The move...

July 14th--> July 30, 2006

Hello everyone!

I just got my new cable services, so I am finally able to make an entry and add an entry to the “chronicles” :o)

So after a long tiring week I am finally all moved in to my new apartment. It definitely has been loads of hard work, but well worth it…

Summer session ended on Thursday the 20th. After class in the morning we had a quiz, and then later on a farewell party. Oh my, the food was excellent!!! I just love cheese! The party was real fun, it was nice to see everyone for one last time. Later on that day, I went to help Dr. K with a research project she is working on. She needed people to help her with her wording of the questions—I did just that, it was fun. For all the help, she gave us a small gift certificate at Barnes and Noble, and I decided to give it to Omer.

On Friday I went with Vega and KC to Dr. K (a different Dr. K) the veterinarian. I got some calming medications for the cats (which we ended up not using), one last check up for Vega and weighing for KC. Dr. K said they were both nice and healthy and ready for the move.

On Friday night I continued packing, and did just that on Saturday. On Sunday Omer flew in, and I picked him up at the airport, stopped to get some food for home and enjoyed a small lunch at ‘Applebees.’ Omer was excited about helping me with the move, but was worried about his cat allergies. As it turned out, the Benadryl worked great, but sure made him sleepy.

On Monday morning, I showed Omer around my school and said last goodbyes to the wonderful Dr. Cole and Dorothy. At around 10am we went to get the rental truck. …then we couldn’t avoid it anylonger… we had to work…

OY! Packing wasn’t too bad, but fitting everything into the truck (in essence playing “Tetris” in the real world), lifting and carrying was pretty hectic. We got almost everything in, and had a few leftovers for Tuesday morning. We were both tired and fell asleep really fast.

On Tuesday morning (my move out day) we got up at about 6am to finish the last moving bits… Well, it is amazing how the few little things I had left took us over three hours to finish fitting into the truck. By 10:00 I was ready to check out, and so we put the cats into their carrier (they were most unhappy by it, and the minute I opened the carrier door to give them some water they ran straight back into the now-empty apartment.

In anycase, we finished my walk-through with one of the people from the front office, and I promised them I’ll come say hi during graduation week in two years… Then I went downstairs to the loading-dock, put the cats in the car, said goodbye to Sasha, Phuc and Vivien who were all standing there, and took off.

On the first day of drive we drove all the way to Indianapolis. The drive was easy, but long, and when we got to our hotel, we were both pretty tired. That night, the cats decided to hide under the hotel beds.

The next morning, Omer and I had a nice breakfast (gotta love motel waffles!), we managed to get the cats from under the bed and then took off again, driving across gorgeous Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania (we were in that state for a really long time) and finally, New Jersey. We found our hotel, but this time around the hotel were smart and put a surrounding area around the bed to prevent any pets from going under the beds… Well… that didn’t work too well, because KC found a small hole and hid under the bed again.

Well, this time we decided to go to a nearby restaurant, which happened to be Applebees again… We were both tired of sandwiches and snacks. When we came back to the room, we convinced KC to come out. When he came out he brought with him a big ball of human hair…. EWWWWW!!! GROSS!!! Omer threw it away and I was revolted. Blah! Well, we then managed to block the hole and KC had no choice but to join Vega in the room.

Both of the cats did extremely well on this trip. They did not need any calming medications. KC sat in the small litter box I put in, and Vega sat on top of the upper shelf I built for them. They meowed only when the calming sound of Jim Dale reading “Harry Potter and the Half Blooded Prince” ceased. I did not mind listening to Harry Potter on a CD all the way to NJ, and the ‘Furry Bunch’ needed that noise to calm them down.

The next morning I moved to my new apartment, and this was the hardest day of the whole trip!!! Although my electricity was working, the apartment was very very hot and the air conditioning was not working properly. With 97 degrees outside and about 100% humidity, I thought I was literally going to melt. It was horrid.

We got everything put into the apartment (that was much easier than fitting everything into the truck), and then we started cleaning and building. Omer built my bed while I was cleaning the bathroom. Both Omer and I had flushed faces, and we were just miserable! I couldn’t hold the frustration down anymore and shed a few tears—Omer was quite abashed by my ‘girly’ behavior, and I had to explain that this is how I take my frustration out. But all in all, during the moving in day I just wanted to go back to my very bad neighborhood in Kansas City! I really did not want to clean other people’s dirt.

I don’t know about you, but if the dirt is mine, I don’t mind it, but if it is someone elses… well… I hate it and have to clean very thoroughly. And so I did…

The next morning we continued… I cleaned the kitchen, which was just awful… someone had a food explosion in there, and I cleaned every last bit of it. During that time, Omer was putting together my living room and computer area. By the end of the day we had put almost everything in place. I still had a few boxes that needed to be put in place, and a few more small cleaning projects, but overall, the place looked definitely livable. Before dinner we drove down to my new hospital and I got very excited about it. It is one of the rotation sites where we will end up at. It is fairly close to my place, which is nice… We ended up eating in Olive Garden again… we both like Italian dishes. Then we decided to drive up to the mall and were quite disturbed to see a ‘dying mall’… basically, no cars, very few open stores… very scary!

The next morning, Omer and I drove to the airport, and I said a sad goodbye to my brother who has been just wonderful during this move! Then he went on his flight and I drove back home… I was amazed I did not get lost and then I continued with my cleaning projects.

Today (Sunday), I finally finished all that was needed to be done. All the dirt is now mine (well… hopefully), everything is put away and any mess that I have here is mine! This is much better!!!

I actually enjoy living in the suburbs… it is nice! And now my apartment looks really nice and it feels like home again. My cats are not in hiding any longer, and are actually playing, which is just great. Overall, this wasn’t too bad!

Well… That is it for now.

I hope you all had a great two weeks—
I’ll write soon later,

Love,

Reut

From here on, these are new entries.

Wow... transfering the blog portion of the old website took a long time... I had to fiddle around with the spacing until I got it right.

Anyhow, this tiny post is just a separation of the old postings from the new ones.

Well, it is getting way too late at the moment, so I am off to bed,

I'll write a real entry tomorrow.

Night!

Reut

July 2006

Monday, July 17, 2006
3 more days until summer session is over :o) !
07-09-06-->07-14-06

Hello everyone!

We are really almost done with 2nd year… it is really exciting! We have three more days of school, and for me, an additional selective class day. I am very excited to be moving on to 3rd year.

Let’s see… This week was a bit slow. On Monday I had my sign language class and my Spanish class. It was just a very long day. I think no class should be taught for more than 2 hours max. 4 hours of Spanish just kills me! My brain fights any new information after the 2 hour mark, and then it just gets to be a drag.

On Tuesday, we had CV cases, and my group was not called. That is too bad, because we were very prepared. We then had a HIPAA lecture, and an OSHA/Bloodborne pathogens presentation. During lunch time we had a lecture about how to use the new computer system for next year (they fed us lunch). Then we had a very long “Parenteral Nutrition/ Hyperalimentation” lecture. It lasted for 4 hours, and by 5pm I was so tired that I couldn’t even think straight.

On Wednesday morning we had two pediatric pain control lectures. It was very interesting, in my opinion. Then we went through Human development cases, and yet again, we were not called to go up there and present. This was followed by an hour and a half of a lecture about how we need to take care of ourselves.

