October 2004

Sunday, October 31, 2004
Done with another section!
10-23-04-->10-30-04

Hello to everyone!

Remember how a few weeks ago I said that “…this was the most difficult week so far”? Well… I was wrong… this past week was much harder than that specific one, and was by far the most difficult up to this point!

We had a quiz on Monday, an Anatomy practical and a Pathology practical on Thursday, and then on Friday we had our final examination. Oh, and in the middle we had classes. The Anatomy practical was cool—they set all of our cadavers in a huge circle and tagged different muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, arteries, veins and then even a few bone parts. It was difficult, but fun. Pathology practical went okay, it was difficult, but I think that over all I was ready, and now I understand how to study for his class. The final was very difficult, but that was a given. I am just glad we are done with this section.

Funny thing this week—In the beginning of one of our pathology labs, Dr. Frielander and Dr. Barber brought a small keyboard and did a presentation/sing-along of “These Bones”! It was just too funny. We all needed a little mental break from class, and coming in the form of a silly song, it was much appreciated.

This weekend was absolutely wonderful! Because we are between sections, I have time off of school, which feels just great!!! Secondly, and more important, mom came and visited me. It was only for about 17hrs (7 of which we slept), but despite being too short, it was sweet! I missed mom SO much. I just wish she could have been with me longer.

So… off I go to another week. Tomorrow (Sunday) I have to meet with 2 of my classmates to work on our Pathology presentation. I’ll add my 2 cents here: I really think the administration of our school should consider changing the schedule and giving us a whole week off between the different sections :o) Do you think they’ll go for that?

Much love to all, I miss you SO much!

Reut

31 oct 04 @ 8:58 am

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Saturday, October 23, 2004
10-16-04 to 10-22-04

Hi Everyone,

Ugg… what a difficult week! First of all the weather has been just disgusting—I haven’t seen the sun in a week, and it has been cold and misty. Basically, I’ve been walking in a cloud (and trust me, it’s not cloud #9) all week long. Lucky for me, the maroon sweater grandma knitted me a few years back kept me warm during the week, thanks Savta! On the bright side, tomorrow we are due for a wonderfully sunny day! :o) It’s about time…

So academic wise—I have an “over-dose” of Dr. McWhorter. The way he lectures and the way I learn are the complete opposites. Some people in the class adore his style, but I am not one of them. We finally finished the “foot” lecture—we still need to get to it in lab. Last night I sat and worked w/the foot muscles until I got them all down. Now I need to work on innervations, veins and arteries.

On Tuesday we had a great Osteopathic Clinical skills review. It was awesome! 2 weeks from now my friends and I will work through all of the tests and conditions for our practical. It should be great!

Wednesday was decent— school was long, but we had the afternoon off! My friend James asked me to take him to the clinic and so I had a little study break and a good time just hanging out with him. That night, 2 of my friends and I got a second year to help us with pathology. Path makes SO much more sense now! We will keep meeting her throughout the year to help us break down the material.

On Thursday we had our last McWhorter lectures for the week (hurrah!), and Pediatrics!!! I love that course! We actually had a patient come in and talk to us about his muscular dystrophy—since I worked w/ a child that had MD, everything he said hit very close to home. By the way, his mother looked identical to Ziva—that was weird. Somewhere in the middle of day we had internal medicine. Later on we had Micro lab and Pathology lab—both were neat. That afternoon I had my last examination of CPR, and thus I am now certified…again… I can’t believe we spent so many afternoons in CPR. Overall, I had a wonderful time in that class, and it was a nice change from the normal routine, but it still took out a big chunk out of my time.

Today was absolutely wonderful!!! We had emergency medicine in the morning, and then we had casting clinic, where we got to practice and put casts on! I put 2 casts—one on my friend Bobby, and the other on my friend Deepa. I had such a good time, and I think I did a very good job! Sawing the cast off was very fun too! :o) At lunch time I had a meeting with Don Weaver (the “guru” of good pointers and tips)—he had a few more interesting ideas which I have already begun to implement. During the afternoon, we had primary care day—I decided to attend the second half of it, where less people would be hanging around. It was awesome! I got to practice many procedures on dummies—I started w/performing a biopsy on a chicken (representing human, of course), continued on w/ starting IV (we get to do the real thing on one another in about 2 or 3 weeks from now), I was shown how to suture— I need some practice :o), I put an epidural in a dummy, and there were a few other things too. This was such a nice day!

In any case, next week is going to be busy… I have a quiz on Monday, 2 practicals on Thursday, and a final on Friday. It will be very packed. This weekend will be dedicated for Anatomy, pathology and everything else :o)

I miss you all very much,

With love,


Reut

23 oct 04 @ 12:12 am

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Saturday, October 16, 2004
In the words of the Beatles: "it's been a hard day's night, and I've been working like a dog"
10-09-04-->10-15-04

Hi everyone!

When I look out the window, all of the trees have turned yellow and red. Fall is here, and it is beautiful! The weather has turned colder, and now I am not the only person in Kansas City to wear a jacket :o)

School has been long and hard this week. We had a quiz on Monday, which was very hard, and our class average was the lowest it has ever been. I did well on it, and I feel a lot of it has to do with a new idea I’ve tried. In one of his workshops, Don Weaver (who is one of the advisors on campus), suggested to cover the answers up, and write on the margin what you know about it. Then, uncover the answers and match it with yours. In the past, Mom and Dad said similar things to me; that I need to stop over thinking and stop try to figure out what “they” want the answer to be. Well… I tried it, and it worked! The exam was hard, but I found a new way for me to show my true knowledge. Now I am going to hunt Don Weaver down and find out some more useful information from him!!!

Okay, material wise—our week was termed: “joint pain”, so in all of our disciplines we discussed possible causes for joint pain.

