February 2005

Monday, February 28, 2005
Better late than never!
Week of 2-21-->2-26

Hi Everybody,

This is the first time I did not post an entry during the weekend… I was sick as a dog (still am), and was studying for a quiz, and just didn’t find the time. However, since I am feeling well enough to sit at the computer, I decided I’ll write a journal entry now before I forget all the stuff that went on during the week :o)

First of all, at the beginning of last week I sat at the computer and read all of my entries since the beginning of the year. It was so nice to read about things I completely forgot about. The more I write here, the more addicted I get :o) This is definitely a nice memory.

At school we really pounded abnormal EKG’s. I mean, in almost every class (with the exception of pathology, biochemistry and surgery) we went through this. It is awesome that we review everything a bazillion times from different angles, because at the end we don’t have a choice, and we actually “get it.”

On Tuesday, I went and asked for some help on the EKG’s from Dr. Karius. She is just awesome, and I always understand her explanations. Anyways, what she told me was that I really need to stop and think—basically I do it too fast and thus miss stuff. It’s a wonderful advice that I started using as soon as I left her office… Stopping to think really is helpful :o) (who knew!)

Also on Tuesday, we had Dr. Boyajian for Clinical skills lab. It was basically a review of last week with additional murmur sounds we had to recognize. This lab was very helpful to the rest of the lectures of the week.

We had 3 awesome pediatrics lectures from Dr. Drake who is a pediatric cardiologist. We listened to different murmurs all morning long and it was just cool! Plus… since we heard different murmurs the day before, it was pretty easy to follow along. These were just innocent murmurs in children, which were completely different than the murmurs we heard earlier, but still, I thought the previous lecture helped me a whole lot.

Somewhere in the middle (I think it was Wednesday afternoon) we had pathology sign-out with Dr. Friedlander. It was pretty cool—we did different examinations and learned different techniques, but I really wish it was done in a smaller group (we ended up with 8 people, even though only four of us officially had the time spot with him).

Our surgery lecture on Thursday was awesome!!! Short and to the point!, and then Pharmacology with Dr. Bãnag was pretty straight forward. For the quiz I ended up coming up with really weird mnemonics… I hope they worked… That afternoon I volunteered at Operation Breakthrough. It was great, because I worked with the 4 year olds—you can do a whole lot more with a 4 year old than with a baby… I had a good time there!

Friday was a special day—Research Day. We had research presentation from 8am till 4pm. I sat in Ricci auditorium, which was nice. Dr. Siedler’s presentation was really interesting—plastic in the brains of Alzheimer patients!

That night was our weekly visit to the anatomy lab. I think we have most of it down… David Roshell (2nd year) came and helped us with the few things we couldn’t identify, and so now I think we are feeling pretty confident about it! Just for kicks I’ll tell you something I thought was amusing—the way David says Aorta is so funny! He is from New York, and he ends up saying something like Ao-ter. It is so cute!!!

Well gang, my fever is going up, so I better go grab some meds and straight into bed,

Love you all,

Reut
PS—one thing I realized very fast… med-school and being sick doesn’t work very well together… I took my quiz this morning when I was completely hazy… It’ll be interesting to see how I did on this one in comparison to past quizzes :o)

28 feb 05 @ 10:00 pm

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Saturday, February 19, 2005
Why is February so short???
02-12-05--> 02-18-05

Hi Everybody,

Okay, this week was very interesting. We went through abnormal EKGs in so many of our classes—it was very fun. On Tuesday we had a lab with Dr. Karty who went over auscultations, blood pressure and basic cardiovascular examination—basics but obviously important. It was wonderful and exciting and just plain fun! All of you know that I learn best by doing, and so all of our clinical skill labs are the most exciting time of the week for me. At the moment, second years are doing female examinations, so we are hearing lots of cool stories from them… I was thinking about it a few nights ago—it is almost the end of this year, I mean, we have a section and a half to go, and then it will be the summer. If second year will go by as fast as first year did, I’ll be out of school in a jiffy. I absolutely love learning, and I’ll be sad to leave the “classroom,” however, it will be awesome to learn in rotations! What can I do, I love being the eternal student, and glad that I’ll never have to stop learning. With every section that we went over so far (with the exception of respiratory and dermatology,) I got so hooked that I went out and proclaimed to all of my friends and family: “I’m going to become a __________ (and here I’d insert whatever it was we were learning at the time.)” When I said to them a few days ago “I’m going to be a pediatric cardiologist!” they all just had that funny smile on their face… I guess they are choosing to ignore my enthusiastic outbreaks. It’s a good thing I don’t have to decide on this right now.

Wow, I went on a tangent there… So back to school—a few months ago, when I was in the midst of studying for my first OMT examination, I came up with an interesting idea that had turn into a proposal—I wanted to create (or at least organize) a CD/DVD with film and PowerPoint presentations that would depict the first year’s osteopathic manipulation material. Anyways, Jessica (a first year representative for UAAO) and I joined forces together and created a plan and a proposal. Jessica took the proposal in to one of our professors on Wednesday. Sadly, my wonderful bright idea was already thought of two years ago by the students in the 2006 or 2005 class :o( My idea is actually in the middle of being made by that class. Oh well. So both Jessica and I were disappointed, but I trust that during the next few months I will come up with some new and better ideas that will become our grand project for next year.

During this week me, my friend Deepa and my neighbor Dave had an appointment with Lori Fitterling who is our wonderful Information Resource Specialist—she showed us how to work out MDConsult. It is an amazing resource, and I have started using it immediately. It is kind of funny, because I borrow library books constantly, and now I am also hooked to this great resource. Libraries are so great!

