Oh, housewives of orange county, beverly hills, atlanta and wherever else...nouveau riche is SO last year!

Both my primary laptop and backup laptop are fried. My phone is my only Internet source and I have no charger except in my car, which has to be running for it to charge. So no blog posts for a bit sorry :(

It wouldn't be so bad if I weren't the world's worst file backer-upper...

In light of the holiday...just can't believe how many people who have families that choose not to go the extra mile (literally and figuratively) one day a year.

Know it's a bit hypocritical, as I was complaining a bit about the long trip (for those of you who follow me on Twitter), but I just can't believe how many great minds and wonderful souls have been abandoned by their families once the benefits are less appealing than the work required to obtain them.

This is probably my last Christmas that I won't have to work..so kudos to everyone (including my sister, who spent many hours serving Christmas meals at a retirement center serving meals to those still here) who spent the day serving others.

Is this not the quintessence of Christmas spirit??

So I visited my family in Raleigh this weekend.  Bandaid came with me; here's how most of the 10-hour car rides went:

Really wish he had just sat there...but he did a lot of spinning and re-adjusting and blocking my view of the road and trying to help steer.  We made it back safely, thank goodness!

Reading a book called Oogy, which is so far very heart-warming.  If anyone wants to know what day-to-day life is like with Bandaid, read this book.  Other than having a history of being a bait dog, this is pretty much Bandaid.

How to be a jerk 101

My biggest question before entering med school: is there a how-to-be-a-jerk class?

No joke.

So having completed 1.5 years of med school, I think I've found the answer: no, there's not one class.  Every aspect of it turns you into this whole different person.  Yeah, some doctors may seem indifferent, unsympathetic, impatient and even downright rude....but there really are valid reasons for this one-sided facet of personality that patients often see.

Studies have shown that around the third year, med students pretty much lose a lot of their empathy:

"The study authors suggested that reasons for the decline include a lack of role models, the volume of materials to learn, time pressures, and patient and environmental factors, such as overly demanding patients and restrictions on caregivers' autonomy."

 Anyway, in my own words, here's a list - albeit brief - of some reasons why doctors are the way they are.

1. For four years in undergrad, all you do is study.  And study.  And more studying...and test-taking, and interviewing, and stressing.

2. For two years in med school all you do is study.  And study.  And more studying...and test-taking, and interviewing, and stressing.

3. On Mondays you wish it was the weekend, and on weekends you wish it was Monday.  Because on weekends you study 12 hours a day.

4. You're never prepared for the exam.  There's really no way to learn all the material; that's the point.

5. You hand in your exam that takes you 6 hours, and they give you the notes for the next exam.  Sleep Friday, start studying Saturday.

6. 3-inch thick stack of notes for 5 weeks.

7. It's pretty much like solitary confinement in prison.  It will make ANYONE go crazy.

8. If you're studying you want to be doing something else.  If you do something else you feel guilty for not studying.

9. You have a ridiculous amount of debt.  When I graduate I'll owe around $300,000 at 8% interest.  That means I'll be paying about twice that much back in the long run.

10. You think doctors make good money?  For 8 years after I graduate I'll be making less than $40,000/yr for 80+ hour work weeks.

11. Your non-med school friends desert you because you can't spend time with them (ok, all but one, Jen!).  Your med school friends can't hang out, because you're always studying.


12.You have to know ridiculous details.  Like a translocation of chromosomes 8 and 14 cause Burkitt's lymphoma. Or that many cystic fibrosis patients have a mutation on chromosome 7 at amino acid #508.  And there are a freaking crapload of leukemias and a crapload of anemias. 

13. Caffeine in the morning, ambien at night, alcohol on the weekends.  Don't ask me for a liver.

14. You can't learn good patient care in the classroom, but real patients won't let you touch them because you're a student.

15. New life motto: "P for pass" and/or "P=MD."  The pass/fail system is my best friend.

16. AML, PPV, ALL, AVPU, CAGE, MCV, MSO4, PPI, HCT, BMP, HIT, TTP, ITP...there are thousands and thousands of abbreviations.  Mnemonics don't work.  Except maybe the cranial nerve one, but I only remember the first half of it anyway.

17. Your diet SUCKS.  Last week I baked cupcakes.  They were breakfast, lunch, and dinner 2 days in a row.

18. You spend your entire first year with your face in a cadaver.  If I don't die of liver failure or a heart attack I will die of cancer from the formaldehyde poisoning.

