Moveing

Today, I finally moved most of my stuff from my old apartment into my new house! Which is great, because I was tired of that old apartment anyway... (seriously, there's no driveway for the house that it's in because it was probably built before there were cars) I will still be pretty close to where I go to school, and in my opinion, it will be a nicer place to live. I won't bore you with the details of moveing, but let me tell you that it took most of the day to get everything done.



Anyway, basically now I just have to clean the old place, which is probably my most favorite part of moveing. Besides the heavy lifting.

"Wait, I've got an idea"

I had a brilliant idea. Actually, it's more of a pun, or maybe a play on words. (I'm not 100% sure when something is a pun, and when it's just a play on words, but if you're really interested, I'm sure a whole horde of unemployed english teachers who could tell you, or you could just look here. Of course, if you're really studious, OR just a gangsta' at heart, you could look here.)

So anyway, back to the idea. Eveyone should be familiar with the song "Listen to Your Heart" by Roxette (the Swedish pop duo!), and later covered by DHT. I decided to give you the video for the DHT version, because I like it better...



Now that you've all watched the video, and after I tell you my idea, I dare you to tell me that I am not a your hero (or to walk through the fire!). So here's the idea:

First, I get a little music box, like they put in those Hallmark cards, with the "Listen to Your Heart" song on it (by the way, if there's one that plays "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution", somebody please tell me!)
Second, I attach the little music box to my stethoscope.
Third, every time I use my stethoscope, before I actually listen to someone's heart, I will play the song on the little music box.
Fourth, ???
Fifth, PROFIT!

And there you have it. The greatest idea I've had in at least four days.

Let me begin by saying, "I'm sorry." This is kind of ridiculous. Also, if there's something that offends you in the video, you should know that I didn't actually watch it, and I suggest you write a letter to your Congressman... or me. Or an email. Or a comment. By the way, I am changing the comment system, so it might be easier to leave one.

What is this "responsibility" you speak of?

Haha, the title of this post pretty much only applies for like the next two weeks... and not even really then... of course I'm not technically working or doing anything like that right now, but I AM moving, and I DO have to make sure that I'm ready for school to start on August 11th, and 9am, with Neurology. Not that I've studied the schedule or anything...

So, anyway, I'm pretty much just trying to get ready for vacation in Canada, while at the same time move out of my current apartment into my new house.

Anyway, that's about all that I've got to say right now, but I should probably make clear that I did not take the pictures in last week's post... I am not in violation of HIPAA as far as I know, I just got them off the internet...

BABIES!!!

Yep, that's really the only title that I could give this... Today I spent another day in obstetrics (I was there Monday too, but I was in ENT yesterday). I guess the whole point of that field is babies, so... you might expect to be doing something related to babies. And, surprise, surprise, there were, in fact, babies. All over the place.
What am I talking about?, you ask? Well, today I saw part of a regular delivery (the good old-fashioned vaginal kind), and I scrubbed in on like 3 Cesarean sections (I know you know what that is, I just REALLY like wikipedia...). Which was pretty crazy, if you ask me. So, I actually got to do some stuff, like hold retractors, and staple things (like skin) back together, which was cool. But also, it was really cool because after you're done, there's a baby there! Which I think we can all agree is pretty awesome.

In a side-note, it dawned on me today that a during a C-section (yep, more links...), a uterus looks a lot like Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars.


Admiral Ackbar


Uterus during C-section

Anyway, that was pretty much the whole day... Tomorrow I'm in Pediatrics, which could be interesting... and again on Friday, and then Friday is the last day of this program!!! Where did the summer go? I can't believe that it's really almost over... Of course, I still have fishing in Canada to look forward to... And then we start classes on August 11th, bright and early.

Actually its at 9am. Which isn't really that early. But it's still lecture. :(

And no BABIES!