Thursday started of with two ethic lectures. Followed by “The impaired Physician” lecture. Interesting, but… well… I was tired during that day. We then had two hours of a panel that consisted of two lawyers, a risk management person, a physician, and a philosopher. They all talked about what happens if you make a mistake. It was definitely an eye opener. Very informative and important. We then had GI cases, and yet again our group was not called up. THEN… we had a short COMLEX PE review.

Today (Friday), I woke up very early and practiced my sign language conversation and then helped my friend Katie move some of her things down to her car. Later on, I went to my sign language class. Also today, I said goodbye to Dorothy. She is going on a vacation, and by the time she comes back, I will already be gone.

Well… and that is truly the extent of my week,

Only one more thing—I passed the USMLE!! Now I am waiting the results for the COMLEX (which will be given sometimes in the middle of September to the beginning of October.)

That’s all folks!

Talk soon,

Reut
17 jul 06 @ 5:17 pm

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Saturday, July 8, 2006
you know they need to give you more homework when you have the time to learn how to say "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" backwards...
06-30-06 -->07-08-06

Hello everyone!

This past week has been nice and semi-relaxed, which was great! I left you off right before Friday. That day was quite busy. I met up with one of my group members and did two cases together with her. I’m glad we did because we got it done, and it was nice to be prepared well in advance. Following our 4 hour meeting, I went to the library to use their fax and contacted my new apartment complex and received the lease from them. I have to sign it and it will all be official. It is very nice to know where I am going to be moving to in less then a month… I’m very excited! After that I rushed back home to get ready for Julia and Riley’s wedding.

Their wedding was not far from Wichita, Kansas, and it was about three hours drive from here. I drove together with my friend Ayo, and another friend, Chei Hsin (sorry, I misspelled that for sure, phonetically it is pronounced: Jay-Shen) rode in another car in front of us. We ended up splitting in the middle of the way, because I chose another route and haven’t quite discussed it with Chei-Hsin, but we all made it there on time, and it was not a big deal. The wedding was absolutely beautiful, and we stayed there until they cut the cake, and then drove back home.

The 4th of July weekend is a bit hazy. I slept a whole lot and worked on more cases… I also read a few books, but all in all, it was just a very relaxing wonderful weekend. The only annoying thing was that all across my very bad neighborhood, people were putting their own personal 4th of July fireworks display until 4AM… it was quite scary, as I was certain one of the buildings will catch on fire. Even as we speak, almost a whole week later, I can hear the fireworks exploding just down the street. Apparently people have loads of them left to keep exploding until the end of the summer.

The week started on Wednesday with Neuro and Renal cases. We were not called up front again, which makes the likelihood of our group been chosen for GI, Cardio and Reproductive cases much higher. I was very prepared for these cases and was a bit disappointed not to have been chosen to go up there. You know how it works… when you are ready, you are not called, but when you are unprepared, you are sure to be called… ugg.

Then on Thursday we had a quiz… I am not quite sure what to think about it, so I’ll wait until the results are back to even worry. We then had a short “Staying out of Trouble” lecture and then we watched the movie “Wit” with the wonderful Emma Thompson. This movie was all about the grueling journey of a patient together with a very medically-oriented-humanity-lacking medical staff.

“Wit” had moved me. What an amazing movie. Nevertheless, I had a very difficult time sitting all the way through it. Let’s just say that crying in public is NOT what I choose to do in my free time… OY! It was important to see this movie, but really… they should have told us what the movie was about… Knowing ahead of time might have prevented my snotty nose and puffy eyes from occurring in the first place (probably not, as I cry at all sad movies.) I don’t think I will be able to sit through this movie again anytime soon, but I think I could manage reading the play, so I might have to check it out of the library and read it to get a second look at all the difficult topics this movie brought.

Okay, after this we had an ethic lecture that was all about stem-cell research and stuff. I was still thinking about the movie, so I didn’t pay too much attention, but that’s okay.

On Friday we started earlier than normal. We made up the Sign Language class that was canceled on Monday, and then we had Spanish. The night before, my friend James had very slowly taught me how to conjugate the verb ‘Estar’ in Spanish. So now I know: Estoy, estas, esta, estan, estamos… etc. (misspelled again, but you’ll forgive me). I was so happy to finally understand it. I guess I just needed a friend to go slowly over this with me! Sheesh! As a result, the class on Friday was much better than the first one last week… It is still difficult to sit for 4 hours straight in a completely new language. I think my brain shuts down after about two hours.

Well, today was not as productive as I wanted it to be. I cleaned the house, played with my two fur-balls did laundry and… fell asleep on top of the very warm ‘straight out of the dryer’ clothes for about two and a half hours. Oh man. I guess we can say that watching another Emma Thompson movie, this time a nice comedy—Nanny McPhee, and learning how to say “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” backwards (“Dociousaliexpilisticfragicalirupus”) were also some very ‘interesting’ things I manage to have done today :o) (they need to give us more homework!)

The only other big news this week is that I received another scholarship! I am much honored be the recipient of the Arizona Silver Anniversary Scholarship (through USA Funds).

That’s about it,

Loads of kisses from here,

Reut
8 jul 06 @ 10:03 pm

June 2006

Thursday, June 29, 2006
It sure is hot in Arizona!
06-19-06--> 06-29-06

Hello everyone,

The past ten days have been pretty exciting, we have some really cool stuff during summer session, and overall I am having a good time :o)

The most important thing is that we had Suture lab a week ago. Basically, we were taught (pretty much one on one) how to tie sutures (stitches). We used “sterile chicken” and basically made incisions in the piece of meat we got and then sutured it up! I absolutely loved it!!! They taught us pretty well, and I caught on pretty fast. It was almost therapeutic to sit there for a good hour and put stitches in and then cut them out… After a while someone showed me how to make square knots while using just the hands without the needle driver and the addson (not sure about the spelling here...). Hans showed me how to tie in this way about 7 months ago, and although since then I forgot the sequence, it came back so easily!

On Wednesday we had Anesthesia lectures… I don’t think I want to do anesthesia… there is too much simple arithmetic involved, and I am just not good at it! OY! During that afternoon we had complementary and alternative medicine lectures—to tell you the truth, I forgot what we learned there, so I better go and review my notes before our quiz… Later on during the afternoon, we reviewed and completed our Endocrine cases.

On Thursday morning, we had our endocrine cases—our group was not chosen again (but we will be soon), and it was actually a really good review! Dr. P and Dr. P want us to truly understand, and it was a calm learning environment. I really appreciated it. Afterwards, we had a lecture about how to survive in surgery rotation. I never thought I’d be interested in surgery, but… I am very intrigued and this is a potential avenue I might explore! During the afternoon we had an ethic lecture which was interesting. And then we had a lecture on how to present a pt to the doctor… I was pretty tired by that point but decided to stick around and get important pointers for next year. I’m glad I stayed…

On Friday morning I cleaned my apartment because it looked like a tornado went through it… I also packed and got ready to fly home to Arizona for the weekend. You can imagine how impatient I was to sit in class and wait until it was over so I could drive to the airport and fly home.