Another extra bit I did—I talked to Dr. Hentosh about a few drugs I was intrigued by and spent a good chunk of time with her going over a certain biosynthesis, trying to figure out exactly how these drugs work. It was awesome. I don’t know if Dr. Hentosh will ever run into this website, but if she does, I just wanted to say a thank you!

In Docs for Tots (the club I am one of the first year representatives for), we had a big cookie sale today. Many people baked cookies, and I joined into the fun—however… my cookies don’t seem to hold up against the amazing frosted covered double decked cookies that people make… :o) We have some very talented people in our group!!! Wow!

We had Anatomy lab on Thursday—after my request, Dr. Nelson sang a little bit of his “heart song” :o) That was fun. On Tuesday and today (Friday), I chose to visit the lab a few more times—I am so excited that we are working on this now, because I hate being in the anatomy lab a week before the practical examination, because so many people are freaking out and are stressing right there in the lab. When I learn these in my own pace I remember them better, and I don’t get engulfed in the stupid “exam-panic” that so many people experience. Besides, I am growing fond of that nasty smell!

This weekend is all devoted for studying—we don’t have a quiz, but I need to finish a few lectures and then review the material.

Love to all, I miss you!

Reut

19 feb 05 @ 1:50 am

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Saturday, February 12, 2005
Week of 02-05-05-->02-11-05
I like cardio!!!

This week was really fun at school, which was great— I really enjoyed learning about embryological development of the heart, I thought it was just so neat how the heart folds, and a 4 chambered organ is created from a tube! It’s amazing! I really enjoyed going through the EKGs with Dr. Johnston. I love it that he started with a normal EKG… I can’t see us learning it any other way. Physiology is really cool too; I am just in awe of the human body! Anatomy lab was very exciting too, but then I realized that all the arteries and veins I thought I had down (from studying them earlier with my notes), look completely different in real life than they do in a book…

On Tuesday we had OMT examination. I studied like crazy during the weekend (late at night with friends, what can be better?) I did very well, but I feel that the section I will need to concentrate on next time is radiology—I am getting better at it, but I would like to become excellent at it. (Maybe if I read like a 1000 x-rays it’ll happen).

During the OMT examination, it started to snow, and they shut the school down at 3pm. That’s okay because due to the examination, we weren’t scheduled to have a class. That night I was praying that we will NOT have snow day the next day—during last section we did, and it put us in such a disadvantage… I never want to go through that again.

Wednesday was fun— and after I came back from Anatomy lab, Vivian (he is from South Africa originally) and I had a short snow ball fight. I started it and he just went crazy, and I couldn’t stop laughing, running and throwing snow balls! It was very fun. He is such a goof-ball!

We had two anatomy lectures on Thursday—Dr. Thomas took over for Dr. Nelson because he is out of town. I love Dr. Nelson’s style, and Dr. Thomas used made sure to use Nelson’s notes, so it was basically his lecture with very few adaptations.

Well, Friday was a looooooooooong day—We had our normal classes, then we had a make up class because one of our professors got stuck in traffic on the Wednesday (darn snow!), then I had two extra lectures for the health, exercise and nutrition class I am taking (it’s considered to be a summer elective, even though it is taken right now). THEN, we had a heart sounds review with Dr. Ballam. I love it—I think I’ll become good at it; it’s very much like the aural classes I had to take for music theory. It’s amazing how many sounds the heart can make—it’s even more musical than the lungs!!! Anyways, anyone with musical background has an advantage in this section. But, wait, my day wasn’t over… I went over to buy some groceries and then came back, went to a small Valentine’s Day party down at the lounge. When I got there all the pizza was gone, so I hang around for a little bit and then went back home to eat something. After that James, Tala, Brian, Luke and I went to the Anatomy lab… It was just wonderful going there and holding hearts together :o) (very appropriate as we just came out of the Valentine party)

Well, we were done late that night, and then I came home, talked on the phone with my friend and just crashed!

We have a quiz coming up on Monday, which should be “fun.” I should go and study, but I think I’ll go and bake some cookies first. I discovered last week that I can bake without burning! I was so excited that I bough a few cookie cutters and now going to make some ‘cool’ looking cookies!

Love to all, I miss you very much—


Reut
PS- Mom, Dad, Omer and Midi—spring break is in about 5 weeks!!! YES! :o) I can’t wait to see you!

12 feb 05 @ 8:51 pm

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Sunday, February 6, 2005
01-31-05 --> 02-05-05

Hi Everyone,

Well, this was a catch-up week…basically, the whole week was completely devoted to studying! We had a pathology practical on Thursday and a final exam on Friday. Phew! It was a lot of work, and it’s nice to be done with it.

Normally, we get a “free weekend” between sections, but this time around, we didn’t—we have an OMT (manipulations) practical on Tuesday, so on Saturday (today) and Sunday I will be at school studying and practicing… I am sure we will be the only people in school, as the Super-Bowl is on Sunday :o) (No, we are not “gunners”, nor “dorks,” we just don’t like football too much…)

I just wanted to say a special thanks to Savta Adina for the really beautiful and most fuzzily warm sweatshirt! I got it on Wednesday, and I absolutely love it!

Well, this is a really tiny journal entry, but nothing is going on here… Oh, wait, that’s not true—I made a new type of soup (I must share this with the world, because I am not the best cook yet, so every time I make something delicious I get very excited). In anycase, I made Lentil soup with chili and oriental veggies. It is so unique and different than the regular lentil soup I make (with celery, carrots, mushrooms, garlic and leek)—I got the recipe from my friend Deepa who is from India. It turned out great!!! Yum!

Okay, now I am really done blabbing, I love you all and miss you very much!

Reut
PS—one thing I learned in med-school… “Never give up!”

6 feb 05 @ 11:26 pm