The Last Week

I know that this summer has been the proverbial "calm before the storm", and I have been enjoying what I've been doing, but I am happy announce that this week will be my last in the hospital medical education program. I am sure that within a week of classes starting I will be begging to go back to it, but at this point I am ready for a change from just observing things.

Right now, I'm mostly looking forward to a couple weeks of hanging out, moving across town, and going to Canada before school starts up again...


I don't have too much to say (maybe that's why I haven't written anything on here for a few weeks), so without further ado, I will bid you "adieu"...

The Emergency Department

Well, I've been spending the last several days in the emergency room... sometimes it has been exciting, sometimes less exciting, and sometimes not exciting at all. There were a few things that happened that I would have liked to do more of, and then there were some other things I would like to avoid forever if possible (some people...). Anyway, I have gotten to see some pretty interesting cases, and gotten to get a feel for what it could be like to work in ER, so I would say that it has been a good week.

I guess maybe I could see myself doing ER... its hard to know for sure, because my role right now is kind of limited. I mean, I can go in and find out why somebody came in, and (if I do say so) can get a pretty good history and (my version of a) physical, and I can find out pretty much all of their symptoms and everything. My problem right now is, I haven't quite learned all the minutiae of all the different diseases and what to do for what kind of infections and stuff like that. So, its hard to know if I would like doing the ER, because there's just a lot of information that I haven't quite gotten around to memorizing yet (but just wait, it's coming).

Another Thursday

Well, since it has been a week since I last wrote in here, I feel that I should spend just a couple of minutes and quickly tell you all about it. This week, in the mornings, I have been with the "staff medicine" residents in the hospital, meaning, the residents that have to go thru and take care of all different patients in the hospital that have all different kinds of problems. That has been pretty interesting... I won't actually tell them, but let's just say I've got a couple of stories about Fournier's Gangrene (if you've got a strong stomach, go a head and Google that one... ...I'm not gonna link you to an article though) that might give you nightmares. Then, in the afternoons, I have been spending some time in the family practice clinic across from the main hospital, again, mostly just with residents.

I hadn't really spent too much time with residents until this week. It has made me think a little bit; its a kind of crazy to think that in about 3 years, I'll be doing my own residency (as long as everything goes as planned--I had a dream last night that someting happened and I had to take a year off for some reason...). Of course I've got plenty to learn before then, but it is pretty cool to know that as far as the whole "8 years of college" goes, I'm more than halfway done.

Anyway, I've got one more day of what I've been doing this week, and next week, I'll be in the emergency department, which means, I'll probably be seeing some emergent cases.

I love summer...

Today began normal enough. I went in to the hospital at 9am (not super early, but there wasn't any reason to go in earlier). I finally scrubbed in on one of this orthopod's (that's what you call orthopedic surgeons) surgeries. So that was pretty cool, which in laymen's terms means, I basically just held things, applied pressure and held a guy's leg in different positions while the surgeon debrided his necrosed calf, and loved every minute of it... I'm not sure if that's completely normal. Anyway, after that, Dr. Orthopod didn't have any more cases for the day, just some meetings, which he said would be "extremely boring", and advised me to go do some "independent study" for the rest of the day. Which was advice that I took to heart.

Now, I've been thinking about going up there since I moved to South Bend, so it's not completely random, but after I got done in the hospital at about 12:30pm, I decided I would take a trip up to the Indiana Dunes. So I did. (I love summer, it's awesome!) I went to the Indiana Dunes National Lakshore, which is actually a national park, and is only about 50 or 60 miles from where I live. So I drove up there, and hiked around for awhile. Pretty much, the rest of this post is going to be me going thru some pictures that I took up there, so get excited!

The first thing I did was get a map of the place. I went to the visitor's center, and talked to this lady that worked there for awhile (it was kind of weird, not gonna lie, I think she thought I was like 15), and got a map. Then I went to the biggest sand dune they have there.

It's kind of hard to take a picture of a sand dune, but that's it. The biggest one they've got. So I walked around there for a little while, checked things out, and what have you. Then I got a little bored with that, and decided I needed to do some actual hiking, and went down the road to another place.