Home was absolutely wonderful!!! I got there on Friday afternoon, and Omer picked me up from the airport, then we got home and I got to meet the new addition to the family—Sancho-Pancho is our new dog’s new name. Our family really struggled with naming him, but finally dad (I think) came up with Sancho-Pancho, which has so much character. If you remember, Sancho-Pancho followed Don-Quixote on a donkey and believed all of the bizarre tales that Don-Quixote came up with…

In anycase, Sancho is smaller than my cats, he weighs about 7lbs and he is a Chihuahua mix. He was so afraid of me that he barked for about 20 minutes until he got used to me. He is just hysterical! I had a good time playing with him… He makes the funniest sounds when he chases the big red ball… to give you a clue to how funny it sounds, Saba Tzvika said that over the phone it sounded like a chicken! :o) Midnight isn’t jealous of Sancho-Pancho, but he gets more one on one attention time because we all don’t want him to feel neglected in any way.

On Saturday, dad went to donate blood at the donation center, and mom and I went with him. They have such a great need for blood that as my pathology professor ERF said: “If you can give blood and you don’t, you are a jerk!” This is so true! I did not donate at that point, but I am planning to find a center with platelets so I can donate the (also) much needed platelets.

On Sunday we stayed home and got all the supplies and materials for the chicken wire we had to put outside to prevent Sancho from running away. It was too hot to actually work… we had to wait until 5am the next morning to get that done… Dad and I put the whole fence in two mornings and it was really great fun! I really like our home improvement projects! I have learned so much, and I can basically do anything at the home with the exception of electricity, which I didn’t get to see yet, and plumbing (installing toilets and sinks). I’m sure there are other things I haven’t done yet, but we really did many projects up to this point that I feel like I can do almost anything without too much trouble!

On Monday we finished the fence and then basically the whole day sort of slipped by and by the time Tuesday came, I remembered to show mom my Spanish notebook… Too bad I didn’t do it earlier, because practicing Spanish with mom was great fun, and well… I am not too good at it yet and need all the practice I can get.

That afternoon I flew home and landed at Kansas City back at around 11pm or so. During the flight I finally got to my school work… I had to memorize a few algorithms for the ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) course that we had the next day. Oh boy, I am sure glad I memorized everything!!! The next morning I went down to Deepa’s apartment and she quizzed me over it until I felt confident. At 1pm I went to school and our very long day begun… We learned almost everything we needed to know about how to run a code in the hospital—how to analyze cardiac rhythms, know when to shock a patient and when not to. We learned what medications we needed to give, when and at what dosage and duration. We learned many things, and by 6pm my brain was saturated. After dinner break we were called in for a written examination, and then after we were done, we went upstairs to run a mega-code… basically, what it means is that they simulate a real life situation and we have to decide how to treat the patient. It was really fun, and even though I was a bit nervous, I did well. Yes, I forgot a few things, but any mistake on a dummy is better than mistakes on real people!!! :o)

I got home at around 10pm and went straight to bed!

Today I woke up super early to review my soap note formation. I pretty much remembered it, but wanted to make sure I covered the tiny details… At 7:30 I went to school and at 8 o’clock we started our interviews. This was the first interview I tried something new… when I had to perform treatment, I used that time to talk with the patient and explain to them what I was doing and why I was doing it. It was really interesting, because my simulated patients responded with questions and played along with it :o) I also realized I enjoyed treating the elderly patients much more than the average middle age person… so there, I might have to try and get a geriatrics rotation during 3rd or 4th year... Basically at this point I am finding out what I like and what I don’t like… but next year will be the point where I will figure out what I really want to do…

Tomorrow I am going to my friend’s Julia’s wedding which is at Wichita, KS. It is going to be great fun. It should be about a 3 hour drive and my friend Ayo and I will got here together.

Cats update: KC and Vega are doing great! They absolutely love the boxes I brought home to start packing with… They think it’s this big play ground, and who am I to tell them otherwise? :o)

That is truly about it... this was a very busy week and a half!

Many kisses to all, especially to my one and only e.ma! (*Smooch*, mom!)

Reut

29 jun 06 @ 4:40 pm

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Sunday, June 18, 2006
~Summer~
06-12-06-->06-18-06

Hello everyone!

Well, summer session has begun, and I think it is safe to say that we are all having a good time! I missed having normal classes…

On Tuesday morning, we had a short “how to write prescriptions” lecture and then long medical jurisdiction lectures. It was long and the terminology that came out of that lawyer mouth was very foreign to me, yet it was interesting.

On Wednesday morning my group and I met in the morning to review cases for the next day. We managed to get through one case in the morning and finished the rest by the end of the day. Then we reviewed information for the COMLEX PE (that’s another part of the boards that we will have to take before we graduate) and then we had a long Advanced Cardiac Life Support lecture.

On Thursday we had an important lecture on IV fluids. I understand the main idea, but definitely need to review this. Then we had a lecture all about blood transfusion. Afterwards we had two lectures—one regarded herbal medications and the other acupuncture. Then in the afternoon we had our respiratory cases. Uggg… I really don’t like cases. Basically, we have a bunch of case-studies, we then read them, give differential diagnosis, write admit orders and answer a bunch of questions. That part is not the problem; I always enjoy working the cases out. What I don’t like is that fact that during class who ever is leading the cases picks groups numbers out of a hat and then drill them in front of the class. It is really nerve wracking to stand in front of two-hundred people and concentrate. Well, our group was not called on this time, but we will be called on eventually.

On Friday I have some of my elective courses—I enjoy learning sign language! As I had a little bit of it before, it was not a big deal to have missed one class on Monday. The class was real fun, definitely interactive, and since it is really small (we had less than 15 people), we got a lot done.

Let’s see, what else? Today I did absolutely NOTHING!!! Okay, that’s not quite true… I did nothing school or medicine related! I went out to a movie with one of my friends—“The Lake House.” It was a bit slow, but I truly enjoyed it :o) Then I came back home and listened to my CD, fell asleep on the sofa, and played with my cats and my neighbor’s cat (whom I am taking care of this weekend).

Check this out: although I look nothing like my parents, and the only person who looks like me is my brother, the way to tell I am my parents’ child is by the pure fact that we are animal lovers… Guess what my folks did this week? The found a dog!!! Abba was walking Midnight on Tuesday morning, and this tiny little dog came out of nowhere and started following them all the way home! He is so tiny and cute! Midnight doesn’t mind the little guy at all (maybe it has to do with the fact that he is much bigger than the other dog, and if he bug him too much he can just sit on him). Mom said that Midi is being super gentle with the tiny one. So far he has been called: “Pinch”, “Boten” (that’s peanut in Hebrew), and now “Peanut”. I am not sure which name is going to stick… I’ve gotten used to ‘Boten’ but I would change as soon as we pick out a name. I’ve put his picture in the picture section, so make sure to check it out (Nany, I’ll send you a picture as soon as I get them developed from the computer).

Well, that’s really about it! Congratulations again to Paz and Tal for their wedding!

Love,

Reut
18 jun 06 @ 12:59 am

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Monday, June 12, 2006
Done with step 1!
06-05-06--> 06-12-06

Hello hello!

To everyone who has wondered… I am done with the COMLEX!!! No more!!! We get the results sometime in August or September— In anycase, that’s done, and it feels great not to have to worry about it.