In immunology we discussed Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus (SLE)… in internal medicine we talked about the same diseases plus Gout, Osteoarthritis, Osteoporosis, and a few other ones. We talked about Gonorrhea as being a surprising cause for joint pain in younger teens, but not so surprising in adults. In pediatrics we had a whole huge list of causes, and basically, in every lecture this week we have talked about similar diseases that would cause joint pain. In regards to ‘AAAAAAH-natomy’, there is SO much I need to know… I will spend my Sunday in the stinky lab to make sure I know which nerve innervates which muscle, etc.

On Wednesday, Dr. Karius presented: CAM, a stress reduction workshop. This took up a huge chunk of the afternoon, and my first response was: “If they want to reduce our stress, they’ll let us go home and work on the material we just covered in class.” But, surprisingly enough, this workshop was quite useful, and it brought a few good points regarding treating stress in our patients also!
Dr. Karius’ personal definition of stress is: “When the body overcomes the urge to strangle someone” Hahahahah! Funny! She gave the actual physiological definition too, but I thought this one was much funnier!
So, in the 4 hour block we went through martial arts, yoga and massage. It was quite wonderful, actually!!! If anyone would like a massage when I get home, I’d love to give you one— the technique they showed us was pretty simple, and I’m quite sure I’ll remember it.

CPR class was really fun this week too—we basically reviewed everything and practiced over and over. Next week we have our “big exam” in CPR, and then I will be done with it. Overall, this class was fun and useful.

I am so excited for next week!!! We have casting clinic (putting on casts) at the end of the week, and primary care day, which should be really fun!!! I am not too excited about the week after that. We will have a quiz on Monday, Anatomy practical on Thursday and a pathology practical following that. Then we will have our Final exam on Friday. But I’m not worrying about it yet.

Well gang, I am off to take a look at my notes from Friday.

I love you and miss you!

Reut

16 oct 04 @ 12:04 pm

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Friday, October 8, 2004
Week of 10-02 through 10-08-04

Hi everyone!

Wow, what a week! I have been so busy that time just flew by! The key word for this week is… Anatomy. There is so much information to go over, and so little time. I really wish they had another Anatomy course that went with our regular 1st year med-school Anatomy. Except this extra Anatomy course should be called “Anatomy in normal speed” and should span throughout the year, allowing us to learn everything like normal people ought to! I am doing my best to stay on top of the game with Anatomy coloring book, Anatomy note cards, Anatomy Atlases (I checked 2 out of the library in addition to mine…), and Anatomy lab, but in all reality, there is only so much information I can internalized. My thought is perhaps to TA an Anatomy course during the summer at a local community college—that way I will get a nice review of everything (by helping others) and get paid a little (which is always good! :o) )

In any case, besides anatomy, my world has been filled with Embryology. I absolutely LOVE this field!!! I get SO excited about that topic!!! I might be one of the only people who get a huge grin on their face whenever one of our Embryo instructors steps in the room!!!

We had our first Pediatrics lecture today. It was mainly about birth defects (which we covered in Embryology already). I was in heaven!!!!!!!!!!!

So, despite the fact that I have all this academic material to master, I am also required to have a BLS/CPR class. No… it did not matter that my certificate has not expired yet…apparently all students have to participate in this class. So now I spend my Thursdays and Fridays in school until 5:30. Overall, this class is not that bad, and it wouldn’t last that long anyways. It’s better to get it out of the way. We move around a lot and practice, so it is kind of fun :o)

On Tuesday I had my first patient interview—it went really well! We had a set amount of time in which we were suppose to get patient’s history etc. I watch myself on a video tape recording yesterday, and I felt really good about it! It’s nice to be able to watch it and give a critique—it made me aware of what parts I need to change, and what parts I did really well on. It’s also nice to realize that yes, interacting with people is what I will be doing at the end.

Our weather is being crazy—it was cold a few days in a row (an Arizona winter weather basically), and then it was warm. Yesterday we had a big storm, which was nice, but I got completely soaked on the way to CPR class! It’s a good thing scrubs dry off fast.

That’s about it guys,
I have a quiz on Monday, thus not surprisingly I will be busy all weekend long.

Much love to everyone,

Re

8 oct 04 @ 11:47 pm

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Saturday, October 2, 2004
I can't believe it is October now!
Week September 25-->October 1st

Hi everyone,

Another long week has passed by… I cannot believe it is October already….Time really fly when I am busy.

We have done many things in school this week—tons and just tons of Anatomy—it is very exciting and amazing. Labs are just tremendous! It is amazing to see the human body, and it is even more amazing to know that we are made out of meat and bones... It is just amazing.

My favorite class so far is Embryology. If I thought Anatomy was amazing, Embryology is above and beyond that! It is just tremendous to know that in such a short time each of us has develops into a unique human being. From 2 haploid cells we have become a complete and complicated being. I also love this class b/c you have to be able to see everything in your head in 3-d and be able to rotate things around.

On Tuesday I had breakfast w/ mentors—that was very fun! I talked to a really nice doctor, and she gave me a lot of advice and suggestions. This was a very informative and exciting event! That night all of my friends and I got together and enjoyed some Pizza for James’ birthday! That was fun! An hour away from the books proved to be beneficial.

Before I forget, last Saturday I broke the fast at David’s house—it was so much fun!!! David is a 4th year who invited all of the Jewish people to come and break the fast w/ him and his congregation. They had wonderful food, and we all had a great time!

Today (Friday) I finally visited Operation Breakthrough—they have over 500 kids or so in a very small space. The noise level is tremendous, but I just cannot wait to start! I will be working with 2’s, 3’s and perhaps the babies too! This will be so much fun!

Well, that’s about it for the week—I must go study,

Much love to all of you, I miss you!

Re

2 oct 04 @ 8:22 am