At the other place, there was an actual trail, and you had to hike about 2 miles or something, through a bog, and some sand dunes and stuff to get to the shore of Lake Michigan. So I did that. Actually it took a long time because I was taking all of these pictures. Also, I didn't really see anyone else there. Which was cool, and I got to pretend that I was out in "the wilderness". (Actually I watched that movie "Into the Wild" a few weeks ago, and I kept thinking about that...) Anyway, here's the picture tour...

I found a pretty sweet trail...

And I thought it was going to keep going...

But then it didn't. It ended in this:

Which I thought wasn't something I wanted to walk through, and so I turned back onto the main trail.

Actually, at this point, I'm going to give you another one of those neat slide-shows to look at the rest of the pictures I want to show. They're just the rest of my hike out to the lake.



So, all in all, it was a pretty good day. I enjoyed what I did in the morning, and I also enjoyed the "independent study" that I did in the afternoon. What more can you really ask for?

(BTW, the slide show is in AJAX, meaning "asynchronous JavaScript and XML", which may help to know if its not coming up. I recommend the latest release of Firefox 3.0--RC 2 or something like that--because that's what I use and everything comes up!)

The Dentist

Yesterday and today (and actually all week) I spent watching an orthopedic trauma surgeon. Today, I went to his office in the morning, saw a bunch of patients with him (people with things ranging from broken arms to an aputated leg), and in the afternoon, I watched a surgical procedure called a balloon kyphoplasty. I guess its a pretty good fix for compression fractures of the spine caused by osteoporosis. It was actually a really short procedure.

After I left the hospital, I had to go to the dentist for a filling. My appointment was for 4:15 (that gets important later on). So I got there on time. Of course they brought me back and out me in the chair pretty quickly. Then the dentist came in and told me I would need numbed up. So he gave me a shot of lidocaine. Anyway, that went well until about a minute after he put it in, and then I started getting a little dizzy, and got real nervous all of a sudden. Anyway, I said something to the dentist about it, and he told me that he had put the shot too close to the nerve. Later on he told me that he had put it straight into my artery, so it went straight into my blood, and into the ol' noggin. So they had me sit there for awhile while it kind of wore off. Meanwhile, somebody had some kind of dental emergency (so I'm told), because the dentist was gone for about an hour and a half while I waited in the chair for my filling. By the time he got back, not only was I totally "sobered up" from the medicine, but my mouth was also no longer numb. So he had to give ANOTHER shot. Actually it was good though, because even with being pretty numb, it still hurt quite a bit. Anyway, but the time I got out of the dentist's office, it was about 6:40.

Trauma...

When last we met, I had had the car all smashed up, been to the dentist, was probably very tired, and not really enjoying the way things were going. Well, I am happy to say that things are a lot better today. I found out that the insurance company is going to pay to have the damage to the car repaired (there isn't even a deductible to pay!), and they gave me a rental car to drive while the car is in the shop. Now I just have to wait until someone from the insurance company comes and does an estimate on how much it will cost. So, things are looking good as far as the car situation goes.

In other news, I have finished my 4 days with the cardiologist. It was a pretty intense 4 days, but I did enjoy it. I got to see quite a bit of what they do, especially catheterizations and stent placement and things like that, so I feel like I have a way better idea of what it means to be a cardiologist now. I even got to scrub in and do a couple things in one of the cases in the cath lab. Anyway, I can't say that I definitely want to be a cardiologist when I grow up, but I'm definitely open to it.

Next week, they have me with an orthopedic surgeon all week. I looked up his bio on the hospital website, and it says of there that he specializes in trauma surgery (the hospital is a Level 2 Trauma Center). That means that they are always prepared to deal with, especially to take someone into surgery for trauma--the trauma specialist that came to the medical school said that one of the main things is that they always have an operating room prepped for it, and they always have a specially trained trauma surgeon on call. I guess the only difference between them and Level 1 Trauma Center (the highest) is that a Level 1 has to publish a certain number of research articles every year, and they just don't feel the need to do that many. So its a pretty good place to go if you get in a bad car accident or something.