The first day of summer session started today, and I missed the first two elective classes. I chose to study America Sign Language (I really enjoyed learning it in the past), and beginner’s Spanish. Uggg, it hasn’t even been a full day yet and I am already behind :o)

Mandatory classes begin tomorrow, and I didn’t even bother to look at the schedule… I am too tired, and I think I will save it for 7:30AM tomorrow morning. I can just tell though, it’s going to be tons of topics and then a nice quiz after a few weeks, and the same thing again a few weeks later… sheesh… I am ready to move out of the classroom study mode… I want to go to rotations (In just about 3 months!!!)

What else? During the past 3 months my life has been revolving around boards, but the real world has gone on (is it actually possible that people have lives?) My cousin Paz is getting married in three days, and I am very happy for her and Tal, but sad for not being there. My friend Funky (Karen) just got engaged to Matt. My other friend Julia is getting married at the end of the month. This is just the wedding month :o) congratulations to all!

Well, that is truly about it from here… hopefully next time I write you will hear all about my packing and moving plans and all about my two furry friends (KC is mad at me at the moment for washing poop off his leg (yuck!)…nothing much to tell…)

Night!

Reut
12 jun 06 @ 9:07 pm

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Monday, June 5, 2006
Half way there!

Hello everyone!

Half way done. Today I took the USMLE, which is the MD boards. I decided to take it as well, even though I didn’t have to. It was a difficult exam, but I did my very best, so whatever happens… happens. The next step, and the one that is much more important for me is the COMLEX. This one is the DO boards, and I will be examined next week. I am very happy I had a chance during the test today to mentally outline things I didn’t feel too confident in and wanted to review before “my boards”. So for the next 6 days I’ll review these.

In anycase, what else? My friend Sasha came in the other day to ask for advice and a bit of help c this cute little orange kitty! Oh! He was adorable! I helped as much as I could, and it looks like the kitty found a new home with Caroline (a first year who adopted “Calyx” way back when). Before Sash gave the kitty away he named it “Merck” like the Merck menual! What a cute name!

Well… that’s the major things at the moment… School is starting up again next Monday, and I am missing the first day (due to boards). In a way I wish I would have scheduled my exams differently, so I would have had a bit of a break, but in a way, it’s okay to keep going strong until the end of July.

The weather has been a bit crazy in the past few days. We had loads of rain, which I just love!!! It is so green and beautiful outside :o) Just lovely!

Well, I am off to do some laundry and resting a bit from this long day.

Many kisses!

Reut
5 jun 06 @ 6:10 pm

May 2006

Wednesday, May 24, 2006
not much...
05-24-06

Really… not much to tell… :o) I’ve been reviewing for the boards, doing a whole lot of questions and just wanting to be done with it already.

Exciting news though! I found an apartment to live in next year!!! Hurrah! Well… actually, my friends found it, and after realizing that 3 of my classmates will be living there, I just said: “well, I’ll just cancel my flight to NJ next month and rent in this place too”. This is the right thing, and I am very happy I decided to do it.

The weather has been… disgusting… it is really humid. It’s not too hot, but I am just not used to the humidity. It wasn’t this humid during the winter, or at least, it didn’t cause me to sweat all the time. My solution: shower!

My cats are doing great! KC decided that he must wake me up every morning at 6:30. He stands on my belly and stares at me until I have no choice, but to wake up and ‘entertain’ them. For the most part, I have been turning the alarm off good 10 minutes before it was suppose to go off… It’s a good thing that in the wintertime, when the outside is so dark, both of my cats enjoy sleeping.

Well gang, my life is boring… I’ll write some more later,

Many hugs and kisses,

Re
24 may 06 @ 6:45 pm

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Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Board review...
05-09-06--> 05-16-06

Hello-Hello everyone!

I am officially done with 2nd year now. The only thing that is left is the summer session, and I am not including it in 2nd year academic material, rather… an ‘in-between period.’

The theme of the past week has been—“review for boards”… I am enrolled in a Kaplan class, and in about an hour we will start our last subject with them: Pharmacology. We have just finished pathology and OMT, and I am so excited to move on to pharmacology. More than anything I am ready to review the information by myself! I think a more accurate explanation is that I am ready to be done with it all together…

In any case, in addition to all the studying, I have been a tad under the weather. I got this cold and I am trying to get rid of it. I am feeling much better this morning, and am very much hoping I am done with this gunk!

Sometimes last week I received my schedule for next year: Psychiatry, two blocks of Family medicine, specialized surgery, OBGYN, Pediatrics, two blocks of internal medicine, General surgery and an elective. I am SO excited! This is going to be an interesting experience.

KC and Vega have been doing great. They are both running around chasing one another at the moment, and they have been doing just that for about 3 days straight now…

This is a shorty, as I need to run to school.

Many kisses,

Reut
16 may 06 @ 7:07 am

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Tuesday, May 9, 2006
'Integrative' is over!
04-24-06-->05-09-06

Hello everyone!

I am finally done with the last section of the year. I am so tired!

So, since the last time I wrote, we have finished integrative. Yesterday we were tested over the material, and I can definitely say that I have gotten better at micro, but need to keep working at pharmacology.

Before I forget, I have to tell you about something in score 1 that I enjoyed—a week and a half ago, we were in the middle of performing physical at one of the inner city schools. Everything was organized, until all of the sudden one of the kids started to run around from medical student to medical student and grabbed medical equipment, gloves, alcohol pads—everything basically. Everyone were shooing him off, and his teacher wasn’t anywhere around. I was in the middle of a physical on a little girl, and I saw that the kid was heading towards my table. I turned over and said hi to him, and he started grabbing stuff. I told him that instead of taking my stuff, he should be my assistant, and practice on becoming a doctor… his eyes twinkled, and this huge toothless smile came out and he said with much enthusiasm: “YES!”. So I told him doctors don’t take each other medical equipment, and that I would give him his own ‘tools’. He got so excited, and waited patiently for me to set it up. I gave him a pair of gloves and a tongue depressor. Then I had him ask the little girl to “Open up your mouth and say: ahhh” and so he did, and she followed, and I looked in her throat. Then I had him shine the light and look at her throat. Then we continued like this until I was done with the physical. That kid was so excited at the end and kept saying: “Thank you! thank you! I am a doctor!” The little girl was also very amused by the whole thing and she asked me to also look in her friend’s throat. All in all, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed working with the kids, and that we can’t forget to have some fun!

So… after the exam yesterday, I went out to eat with a few of my friends, and then went shopping, came back and cleaned my very messy apartment! I was SO happy to have time to clean it.

Today I have off, so I am working on scholarship essays—I have to write one and then write a thank you letter for a school scholarship I received a few weeks ago. The rest of this week I have Kaplan and then it is just board studying until the 5th and the 12th.

That’s about it from here,

Many kisses from me, Vega and KC…

Reut
9 may 06 @ 9:34 am

April 2006

Sunday, April 23, 2006
...so tired...
04-16-06-->04-23-06

Hello to all,

Wow, what a week… Last Sunday I came back to Kansas City—the weather here was quite sticky. Can you believe it? Phoenix had cooler temperature than they did here. That’s okay though, the weather has been a little bet cooler in the past few days.

