (what?!?!) so the female portion of our lab group (see above) decided to shop shop shop. I mean, we need nice clothes for Doctoring and clinic right? We had a nice lunch afterwards at this place called Seasons 52. Apparently they have a seasonal menu and some of their items change weekly, hence the name. Ha!

You may be wondering why I've titled this post as such. Historically, this month is dubbed Red October but so far it's been okay. I think the course instructors have restructured a lot of the material from previous years so things have been a bit more organized and integrated. Can't believe that after Monday, we'll have taken 6/8 of our quizzes (already completed 2/3 of practicals), not counting finals of course. Thanksgiving cannot come soon enough though. I really do want to go home and just...eat.

What is a weekend?

1000 points if you call tell me where that's from.

This was the most relaxing weekend I've had since we started. On Friday night, I went over to my lab partner's house so we could watch the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy. (I can actually pick up on the few medical references, ha!) On Saturday, I had lunch with an MS3 friend at a little French cafe. On Sunday, I went to clinic in the morning and a Lebanese festival in the afternoon. My stomach is content.

Clinic was great! It's been my favorite clinic so far, and I think I will stick with it. I saw two patients, took the lead with the history, helped with the physical exam, presented to the preceptor both times, and wrote the SOAP notes. I'm feeling more and more comfortable with each part of it, so I am happy.

So many shows premiered this week. I sure hope I can keep up with everything. We all know how much I love my pop culture trivia. :)

What a week!

We had our usual biweekly exam on Monday and our first anatomy practical on Friday. Suffice it to say that I triaged other classes to make sure I had everything down for anatomy. I felt like I knew the material lecture-wise, but it might be tricky to identify structures on other cadavers. I haven't been doing a good job of going around in lab and viewing other people's work. I mostly stick to our cadaver and know her super-well. But I looked around the night before the practical, hoping that was enough.

Of course, by the random luck of the draw, my group was the last one taking the practical so I had plenty of time to just hang around. :/ Oh well; we actually get to go first next time and get it over with! I came out of the practical not feeling good at all. I felt very pressed for time and kept second-guessing some of my answers. I kept thinking about it throughout the night too. I was so anxious that I even woke up extra early on Saturday morning to go to school and pick up my results from my locker. Imagine my surprise when I saw my score. I have to learn to be less hard on myself and trust that I know the answers. I think a big issue with knowing so much material is that you keep thinking of the what-ifs and overthink questions.

But, on a lighter note, to ease the tension of the very first major anatomy exam, our instructors had us wear hats! It was even a question on the exam! Here's what I wore:

As one of my classmates astutely pointed out: Of course you would wear this hat. ;)

No, I actually do not own such a contraption. Thanks to my friend S for letting me borrow this. I made sure to bobby pin it to my head so it wouldn't accidentally fall into a cadaver, ha!

And then I went to clinic on Saturday. This time, I went to Clinica Tepati, which is definitely much bigger than Bayanihan. But I felt okay. I still need to practice some more blood draws before I feel comfortable doing them on patients. Next clinic appointment in a couple of weeks!

Of course, non-quiz weekends means dinner prep consists of more than heating frozen meals and/or leftovers. Here's cilantro-parsley-pine nuts coated tilapia with garlic-rosemary potatoes (with the skin on!).

It's been a year!

09/14/12 - interviewed at UCD
09/14/13 - volunteered at clinic

I dare you to find a cooler program

This week I took out a beautiful right lung and held it in my hands; scraped out clotted blood from the chambers of the heart and great vessels; and participated in a surface anatomy session with 50 other med students in which we took off our shirts and drew out the lungs and heart with markers on each other.

Yeah, med school is the greatest.

LA weekend

Wow. It's been a while. I think I'm finally in my groove with regards to school. It's still a lot of work, but that's not going to change anytime soon! I've just learned to adjust and prioritize certain things over others and just go with it. I can't know everything 100%, and that's okay. (Shoutout to my Big Sib for checking on me every couple of weeks.)

Since this was a long weekend, I decided to go home! I had never been away from LA for this long before (perks of attending college in your home city). Got to see friends and fam and of course, my minions J+C.

As a surprise, my mama spent hours making my favorite meal. It's basically a wheat and beef porridge, with heated oil/cumin/red pepper powder as garnish. Needless to say, I stuffed my face.

Herissa is the best.

Since we're on the topic of food, here is the eetch that I had made for our Doctoring class on cultural competency a few weeks back. It certainly doesn't taste as good as when my mom or grandma make it (does anything ever?) but it was satisfactory.

Food pics are obviously Instagramed. Obviously.

Already on Week 5. FIVE.