Anyway, that about sums it up. I am looking forward to another exciting weekend (with no studying!!!), and also to next week.

A really fun day...

I spent most of the day today with a cardiologist. I spent the morning in his office seeing patients with him. It was pretty interesting, I liked it way more than I liked interventional radiology yesterday, because there was way more interaction with people. At noon, I went to the family practice residency's noon conference where I heard about pulmonology, but more importantly, I got free lunch out of the deal...
After that, I went on rounds with my "pseudo-attending" cardiologist, and saw some patients in the hospital. Then we went and looked at some angiograms, echocardiographs, and then I called it a day, and walked home.
I got home, went inside (never looking at my car) sat down, started getting ready for my dentist's appointment (fun fun!), talked on the phone for a little bit, checked the webmail, changed clothes, etc. After I was all ready, I walked outside to get in the car, got in, and realized that there was glass all over the passenger's seat next to me. Then I looked at the windshield and realized that it was shattered. Needless to say, I was not happy about this discovery. So I got out of the car and surveyed the damage. There was also a big dent in the roof.

Well, to make a long story short, I took a bunch of pictures of the damage, went to the dentist's (I was a little late but they got me in), called the insurance office to report my claim (don't let me down State farm... by the way, why IS it called State Farm? Weren't there "state farms" in communist Russia?), and now I am in the process of getting the car fixed.
So, all in all, this has been a "wonderful" day. I did have a pretty enjoyable day in the hospital, and I think I learned quite a bit. However, a big branch also fell on my car, and I did have to go to the dentist for a filling. Jealous?

What a weekend!

This weekend, my brother Brad got married. For anyone reading this who wasn't there, it was at the lake right in front of the beach.. It was a great day for it, sunny, warm, not a drop of rain, just a little bit of wind. I was the best man, and in case anyone missed it in my little "toast", I couldn't be happier for them!
I got back to "the Bend" at about midnight last night after a very productive evening of fishing, and after a short night, I went over to the hospital at 8am this morning for a day in the Interventional Radiology department. I have to be honest, it was very interesting for about the first 30 minutes, and then after that, it got really boring. Part of that may have had something to do with being tired, but also, there wasn't a whole lot to see except them running wires and tubes up peoples' arteries and veins. But at least now I know a little bit about what they do in IR.
Tomorrow, and for the next three days, I'm supposed to be with a cardiologist, which I hope will be a lot more interesting, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to use my stethoscope!!!

Back to it...

Today was the first clinical day of the program that I'm doing this summer. Yesterday we had an orientation for a few hours, and then today (and for the rest of the week) they had me with a urologist basically just watching what he does. It was definitely a different experience to be in the hospital versus just sitting at a desk reading.
To begin with, I had to actually go somewhere (the hospital). Also, I had to look professional, which includes shirt, tie and white coat (what more could you really ask for). In addition, I was actually seeing patients, instead of just reading about the Krebs cycle or something else equally as esoteric (although we did discuss the Krebs cycle this morning...).
Now, I don't know that I will end up being a urologist, but from the one day that I've seen of it, it doesn't seem too bad. We will see how things go...one day isn't very long. But I have to go, because tomorrow I'm getting up bright and early, and I get to sit in on a surgery with the da Vinci machine (it's a robot!!!).

Enjoying the Summer

There isn't too much to say about what's going on... I'm still waiting to start my HME program (on Tuesday). The explanation for these pictures is that I went back into Merry Lea this afternoon and did a little bit of photography. I'm also trying a new way of showing pictures, so hopefully it works for everybody.



That's all for now. Good news, tomorrow is Friday!