So, back to the week—we started “integrative” which is basically a section that is for all intent and purposes acting as a board review course. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we had Pharm, path, anatomy,and immuno—I’ve been working on Pharmacology, and it is still difficult. Then on Wednesday we had Score one for Health—remember? This is our health screening for the children. I was suppose to man the blood pressure station, but the nurse students that were there took care of it, so we enjoyed doing physicals instead! I didn’t find anything unique or interesting. With the exception of a few red throats and runny noses, the kids were fine. Wednesday afternoon was filled with class, and on Thursday we had pharm again. On Friday we changed gears and had physiology classes.

On Friday afternoon I donated blood—I enjoy doing it. One of the workers had a great idea for Ad campaign for blood donation: “Will donate for ‘Nutter-Butter’ ” :o) For those of you who don’t know, Nutter-Butter is delicious cookies that are normally set out for all those who have donated blood. YUM!

After this, I went and visited our academic counselor and asked for help in creating my board schedule. He explained to me the basics. Basically, you write out all of the testable subjects, and then you rate them from 1-5 on your comfort level with them (1 being—I know this stuff well, 5—I really don’t feel comfortable in this material). Then you add all of those up. After doing this, you calculate how much study time you have (study hrs multiplied by the number of days you can study in). Then you go back to the list of subjects, and you divide the number of potential study ours by the number of added-units in the list of subjects, to figure out how many hours each unit is worth. THEN… you multiply each subject total number of units by hours per unit and voila, you figure out how many hours you can afford to spend.

So, I did that… I created such a schedule, and although it needs some modifications (mainly scheduling some free time and resting), I will use it as a base.

After this, I went back to Ricci hall to “enjoy” a weekend of Kaplan physiology. My behind is hurting from sitting so much, and I am glad this was over. I learned a lot, but I was just so tired.

Anyways, that’s about it from here—Vega and KC are doing great also!

Many hugs,

Reut
23 apr 06 @ 10:38 pm

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Saturday, April 15, 2006
Long month...
03-29-06 -->04-15-06

Hello everyone!

The past three weeks have been very busy, and I am just now getting to write a small entry. At the moment I am at home in Arizona, and collecting my strength for the last part of this school year. Sadly, I have to leave tomorrow to go back to Kansas City, but… I do have two beautiful cats who are waiting for me, so that’s okay.

Last I left you, we were about a week into “Human Development” section. On That Wednesday we had pediatrics lab, which involved about 100 children and parents and us… I really thought I would like it a whole lot more, but it was a bit disorganized, and I was personally not quite sure if I was doing things correctly. Basically, it would have been much easier to perform in a smaller quieter environment. But, overall it was fun.

During that week I had to take KC to the vet again because he still had blood in his urine. The poor guy. The vet finally told me to just wait a week more and see if it goes away. It did, and I hope that we are finally done with it for good.

Thursday was all about Geriatrics. I really enjoyed it! We also had pharmacology that day, and I realized how much I need to review the material (ugg…) Friday was a continuation of geriatrics and also a wonderful Spiritual lecture—it was titled: “aging gracefully”.

During the weekend I studied for the final, fixed my presentation, studied for OMT and studied for boards. On Monday and Tuesday we had to present our cases. I ended up concentrating on Embryology (no surprise here) and pathophysiology, and I truly liked the presentation I created, and I really feel I presented it well! My hunch is after I’ll complete my education I’ll come back to medical school as a clinician.

On Tuesday we had OMT review and a class in the morning, and then for the next two days I studied for the final and the OMT practical. From then on it was a race—On Friday we had our final exam for the section (I did really well on it!). Then on Monday we had our OMT practical which we thought would be so much harder than it actually was. I studied much more than needed. Then on Tuesday we had our Shelf exam, and I found it to be difficult. And last we had our cumulative examination on Thursday, and that one was difficult also (as it should be).

Throughout this week my kittens have seen me a whole lot, as I studied at home— On Thursday afternoon, I gave my friend Katie the keys, bid goodbye to the furry fellows and flew home.

And there I am :o)

My family decided to have our seder on Friday instead of Wednesday night. We had a great time! Everyone was here, and the food was great. Omer was suppose to be the chef, but he got stuck in school, so we ended up making the food… I told him that there is no excuse on the next big holiday—he has got to cook the meal! He is the greatest chef ever, and even though he got there after we made the food, he added a few ingredients and made the food so tasty! whenever I protest about him adding stuff into the dish he always says: “Do you trust me?” —and I always admit that, yes, I do actually trust him, and then he does his magic, and voila! The food taste even better! YUM!

Tonight Omer and I will go see a movie: “thank you for smoking” and I hope it will be good.

Much love from here,

Reut
15 apr 06 @ 9:11 pm

March 2006

Tuesday, March 28, 2006
A short one!
03-20-06-->03-28-06

Hello everyone,

It is Tuesday morning, and I thought I’d write something in here before I hop into the shower and go to school :o)

Spring break is over… :o( We have started human development last week—It’s not too bad so far. I really wish they’d give us more free time than they are (and they really are giving us free time)—because I’d like to study much more for boards. This week was filled with: embryology, family medicine and loads of pediatrics :o)

Yesterday we had a quiz, and I think I did alright—It’s just a pain in the butt… that’s all…

Last night I worked on a lecture we have to do—It’s only 15 minutes worth of talk, but there was so much work involved in making the lecture. I’m sure glad I finished it and I can now worry about other things…

What else? I am almost done with the anatomy portion of the Kaplan tapes! I have 4 more tapes, and then I can move on to another section… I normally do it during lunches, but yesterday I studied OMT with some of my classmates, and didn’t get to do it. In a few minutes I’ll ran to school and sit and finish watching a tape before the first class starts (we are starting late today).

Oh—I don’t remember if I told you, but a few days ago I got notice that I am one of the finalists for USFunds scholarship—I really hope I get this…

Cats update: KC is feeling MUCH better!!! He stopped peeing on my coach and in the laundry basket, and he is being just himself. He is still on medicine, and I am crossing my fingers that this won’t come back. Vega is doing fine—she gets hysterically funny. For example, yesterday she was chasing some imaginary demon that no one but her can see… she ran so fast around the house and knocked KC over twice!

Many kisses from here—I miss you!

Reut

28 mar 06 @ 7:22 am

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Sunday, March 19, 2006
It's (almost) spring!
03-03-06-->03-19-06

Hello hello!

The last time I wrote was just a day before the pelvic examination… This was a very unique experience, and I just loved it! We had 4 people in our group (normally there are three), and I went first. Our patient was so knowledgeable and helpful—it was definitely educational and interesting. …I guess OBGYN is not off the list just yet :o)

Then the rest of Friday and the weekend was devoted for studying for the final—we had a few more classes during the week, and then we had our pathology practical on Thursday and the final on Friday, and then… I went home to Arizona! Hurrah!

Home was great—I basically did no school work at all, but did get to see Dad’s colonoscopy, which was really interesting and fun. I saw a bunch of movies, TV (mainly “The Nanny” and “Golden Girls” and enjoyed being together with my mom, dad, Omer and Midi. It was perfect.

Omer’s birthday was on St. Patrick’s day (St. Omer’s Day!!!). After a lot of bugging him, he finally told me he wanted a coffee maker and a coffee grinder—so I got him that (not a big surprise, but it’s nice to get what you want). We went out to Macaroni Grill for his B-day and had a good time!

