May 2005

Saturday, May 28, 2005
Resting up!
5-22-05--> 5-28-05

Hello all,

First of all, I have to tell all of you how wonderful it is to be home. I have missed everyone so much, and just being here is great.

About two days after I got home I grew restless, and so decided it was time to do some academic work—I contacted Dr. S, a friend of the family who is a pathologist, and asked if I could come and shadow him and his partners this summer. He agreed, and I have been having a wonderful time! Looking at slides, gross sectioning and doing homework is great. Up until now, every time I could not answer a question right (due to either not learning it, or not remembering it) I was sent to read about it :o) I just LOVE it! As I am not feeling too confident about pathology, this is definitely the best way to become more confident at it. Many thanks to all of them!

Besides doing that, I have just completed another scholarship application today, so I am feeling quite productive. If anyone knows of more scholarships around, please let me know :o) The other day I completed a bunch of paperwork that have been sitting on my ‘to do list’ for the past month. It was nice to finish it all.

The weather here is terrible. It has been too hot to be allowed. The day after I got home it was 112F (44.4C). Because it is this hot, I’ve been waking up at around 5AM every day to go walking with mom and Midnight. After 7AM it is just too hot to do anything outside the air conditioned house. Blah.

Well, that is about it, I really haven’t done too much this week…

Love,

Reut

28 may 05 @ 4:15 pm

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Monday, May 23, 2005
Finally, it's official... It's summer!!!
May 16th--> May 22nd

Hello everyone!

I am sound and safe back in Arizona. I think that only through driving across the US one is able to get a notion of how large our country really is. The drive from Missouri to Colorado took about 9 hours or so. The flat prairies of Kansas are really unique, but get really old really fast (…boring!...) Upon seeing the snowy tops of the rocky mountains, a great ‘whoop’ escaped my mouth. It was just a wonderful sight!

Once in Colorado I stayed at my friend Banana’s house. I had great fun! The first night we went out to see the movie “Monster in Law.” We almost went to see the opening night of the 3rd prequel movie for StarWars, but both decided we would fall asleep in a movie that started at midnight. The movie was cute, but I don’t think I’ll go see it again. On Thursday I stayed at Banana’s home while everyone (with the exception of her brother Adam) went to work. I got tons of stuff done (filling out forms and writing letters). When Banana came back we visited her grandparents and then had dinner with her parents. We attempted to see a bunch of movies at night but Banana crashed and half an hour later, I too fell asleep. On Friday, we finally got our butts together and went hiking at chitaqua (I don’t know if I’m spelling this right)—a trail in Boulder. We had a great time there but I got very tired afterwards and just fell asleep on the way back to Banana’s house and then for a while afterwards. Later on that night we saw Azadeh and her wonderful folks. It was nice seeing all of them. This time around I didn’t get to see Kevin, but hope to do so next time I pass by (which could very well be at the end of the summer).

The next day I woke up super early and started my drive. Southern Colorado is gorgeous! My previous liking to the state of New Mexico dwindled after I almost ran out of gas… It truly was annoying. When I passed a gas station way back at the beginning of the state, my tank was 3/4ths filled. I decided not to fuel, and started to get very worried when for the next 150 miles I did not see ANY gas station around! They really ought to put a sign up next to that last gas station and say: “Next services in 200 miles.” This would be an awesome commercial for them, and would prevent people from running out of gas in the middle of the high desert. I was driving and it was about 44 miles from Las Vegas (in New Mexico)-- I was really low on gas, and somewhere in the middle my gas warning light lit up. Oh, I was pretty mad at the lack of ‘gas signs’, and was wishing that my gas would last until I hit the gas station. Lucky for me, it did, but it surly caused my heart to skip a few beats.

The rest of the way back home was uneventful. The minute I hit Albuquerque, I knew it was only a few hours to Phoenix, and just attempted to pass the time quickly. Both singing and listening to audio books was great. Other than that, looking at the never-ending desert got quite repetitive after the first 300 miles…

Now I am home, and I am LOVING it!!! I can’t wait for this summer!!!

Goodnight from here, I am super tired at the moment,

Love much,

Reut

23 may 05 @ 12:13 am

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Saturday, May 14, 2005
And... 1/4 of the marathon is completed!
May 8th--> May 13th 2005

“There are moments you remember all your life… there are moments you wait for and dream of all your life… this is one of those moments” –Yentl

Congratulations to the class of 2008! We have completed the first year of medical school! Cheers!

Amazing. This is the best description I could come up with. Just amazing. It is amazing how much fun, excitement and challenges we have all conquered. It is amazing how fast time have passed. It is amazing that we have learned so much. And it is amazing that we always keep reaching further and further for our goals. This year has been tremendous—both academically and personally. To be doing the exact thing I want to do is the ultimate. To be well on my way to achieve my goals is inspiring.