19. Most of lecture is spent exchanging "that's what she said" exclamations.  Or naps.

20. Ok that's all I can think of right now, but only 19 in a list triggers some OCD anxiety.

Disclaimer: due to the prevalence of jerks in the general population, it is safe to assume that some doctors were just born jerks...but this applies to the rest of us.

I have lost a lot of important personal qualities during the past year and a half in medical school.  Still want to be a doc but wish I could get back some of those qualities.  Mostly the patience one.

Why?  Because all activities outside of medical school still require those qualities.  My neighbors directly above me (I'm going to assume it's not the police lady) apparently decided to walk around with 100lb ankle weights all day long.  All over the apartment.  And talk very loudly.  And jump up and down.  And then hammer the wall.  And open and close very loud drawers....more times than there are drawers on a standard dresser.  (I would guess that a drawer has been opened at least 50 times today.  In fact, one was just opened as I typed this sentence.)  And loudly slam the front door.

And a lot more stuff but I have to get back to studying since I've been distracted enough by them already today.

------

Addendum: now there is a preschool-aged child upstairs.  One who is in that stage where they do not stop babbling ("Mommy the cat is polka-dotted like the velcro on my juice box which is purple then tomorrow is fun day and that dog is peeing and I want more juice but only the polka-dot kind....")

Ok, so I no longer have any sympathy for the woman of "limited mobility" on the fourth floor.  Twice now, she has cornered me while walking Bandaid to let me know that I need to find a police officer to "make him obedient before he becomes uncontrollable" and have to give him up. She also had the balls to tell me "LOVE YOU THOUGH!" before walker-ing out the front door.  Really??  There are so many ways I could reply.  I'm trying to be neutral.

But the next time she stops me I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to restrain myself.  I think I'm going to tell her that I called 911 to ask about getting an officer to train my dog, and that I gave them her information in recognition of her wonderful referral, so she should expect a visit from law enforcement in the near future.

I know I'll probably get coal for Christmas for doing that but I'm done with this situation.

reminiscing....
this was taken one of my last days as a paramedic.

Jen if you still have some of the other ones from FB would you mind sending them to me??

"Horses are a great judge of character.  You don't like horses, horses don't like you."

dolphins are the only mammal that don't appear to dream

I did something very, very bad...I tried to give Bandaid a bath yesterday.  He jumped in the bathtub but as soon as the shampoo was lathered in, he decided baths were no longer for him.

Being the faithful dog he is, he decided to try to speed up the rinsing part.  He used the carpet, the cabinets, the couch and the bed.

The bathroom trashcan no longer has a bottom, I lost 3 very nice towels, and the dog is still dirty.

I honestly hope 2011 is better.  Cause this year has just plain sucked.

Every dime has 118 ridges around its edge.

Mmm...was craving something sweet.

Research Day 2010

Today I'm going to be a journalist, just for fun.

Airport Scanner Fears Realized; You Become The New Porn

TSA Airport Body Scanners See Under Clothes

Here's an example of a "PG" image: the links show what can be done to the images in a few mouse clicks.  It's pretty disturbing.  

I recently stumbled on some pretty amusing neologisms:

• Toastaphobia: The fear of sticking a fork in a toaster even when it's unplugged.
• Adam 69: Two police cars, parked next to each other, facing opposite directions, in such a way that the drivers side doors are only inches from each other, allowing the officers to chat with each other while waiting for a traffic violation to happen.
• Sark: The marks left on one's ankle after wearing tube socks all day.
• Pre-autoistic McConsumption: The tendency to start eating your french fries in the car on your way home.
• Idiot Box: The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves.
• Ancinemation: The curious act of waiting in line to see a movie and watching exiting movie goers' reactions to see if they liked the movie or not.
• Downpause: The split second interruption of rain as you drive your car under a bridge.
• Lactomangulation: Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side.
• Televator: The rolling line on a TV when the Horizontal hold isn't adjusted.
• Alcolean: The point just before a drunk person starts to stumble.

so Bandaid's a very active puppy and needs constant mental stimulation or physical activities or he becomes a pica dog...so I found these awesome toys online!!  here are the three I got:

Wow, I finally appreciate all those crazy neighbors who are up at all hours of the day and night.  This happened this morning at my apartment complex...so thankful that I live on the third floor!