That’s it, yesterday I came back home and found my cats doing well (with the exception of KC’s urinary tract infection that isn’t getting better. I think he has a stone… got to take him to the vet on Monday again). My neighbor’s cat, Luna, is going to be under my care for the next week, while Sherri (my neighbor) is out of town. Luna doesn’t like me too much yet, but she is eating alright and drinking, and I think she’ll get used to me eventually….

Anyhow, loads of kisses from here!

Reut
19 mar 06 @ 9:33 am

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Friday, March 3, 2006
Two and a half weeks worth! :o)
02-14-06 --> 03-02-06

Okay, okay, okay… Sheesh! I got so swamped with school work that I neglected my journal—I hate when that happens :o)

We are almost to the end of the reproductive section. The last 3 weeks have been very busy and fun. I still haven’t had my pelvic exam (doctor, not patient…) but I’ll get to enjoy it tomorrow afternoon!!

Two weeks ago, we had research day—a few of my friends presented their research projects, and my friend Ayo won first place!! How exciting. Later on during that day, we had our Kaplan weekend—this time we reviewed biochemistry. Our professor was hysterical, and we went through another section. With the weekend gone, I had a difficult time catching up… this was mainly due to the OMT examination we had on Wednesday. I’ve been studying for it every day, and together with board studying, school work just got put on the back burner. That’s okay though, because I finally managed to get through everything and do really well on the last quiz... Phew!

This week was really nice—we had about 10 OBGYN lectures and then a little bit of everything else. I’ve been very good about reviewing board material during lunch time, which is cool, but time consuming. I had my patient interview on Wednesday, and did fairly well on it— tomorrow is the big “break it or make it” day for me… the pelvic exam—I’ve been joking with my friends that this experience will either direct me straight into OBGYN as a future specialty, or completely gross me out… :o) I’m just kidding, of course.

The weather has been amazing—I’ve been wearing just a light jacket and I am hoping this will last forever!!! :o) Not likely, but a nice thought nevertheless.

Well, I’m pretty much a spazz-ball with everything that needs to be done— Next week will be busy—I have a practical and a final and then I get to go back to Phoenix!!!!!!!!!!! Yaaaaaaay! I am so happy to go home!

Much love to all—sorry for the short and spastic journal entry…

Reut
3 mar 06 @ 12:42 am

February 2006

Monday, February 13, 2006
2 weeks worth! (btw, the weather is ugly again...)
01-28-06-->02-13-06

Hello all!
I will capture 2 weeks in this short entry, as I went home last weekend and did not have a chance to write an entry until just now (…just a tad busy…)

Two weeks ago, I was in the last section of endocrine—final week is always hectic, regardless of which section we are in. On Monday we had the last quiz, and then we had 2 days of lectures followed by two days of tests—Pathology practical and the Final. It wasn’t all that bad, but the weather was PEFECT, and I really just wanted to go outside and run or bike, or just do something… but I had to contain all of that and sit and study in the very stuffy inside. Uggg.

All of my tests went okay—I felt kind of weird coming out of the final, but I ended out doing very good in it… I don’t know… I don’t usually get too worked out about exams and stuff (especially after they are done), but with this one I was rethinking all of my answers for days later.

In anycase, following the melodrama of the final, I went home!!! I went to the airport and flew home :o) I was so happy!!!! On the way there I fell asleep for a good hour or so, and when I woke up I had a very interesting conversation with a lady by the name of Marilynn. She is a reverend in a church here in town and she was just a joy to talk to! I love it when people don’t try and convert me to their religion… she had an interesting idea of “asking for God’s kisses” … well, you all know that I was raised secular and just really love the Jewish tradition, but normally I am not overly spiritual, right? Well, the idea of “God’s Kisses” was so interesting, that I still keep thinking about it (and hence writing about it here).

Well, soon enough the flight was over and I got home!!! Omer picked me up from the airport, and I had such a fun time driving home with him, talking over this and that (he is planning to go to Japan this summer!!!! How exciting!!) We got home and I had such an awesome weekend! I can’t say enough of how much I love my family. I just think they are super! :o) (‘Kifak-Hey’ to the ‘mishpoocheh!’)

After fun 2 days I came back to Kansas City. It is amazing how much the weather had changed in these 2 days… it was SO cold when I got here, and it was that cold ever since. BRRRrrrrrr! My 2 kitties loved it that I was back. I was so happy to see them and play with them—they are getting to be big, and they are very very fluffy =^.^=

The next day we started our reproductive section. It is mostly OBGYN. So far I think it is really exciting—we had about 7 OBGYN lectures, some histology, path, pediatrics and pharmacology… and then for some odd reason they decided to have a quiz on Monday (today) yuck!... I don’t like quizzes on only the material of 1 week, it never feels like I truly know the material, it is not enough material as a whole—I like to have a bit more material. I studied for the quiz during the weekend, but I also wrote scholarship essays—I’d like to turn them all in by next week.

After the quiz today, my friends and I practiced some OMT and then I went to a CV (curriculum vitae) workshop. I still keep using Seth’s (Himelhoch) CV format—It is very organized and clean, but it was still important for me to do this workshop. As I updated my CV two days ago, it felt so awesome to see how much I really have done throughout the year!

Well, I just finished 2 out of the 4 lectures that I needed to finish, and I think it is almost bed time for me… so off I go

Loads of kisses from me—

I miss you all!

Reut
13 feb 06 @ 10:03 pm

January 2006

Friday, January 27, 2006
1 more week till we are done with endocrine!
01-19-06-->01-27-06

Hello to all,

Well, I’m about a week and a half behind on writing my entry, and my (now regular) apologies to all who follow my journal.

Last I left you, I believe it was last Wednesday… the rest of the week wasn’t too bad—we had a collection of pediatrics lectures, internal medicine, Female Athlete Triad, more peds, more internal medicine and radiology. All in all, it was very fun.

On Friday afternoon—from 2-10pm we had our Kaplan review course—it was very fun (and loooooooong), Saturday 8am-4pm we continue reviewing microbiology and then Sunday 11am-7pm we finished up. Wow… what a weekend! I loved the review, but had to work hard on making sure I didn’t get behind. So I worked hard, finished going through class material in between the breaks, and at the end I was fine.

This week wasn’t too bad—I have been going to bed earlier and earlier, and it is making my life so much nicer! I exercise at night, take a shower and off to bed before 10:30. Going to bed so early made it much easier to wake up early in the morning and go to Smith Hall to do Board Review in the morning—Sleep is just amazing :o)

On Monday we had histology of the parathyroid gland, physiology of the parathyroid gland and pathology of the thyroid gland. The afternoon was free for independent study (hurray!!!) Tuesday was just SUPER! We had only a path lab in the afternoon, which means that I had time to get to all of the material and make sure I reviewed again some of the material from last week. I was in nerd’s 7th heaven…

Wednesday was really easy too—only 2 internal medicine (hyper and hypocalcemia) and then on OMM lab (we learned to palpate the thyroid)—then the afternoon was free again!!! (I am very excited about all of it because I am normally overly busy and don’t have 3 free afternoons in a row!

Thursday wasn’t too fun… we had a full schedule and it was hard not having extra time… We started the day with 2 pediatrics lectures by an Israeli doctor… it was hard for me to think in English when he had the thick Hebrew accent going… the whole day afterwards I was thinking in Hebrew. Later on we had a looooooooong physiology lecture and then the great Dr. McCandless with prevention medicine. I think very highly of her, and it is nice to get a lecture from a clinician who wants to teach us the important stuff.

Today we had 2 pediatrics lectures again (they were great!), internal medicine and pathology. I spent the afternoon in Smith hall finishing everything I could. I wanted to go chat with Dorothy, but she was busy the whole afternoon, so… I got loads of work done instead :o) Always good, right?

The weather has been just amazing here—in the 60’s, absolutely gorgeous! This is much-much nicer than the frozen January of last year!!! I have been in a great mood these past few days, and I have to attribute it to: sleep, working out, and this great weather!

The Cats are doing great—Vega is my ‘wanting to be outside’ cat, and KC is my scardy cat… I’ll post new pictures of them as soon as I can.

Well, that’s about all,
Love to all,



Reut
PS-- I'm flying home in 1 week!!!!!!! I can't wait!!!
27 jan 06 @ 10:08 pm

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Forgot to mention-- Mom and Dad, thanks for all of the great wonderful delicious lemons!!! everyone just LOVED them! :o) (and... I made some lemonade tonight... yum)
01-09-06-->01-18-06

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the late entry—this past weekend I was studying for a quiz and then went out on Monday night, and by Tuesday I was already behind and had to finish everything up and… well, you get the point… I have caught up now and decided it was the perfect time to put in an entry.

This past week was really fun. I love biochemistry! I spent a lot of time understanding the pathways and it was just great fun! As you all know, I hate memorizing… biochemistry is anything but memorizing. The way I look at it… it is a story—a process, and it is just explaining how we work on a very basic lvl.

In anycase, sadly there are no more biochemistry lectures for this section :o(

Monday was… Monday… we had a pediatrics professor in the morning and I couldn’t hear a word he was saying—I mean, I heard it, but I wasn’t able to make anything up from his mumbling. Uggg! It is a very good thing some of my friends understood him and took notes, because the material wasn’t difficult (infants of diabetic mothers) and it was interesting. Following that we had a biochem lecture, then a long pharmacology lecture and another biochemistry lecture :o) That afternoon was spent going through everything and figuring it out.

Tuesday was kind of long—we had 2 biochemistry in the morning and then we had internal medicine (ugggg…. Now that is straight ‘list memorization’), preventive medicine and a pathology lab. One of my friends told me that I would probably change my mind about internal medicine when we go on rotations… I hope so.

Wednesday was too short—we had a histology lecture and then a clinical skill lab that was a tad too short. That afternoon I reviewed everything we have had up to that point. Not a very exciting day, but important one, b/c I integrated everything together and made sure I was really understanding the material

On Thursday morning my KC had to be neutered :o( I felt very bad taking him to the vet to have him fixed. I suppose it is the right thing to do, but it really broke my heart. After I drove there, I hurried back to school and had a pathology lecture, an internal medicine lecture and then 2 online physiology lectures and a med-case. All of the online material was a bit time consuming.

Fridays was filled with internal medicine, anatomy and then at the end we had a patient conference—we had a presentation on how the insulin pump works, and then later on, my friend Melissa presented her family’s experience with her son’s type 1 diabetes. She did a wonderful job. That afternoon I picked Mr. KC up from the vet and brought him home. Vega (who enjoyed being an only cat for a day) begun hissing at him… how bizarre! Well, she got over it pretty quick, and now they are back to their normal self. KC is fine, by the way—he is running and playing and is having a good time.

My weekend was filled with studying, and then Monday morning we had the quiz…
Monday night I took my friend Katie out for dinner as a thank you for taking care of my cats when I was gone during break—we had a great time eating in California Pizza on the plaza—yum!

Anyways, that’s about it. We have started a new week, and this coming weekend I have my first Kaplan course—I joined it to study for the boards… it has always been easier for me to study for standardized examination in a group. As this weekend is basically shot, I have been trying to catch up on all of my school work and go over everything enough times that I don’t feel like I’m missing important study time during the weekend.

Much love to all,

Reut
18 jan 06 @ 11:15 pm

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Sunday, January 8, 2006
"back to the grind"
01-03-06-->01-08-06

Hello friends and family,

As my friend Kendra says… “back to the grind.” It is so true. It’s amazing how fast days of vacation seem when you have loads to do. That’s okay though… I like endocrine a lot better than Renal section!!!

This week started out on Tuesday (Monday was still vacation) with internal medicine lecture, physiology lectures, biochemistry and a pathology lab. I really think our biochemistry professor is great! He has been teaching here for about 20 years or so, and he is just so good at it. Then again, I might be biased… I like biochemistry (sick? Nah… I just like logical things that has a story to them, a path—something I can see versus memorize.) In any case, I decided not to waste any time and went full force during lunch and afternoon.

Wednesday started with a BANG… Vega apparently attempted to eat one of the plants, and it dropped on the floor and broke at about 6 in the morning. It gave all of us a startle, but it was a better alarm clock than I have had in a while. Beside that early excitement, the rest of the day was a little boring… we had an OMM lecture, internal medicine, biochem (that wasn’t boring), Histology (That wasn’t boring either) and another biochemistry (not boring)… Later on in the afternoon we had End-of-Life lab—it was interesting, but I was a little tired and wanted to go finish my studying.

On Thursday we had two biochemistry lectures in the morning and then two internal medicines. Fairly normal day. At night, my friends Matt and Erika came to visit me and the cats—they were so sweet and brought me a really cool present (brownies mix in a jar—all ready to bake!!! How fun!—it was all pretty in a basket with candy around it). I gave them some home grown lemons from Arizona—I think they enjoyed playing with the cats and hanging out.

Friday was busy with Pathology, biochemistry, pharmacology and immunology. I would like to get better in my immunology. I really need to review the old material from last year…

I spent the weekend reviewing everything (alone, as Tala was sick)—I feel like I understand it all, and yet have to review it a few more times for it to really stick. After I was done today I went shopping—It is so nice to have fruits and vegetable in the house…

Oh… I changed my boards date, time and place one last time—it’ll be on June here in town. So much better than having to drive up north to a place I don’t know.

Much love to all, have a wonderful week!

Reut
8 jan 06 @ 9:39 pm

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Monday, January 2, 2006
Back to school
12-23-05-->01-02-06

Hello friends and family,

Happy 2006! May it will be a healthy, happy and exciting year!

That’s it, I’m back at Kansas City—this is after a nice vacation :o)

Dad and I finished so many projects (yet, we still have a bunch on the list… next vacation I guess). This past week was fun—we finished installing the handles in the kitchen, and I finished painting the gate and the bridge. Both turned out really nice.

Just the other day Mom and I watched Pirates of the Caribbean—I loved this movie! How fun! Last time I saw it, I saw it all in mute (someone was sleeping, I didn’t want to wake anyone up)—this time it was so much more impressive and fun!

Well, I can’t say we did a whole lot, but just resting and enjoying one another was wonderful :o)

On Sunday afternoon I packed my stuff (Midnight was sad when he saw the suitcase), and then I flew back here. The flight had turbulence and it wasn’t too pleasant, but I finished half of “Code Blue” by Tzvika Amit (קוד כחול/ צביקה עמית) I still haven’t finished the rest of it, but I’ll do so during the next week or so.