The Update

Admittedly, it has been quite a while since my last post. I wholeheartedly apologize for that. Now, down to business… What has Matt been doing for the past few weeks? Well, I finished my trip to the east coast with a visit to Washington D.C., the first time I'd been there. Nothing like all those monuments to remind you that you're an American… After that, I spent a few days in South Bend, and then I came down to the lake and hung out. Then I went down to Indianapolis and hung out for a night. Then I came back to the lake, where I've been since Saturday. Yes, it's true; I haven't worked or done much of anything productive for awhile. However, I am okay with that. It does, however, get a little bit boring, which is why I will be VERY ready to start my summer HME program (like an internship…I wrote about it before) in 2 weeks and 1 day.

In closing, I will say that I am enjoying this summer WAY more than I enjoyed any summer before it. Whether that is because it's my last summer vacation ever or because of something else, I can't say, but I'm liking it.

New York City

Well, as I write this, I am on a little island just east of Manhattan called Roosevelt Island. We spent all day walking around the city, seeing the sights and bsically just trying to have a good time. We went to the Metropolitan Musuem of Art, walked around Central Park, went to see the Statue of Liberty, the World Trade Center site, and experienced public transportation.

Anyway, we're going out to dinner somewhere in about an hour, and after that our friend who we're staying with here has some friends that are having a birthday party, so we're going to go to that tonight. All in all, quite the day so far. I've never been to New York before, so its been quite the experience to see all kinds of things that I've only seen on TV on in the movies. For example, the tram that takes you from Roosevelt Island (where we're staying) to Manhattan is the same tram that was in the movie Spiderman (remember the scene where the school-children were stuck on a cable car?--that's it!).

I will cut this short. But just so you all know, so far, the trip has been fun.

I am not studying

So far today has been just another day of not getting up early, not studying, no stress, and best of all (redundant, I know) no studying. Although I have to confess, on Monday I went to Border's bookstore and bought "First Aid for the USMLE Step 1", which is a review book for the first step of the medical licensing exam process. But I am happy to report, I have not even gotten in out of the bag they put it in at the cash register, so we're good so far. The only book I've opened since I got done with the semester is "War and Peace", which I always heard was a good book. I have to be honest though, I really had almost no idea what it was about before I went to the library to get it.

By the way, the library at Notre Dame is quite possibly one of the scariest places in the world. I went in there just trying to find my book. So I found the call number and everything, and I thought it would be in the basement. So I went down there. No dice, but there are a whole bunch of books on these huge racks that are on sliders that you have to move around to be able to see what's on them. And if you happened to be between the racks when someone was moving them, you just might end up being crushed between them. Anyway, the book wasn't there. Turns out it was upstairs. So I went up to the 9^th floor. Then after about 5 minutes of looking around, I found a sign that said that the range of call numbers that I was trying to find got moved to the 8^th floor. So I went down there. I took the stairs. And this is where it gets a little weird.

The stairwell seems like something that you might find in a horror film. It's all painted yellow, there's no one else in there, and it's really echo-genic (yep, it's a word). Anyway, that's just to set things up. I got to the 8^th floor, found my book, and decided to leave. I had to take the stairs again because the elevator was broken. Anyway, I'm on the 8^th floor. So it's a few flights down to get to the bottom floor so I can leave. So I start going down. And down, and down. And eventually I get to a door that says "2^nd floor Emergency Exit Only" or something like that. So kept going down. At the next level, there isn't a door. Then I went down one more level (presumably the basement?) and opened the door to find some sort of offices or something. But not where I wanted to go. I still don't know where the door to the first floor is. I ended up taking the emergency exit. It was actually a little bit of an emergency. I mean, I was trapped in the stairwell.

Anyway, my story may not do it justice, but it really is not a place that you want to get stuck. I mean, I think I heard ghosts, possibly an exorcism, and even some inquisition-ing. I also saw Charlie Weiss, and he tried to eat me. Then he sued me because I wouldn't let him.

Feast or Famine

Well, it's official… I've finally gotten over the fact that I don't have to study all the time, and I have become just a little bit bored! Not that I'm really complaining… Its true, though, it's a feast or a famine.

Regardless, I am definitely enjoying all the extra time, even though I don't have a whole lot to do in it. For example, I tried to buy a spear (for spear fishing) today, but the store that I went to didn't have the kind of spear that I want. They just had frog spears, and the prongs on those are definitely not long enough to spear the massive-sized fish that I plan on spearing this summer. Oh well. I guess that I'll have to keep looking.

In other news, I'm in the middle of getting ready for my trip to New York and Washington D.C., but unfortunately, we still don't really know what we're going to be doing while we're there. Just that we're going, and that it's gonna be CRAZY! And by that I mean that we're going to party like its 1999.

Anyway, I think House is coming on now, so I have to go watch it. (it's like medical school, except way more fun!)

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”

Yes, it's true; I am done with my first year of medical school classes! It is a great feeling, and when I finished my Microbiology final on Monday it was like a huge weight just got lifted off of my shoulders. Since then, I've been spending time celebrating, sleeping, jogging, grocery shopping (that tends to get neglected… but you can only eat so much Subway!) and, um, writing papers.

I kind of have to hedge it when I say that I'm done with first year, because I actually have to write a few things before I'm totally done. I've only got one left to go, and if anyone is interested, it is about the ethics of the so-called 'savior sibling'. (The classical scenario is the parents of a child with leukemia who have another child so that they can do a bone marrow transplant to save the first child's life) It is an interesting topic, and I've kind of enjoyed spending a couple hours reading about the intricacies of it all, especially the paper that says things like: "For those who believe it is better to exist than not to exist…" I have to be honest, I laughed when I read that line. Anyway, I refuse to tell you all what I think about the 'savior sibling' ethical dilemma.

Somewhat unfortunately, I have to go to the medical school in a few minutes because they are dedicating the library. What that actually means, I do not know, but I think it probably means that they want to raise money to buy new books. The building for the medical school here in South Bend is only about 2 years old, and the library consists of two bookshelves of books. So I had to laugh when I got the invitation to go to the "library dedication". My first thought was, "We have a library?"

To close, I will say that it is great to be done with classes, and I would recommend that you all listen to a certain Alice Cooper song if you're wondering how I'm feeling about it right now.

Does it make me patriotic if I get Caffé Americano at Starbucks?

Well, I have to come clean… I have finally rekindled my love-affair with coffee. I know, I probably said somewhere along the line that I was giving it up for good, but as it turns out, that is just not true. I mean, I was on the wagon for a good two and a half months, which I am proud of. But I've realized that not only am I a happier person when I've had a little bit of java (that's pronounced YAH-va), I get a whole lot more done. I just thought I should share that… You were probably wondering what I was thinking this whole time anyway.

In other news, today we had our last actual lecture of first year. I still have to take another quiz, the microbiology final exam, and do my final history-taking session of the semester, but it really is winding down fast. In a good way. I mean, I love learning as much as the next medical student, but I REALLY could use a break. Which will be coming in about 6 days!

In other news, I registered last night for the Sunburst 10k here in town. I've never done a 10k before (I mean, I've ran that far, just not in a race), so I'm hoping it will be fun to try something new, and it sounds pretty sweet because it starts at the College Football Hall of Fame downtown, and ends at the 50 yard line of the Notre Dame football stadium. (I've heard that they even play "crowd noise" over the loudspeakers as people are finishing their races…) Anyway, I'm looking forward to that. And I have plenty of time to train, because it's not until the very last day of May, the 31^st. So, by that time I should be able to run 6.2 miles in just about 46 minutes… (just kidding, but that would be pretty sweet)

To bring this to a close (for those of you that follow politics), I will say that I am bitter. But instead of clinging to my guns or my religion, I'm clinging to my copy of "Clinical Microbiology Made Ridiculously Simple", the best book ever written (about microbiology).