http://www.live5news.com/Global/story.asp?S=13491932

Mouse-infested naked man tased, arrested for burglary, assault - CHARLESTON, SC NEWS

There are no words for this.

halloween

medical student style (one week late because of exams!)

roxana as lady gaga

kelsey as a peacock

christine and liz

roxana with the lady gaga hair bird

looks like contestants on the game show "let's make a deal"

practicing my nursing skills on lauren's husband greg, dressed as sporty spice (those are water balloons in his sports bra!)

candy cigarettes...who knew they still made them??

lady gaga with her disco stick

So I was just reminded of one of my most amusing exam experiences EVER. For the final exam in my freshman philosophy class we were given 10 essay topics; 3 were to be chosen for the exam. They were REALLY hard questions! We were given an assignment sheet with the prompts and directions, and the professor said that whatever we could fit in the 1" margin and on the back we could have in the exam.

Well gosh darn-it, I fit all 10 five-paragraph essays on that piece of paper! I think I used size 7 font. Anyway, the professor did the whole dramatic "...And....let the exam begin!" bit and I whipped out my sheet. Mr. surfer-dude-hair-and-Bob-Marley-T-shirt sitting next to me almost hit the floor when he saw my paper. I distinctly remember feeling uncomfortable because the 20 of us were sitting very closely together at a round table...odd for an exam. Anyway, I'm pretty sure he spent most of the exam alternating between wiping the drool from his blue book and trying to see what I'd copied onto mine. Luckily I can write about as small as the type font.

I definitely got an A on that exam.

drum roll please....argyle socks for dogs!!!

exam week hiatus.  

here are some funny med school cartoons to help you understand the torment we are constantly enduring.

some recent shots of my adorable, trouble-making puppy:

two interesting tidbits about relationships and longevity from one of my physician professors:

• married men live longer than single men, but single women live longer than married women
• and men married to smart women live longer in general!

(these are from studies, not just my imagination!)

I was just walking Bandaid and when I saw my neighbor- confined to a wheelchair, taking the elevator the 4th floor- and it made me a little bit angry. I live in an apartment complex with 6 buildings, which means there are 60 first-floor apartments. Why is she in a 4th floor apartment??

I can think of a thousand “what ifs,” the least of which, the elevators breaking down (it’s happened before here).

It reminded me of my medic days when I was constantly frustrated by houses that are absolutely not conducive to stretcher-usage or fast evacuations. (I’ve even been asked to remove my shoes prior to entering a house!)

I know that, unfortunately, people aren’t always in a financial situation where they can ensure that their living situations are complementary to their health conditions (or otherwise), but I feel that for this woman, at least, something should be (and have been) done.

the oscar mayer weinermobile came to MUSC...without hot dogs :( many of my classmates swarmed to it after class, making for some great humor and comic relief!

birthday celebration!!

Women's Health Fair

pictures from the very successful women's health fair today!!!

from the post & courier, the charleston newspaper:

at the kennel today, the guy in front of me was picking up his fish named wentworth.


cost of boarding a fish?  


$6 a day.

so today I was driving to raleigh listening to podcasts to pass the time.  one was about mirror-image neurons, thought to be responsible for people "feeling" other people's pain.  apparently this is known as synaesthesia, and there are many (over 50) different forms.

the most common type is where people associate colors with letters- so a person might associate the letter "B" with the color red.  one type is called space-time synaesthesia, where people actually "visualize" time.  I TOTALLY HAVE THIS!!  most people report seeing a calendar year, where it "rotates around them" (sounds crazy but it makes complete sense to me, see picture for a clearer idea).

anyway, read more on this BBC site if you're interested:

synaesthesia

or maybe it's just my active imagination...!

INDEED- it IS bacon-flavored vodka.  while purchasing the rum for the cake I overheard another customer asking for the "weirdest" alcohol at the abc store.  


answer?  bacon- and cheeseburger-flavored vodkas.


the worst part was listening to the cashier explain what kind of meals (mostly tailgate-themed, of course) they complemented best.


ok this one looks repulsive as well:

used my first monday after the exam to make a delicious rum cake, one of my grandmother's recipes...


turned out delicious, but I think I may have made the glaze a bit strong!!

what a great outing at charles towne landing in west ashley today!  

pictures are posted on flikr.  here's a preview: