Island Med Student

would love to tell you all about my wonderful day. would love to tell you about everything i learned about vaginas and babies. but i just realized that my brain shut down about 10 minutes ago. and my will power about 2 hours ago.

i promise to share more soon. i promise. g’nite!

when i came home, my doggies insisted on smelling and licking me. on my walk home i waved to the milk delivery man at a local grocer, who is beginning to recognize me. i ate some mozzarella cheese and stared in the mirror. listening to crimson and clover on repeat.

and i couldn’t be happier.

So, I have failed to write anything on here for a few days, but I promise to write at least a little something every day from now on. Mostly, I’ve just been working on my residency application lately. I’m almost finished gathering my letters of recommendation, updating my CV, and writing my personal statement.

I have an admission to make. I thought I could handle the heat this summer with my little window fan, but it was just becoming too unbearable. So, I am now the proud owner of my first window air conditioner unit. I feel so adultish.

My schedule has also changed a bit. My infectious disease rotation was cancelled, so I now have a four week gap ahead of me. I’m going to try and get something scheduled for the last two weeks of August, hopefully emergency medicine. But if I don’t, I will just have to deal with the gap. Right now, I’m using my extra time to work on my residency application.

Also, my little sister is getting married this Saturday! YAY! So, since I now have nowhere to be on Monday, I’m going to drive down to my parents’ farm in Luray (where the wedding will be taking place) and help out with all the work that needs to be done in advance. I’m actually quite excited, because I will get to spend extra time with my fam, AND help them get all the work done. I also can’t wait to get all dirty and sweaty on the farm.

I never updated my “stuff learned” in cardio, as I promised, but I will hopefully do that soon. But here is one quickie that I thought was interesting:

1) If you have a permanently implanted pacemaker, you are advised to NOT keep your cellphone in your breast pocket on the same side as the pacemaker.

I just thought that was kinda cool.

And FYI, here is my current upcoming rotation schedule (I will hopefully be adding to it in the near future):

August 31 – October 9: Obstetrics/Gynecology
October 26 – November 20: Emergency Psychiatry

Anyway, more to come soon!

I am currently drinking my morning coffee. Shortly afterwards I will walk my doggies and then shower and get ready for a trip. I have to travel to Philadelphia today (the closest center) to take my USMLE Step 2 Clinical Skills. For those of you who don’t know, it’s the exam where you have actual actor patients (12 of them). You have to take their histories, do a physical exam, explain to and counsel them, and then write a full SOAP note afterwards, with 5 differential diagnoses and “work-ups.” I’ve been dreading this day for quite sometime. The thing is, I do well with written/computer exams. I don’t get very anxious, and I even kind of like taking them. But this whole people watching my every move and time constraints, etc., get my panties in a bunch. Anyway, it will be over around 10:30 tonight. (I had to get the afternoon session, because that was the only one available.) Here goes!

Also, I promise to actually start posting stuff on here more regularly. With all my exams out of the way, that will be much easier!

PS: Midori, I have John’s photos loaded and ready on my phone!

I am what you might call a list-aholic. I obsessively make “to do” lists, “grocery lists,” and just about any other list you can imagine. Whenever I am feeling overwhelmed by the volume of crap I have to get done, writing it all down on a piece of paper, and then crossing each off one by one as I accomplish them never fails to reduce my anxiety.

Several days after moving into my apartment in Brooklyn (which was one year ago), the towel rack in my bathroom broke. Basically, the screws came out of the wall and were just hanging there by a thread. Every time I put a towel on the rack, it would come crashing down and create a huge mess. So, “fix towel rack” has been on my “to do” list for the past year. I would have normally fixed it right away, but I needed a power drill, which I didn’t have with me in Brooklyn, and I didn’t want to buy a new one.

So, today I saw the superintendent for my building and I sweet talked him into letting me borrow his power drill. I raced up to my apartment, and a few minutes, sweat, dust, and loud sounds later I had a working towel rack in my bathroom.

You might be thinking, wow, this is a totally stupid post. And that’s okay, because it is. But there are two points I want to make:

1) After I fixed the towel rack, I went straight to my “to do” list, and scratched out “fix towel rack.” As I crossed it off, a huge wave of relief came over me. I don’t care if this is silly. But it made me happy.

2) I love power drills and fixing crap. Seriously, I can’t wait to move into my own house someday and do all kinds of renovations. I love building stuff. I love power tools. I love dirty, sweaty work. Mad props to my mom and dad. They raised me in a dirty, sweaty, building crap environment. Seriously, my parents do more building than some construction workers. There is nothing more satisfying than using your own two hands, two feet, (or one or none, if you don’t have any), to build, fix, and create. It’s the cat’s meow.

I have a bunch more “stuff learned” in cardiology to post. I will do so soon, I promise! But in the meantime, happy Friday!

Today was the first day of my cardiology rotation. Basically, we learned some quick and dirty ways to read EKGs. Here is an abbreviated synopsis of what I learned (okay, so I really learned all this before, but damn if I don’t keep forgetting it!):

1) Which leads represent which portions of the heart:

AVL + L1 = lateral wall
L2 + L3 + AVF = inferior wall
AVR = right wall
V1 + V2 = septum
V2 + V3 + V4 = inferior wall
V4 + V5 + V6 = Lateral wall

2) What to look at:

a) Rate – 300 / number of boxes = rate
inverted p = ectopic atrial rhythm
upright p = sinus rhythm

b) Rhythm – regular = R intervals the same
if rhythm is irregular, number of QRS X 6 = rate

c) Axis – look at L1 + AVF
if L1 + AVF are both upright = normal
if AVF is down and L1 is up = left axis deviation
if both AVF and L1 are down = left axis deviation

d) P wave and PR interval – p wave represents the depolarization of the atria and it should be less than 110 milliseconds. The PR interval represents conduction through the AV node and should be between 120 and 200 milliseconds.

e) QRS – look at 4 parameters – width (should be less than half a box), presence of Q waves (over 3 mm tall or bigger than 40 milliseconds wide is significant), transition zone (R should equal S), and voltage

f) ST segment

g) T and U waves

h) QT interval

Okay, I left out some stuff there, but you get the gist. Also, please do comment if I missed something important, or wrote something incorrect. I was writing furiously and could have written something down wrong! More to come on this topic soon!