This week has been jammed packed! On Monday morning we had an OPP test—I did extremely well on it (“ha! Take that test!!”) but worked my buns off to know my stuff cold. My personal lesson is that I can’t let OPP slide by—I have got to keep practicing it all the time. With the GI section it was just very difficult to stay on top of OPP; I just didn’t have any extra time. I will not allow myself to do this again, because it was very difficult to catch up. On Tuesday morning we had 2 exams—Communication skills exam (which was basically 2 sets of patient interviews), and Clinical skills exam—written, aural, and a physical examination. I studied very hard for these and I really enjoyed the clinical skills part of it!!! I have a feeling Dr. Dyke got a kick out of me—I was just so excited to explain different tests… you all know how I get when I’m excited about something…

Today we had 2 more tests—end of the year cumulative final and Shelf examination (that in all reality is like the USMLE). They were both hard, and I hope I did well on them.

As all I did this week was study, I went out tonight with a bunch of my friends to celebrate Nema’s birthday. It was just so much fun!!! I bet there were about 30 people there! It was just plain non-school fun! We really ought to do it more often…

Exciting news! I was chosen to receive the Class of 1965-Second Dedication Physicians’ Hall of Sponsors Scholarship! I am honored to be chosen, and even more motivated to apply to additional scholarships than before. When I will be an alumnus, I would like to create a few scholarships—I love KCUMB, and by supporting the school and the students I will show my gratitude.

What else? I am driving home on Wednesday (happy dance!). I will be stopping in Colorado and will stay at Banana’s house (Kevin, I know you read my journal regularly—I don’t have your phone number, so call Banana to make plans!). My plan is to stay there a day or two and then to drive home to phoenix!!! :o) :o) :o) I just can’t wait! However… until I get to do that, I have to clean my place, go to the doctor, go to the car shop, return all of my library books (there are about 20 books or so… ugg), so I have a whole lot to do before I leave. Nevertheless, tomorrow morning I am planning to sleep in!

Night to you all, I love you much and miss you!

Reut
PS—check out the counter on the bottom of the webpage—I added it yesterday.

14 may 05 @ 9:18 am

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Saturday, May 7, 2005
PS

Really fast, because I have to run to my study group, I forgot to tell you that I got locked in Smith Hall 2 nights ago!!! The building closes at around 11:30, and we just lost track of time. When we finally noticed that we were late it was only about 5 minutes after closing time, so we hurried up and got our stuff. When we were going down the stairs we were joking on how funny it would be if we got locked in the building, on how great it would be to study until we drop and then sleep on the OPP tables. When we got to the bottom floor we realized that we were in fact locked in…

LOL!

We ended up calling security (who thought it was very funny), but before he came to let us out, the nice cleaning lady unlocked us!

What a dorky adventure!

Reut (the red-head nerd!)

7 may 05 @ 8:43 am

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Friday, May 6, 2005
Almost done with first year!!!
05-01-05 --> 05-06-05

Hi everyone!

Wow. Another week is over. This one was a tough one, but this is it, we are officially done with GI!!!!!!! Now all that is left is the OPP practical, Clinical skills assessment, Cumulative final exam and the shelf examination! I am so happy :o)

The overall theme for this week was: “lack of sleep”. I was not the only one to suffer from this problem. One of my classmates said it just right: “We are all in a state of delirium…” Yup...

Remember that I told you a few weeks ago how I had an epiphany in Anatomy lab and thought of something nice to do? Well…

Our cool professor Dr. Karius has been just awesome to us as a class. She has been the section director for two of our sections and has always been our advocator. She always does above and beyond and truly cares about us. I thought that it would be a really nice gesture to show her how thankful we all are, and so, when I was in anatomy lab this idea came to me—as we are in the Gastrointestinal section, we should get her some children books that have to do with poop and farting and fun stuff like that… and then… we should write all inside it and add jokes, drawings and medical terminology correction (“peristaltic rush”= diarrhea etc…)

…You know what happens when I get cool ideas like that, right? I go ahead with them!

The 3 books we got were: “Once Upon a Potty”, “Everyone Poops” and “The Gas We Pass—the Story of Farts”. So for about 3 weeks my classmates were busy at work— and the results were just hysterical! When I first saw the finished books, I thought I was going to cry from laughing so much! Some of the annotations were very clever and some just funny! We decided to wait until the last day of this section to give her the present, and this week we finally presented Dr. Karius with it. Steve (our class president) had asked me to make the presentation, and so I did. It was really fun, and I think she really liked it!

So… back to school: after the two days of lecture we had this week I spent time studying and going over material and summarizing and quizzing.

On Thursday we had the Anatomy practical and the pathology practical. Both were pretty hard this section. I was really annoyed with a mistake I made in pathology… I should never change my answers, I really know better than that.

Today (Friday) we had our final examination. I feel good about the exam, and hope I did well.

And so, since the rest of next week is going to be dedicated for studying for all of the exams I have listed at the top, I am taking tonight off and going out! Hurrah!!!

Much love to you all,

Reut (with the raccoon eyes) :o)

6 may 05 @ 5:39 pm