I got home at around Midnight, and found my fur balls in good shape—I am so glad Katie is the one who took care of them these past 2 weeks—I felt so much better about leaving them knowing that she’ll be here with them. Thank you Katie! It took me about an hour or two to get the house cleaned up (my two cats have the unique ability to move stuff around in the house for no apparent reason), and then I went to bed. This morning I woke up late and made my way to the store to get some groceries.

Now after the food is made, and the binder is ready for tomorrow, I am going to enjoy the last few bits of vacation.

Love to all,

Reut
2 jan 06 @ 7:46 pm

December 2005

Friday, December 23, 2005
It was lovely 76 degrees here in Phoenix today!
12-09-05--> 12-22-05

Hello to all,

It has been a while since I wrote here… mainly because I got busy during the last week before finals, and then was busy being on vacation :o)

So, I’ll start with the week of finals-- by the time we got to the last week, I was completely burned out… I really wanted to go home and basically had to push through that one last week. We had classes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We had our Pathology practical on Tuesday, and then our final on Friday. I was SO happy it was done and over with.

You all might be wondering why I want to go home all the time… well… I just love everyone here- I love Omer, Mom, Dad and Midnight. I enjoy being with my family so much, and I just don’t like being away from them. If I were to do it again I still would have chosen my school as my school, but I truly would have thought the distance over again.

Following the final on Friday, I convinced Tala that we needed ice-cream, but before we headed out to Cold Stone Creamery, I took Ms. Vega to the vet to get her stitches out. I begged them to let me take them out, but they said it was better if I held the princess so she doesn’t move so much. So I did. Oh… she was so humiliated! They took the 2 stitches out, and all she could do was to curl up in a tiny little ball and lay in my lap. My baby… I brought her back home and then Tala, James and I went out for ice-cream. It was just lovely! I think we all needed something sweet. That night, Sarah and I went out for Pizza, and had a good time. It is nice to just hang out with good friends!

As I got home to late to clean the house, I got up early the next morning and cleaned my place really good. Poor KC and Vega almost had a heart attack when I got the vacuum out; they absolutely hate it. In anycase, I finished a few hours later, and packed my stuff really fast. A few days prior, Dorothy had offered me a ride to the airport, and I was so glad to catch a ride, especially when I looked out and saw that the whole world has become white. Ugg… snow and ice, once again. YUCK!

The flight home was really long. I planned on sleeping the whole way to Arizona, but as luck had it, we were delayed, and as I sat in the plane to be de-iced, I fell asleep for a while, woke up, and that was it… I was SO bored the rest of the flight… I’ll never do that mistake again—I’ll always have a book from now on.

Well, I got home on a Saturday, enjoyed dinner and just talking. Sunday, we started with our ‘projects’—basically, all that needs fixing or cleaning was put on a long list and we are just working our way down the list. We have gotten a few things done already! Today, Dad and I cut the rose bushes and attempted to fix the broken light in the garden (no success on the latter).

As Omer has been working hard, I didn’t have too much time to hang out with him. Today he had a little bit of free time, and he took me to see “Walk the Line”. OH! I loved it so very much!!! The story of Johnny Cash and June Carter needed to be told, and I am so glad that finally Reese Witherspoon played a dramatic role. I’ve been telling everyone for the last 2 years that she needs to venture out and try the full spectrum of acting. She was excellent, and so was Joaquin Phoenix. What a lovely movie!

Well friends, that’s about it. Omer wanted to take me to an early screening of the Producers, but I was so tired that I decided to stay home, write a little here and go to bed.

Good night to all,

Reut
23 dec 05 @ 12:20 am

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Thursday, December 8, 2005
I tried to post this a few days ago, but the upload site wasn't working right... grrr. Well, here is another entry from snow land (BTW, we have a snow day today :o( )
11-30-05-->12-06-05

Hello friends and family,

Last time I wrote, it was almost Wednesday. A lot has happened since, mainly school stuff.

Wednesday was OMT day all day long. It was wonderful! We worked on Still’s techniques, and I had a good time. That afternoon I had off for studying, and so my friend Keith and I went to a coffee shop and study there. For some reason, I just needed to be away from school… I think I might be having school overload :o) It was fun to hang out with him.

On Thursday, we had a ‘professionalism’ lecture. I don’t know if I liked it too much… it was just way to early in the morning to talk about professional conduct in the medical field. Then we had immunology and two pharmacologies. Yeah! (I like Pharm…) Then in the afternoon, I went with my friend Deepa to a coffee shop again, and sat there and worked my tail off until… I was disrupted by a guy who insisted he needed to stop me from learning pharmacology. Uggg. It was nice to talk to him, but he was way too young, and a little too bizarre for me. All I wanted, was to go back to my notes.

Friday, sweet Friday… Derm and Healthcare policy. I like Healthcare policy. It was interesting to learn about the new change they are going to offer in medicare in 2006. But I do wonder what the elderly population thinks of this offer with its many flaws and the big ‘donut hole’ it has.

Saturday I was feeling very sleepy all day long, which made it very very difficult to study. Oh man, that was a tough day! Sunday was fine—we got everything done for the quiz, but both Tala and I were just exhausted.

Monday… well… the quiz was difficult. I did study enough for it, but I really did not like it. After the quiz we had phyiology, and off I went to study. During night time, I prepared my paper for the debate. I am presenting on Thursday, and wanted to make sure I got everything in. During the evening, I took Vega to the vet to be spayed. I was so sad. I know it is the right thing to do, but I really wanted her to be a mommy… :o( K.C. is next in line in about 5 weeks. :o(

Today (Tuesday), I woke up early and went to school early. We had Pathology, 2 pharms and a pediatrics lecture. All was related to hypertension. Very interesting indeed! My afternoon was spent studying with Tala in Smith Hall. Pretty typical afternoon…

Well, that’s about it from here, I’ll write some more after this week. Next week is going to be crazy—we have full classes and all and a pathology practical, and a final. I am flying out on Saturday night, and I am SO happy!!!

Love,

Reut
8 dec 05 @ 8:00 am

November 2005

Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Back at KC
11-22-05-->11-29-05

Hello everyone,

Sorry! Another late entry… this is really beginning to look like a trend… ugg!

I had a wonderful week at home!!! I LOVED it!

Last time I left you when I got home, and I think I told you that I went with Omer to see Harry Potter 4 (which I enjoyed very much).

My Wednesday morning started with Midnight coming up to my bed at 6am and asking me to let him out. Later on during the day, I took ‘Shooloo’ (Midnight) on a Teeyool (walk). He just loved it—we walked through the ‘Village’ next to our house. Midi got all of the dogs barking. They barked in one yard and then the neighbor’s dog heard it and started barking too, and on and on. During the early part of the afternoon, dad and I went shopping for a few last ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner. I love shopping with dad!

Thursday, mom and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner. We made our rendition of a turkey (we made chicken), amazing mashed potatoes, Banana’s grandmother’s secrete cranberry-sauce recipe (not a secrete any more…), Broccoli, Matzo ball soup, and loads of other stuff that I don’t quite remember. In anycase, the table was full and beautiful at the end! When Omer came back from work (he had to do that instead of help cook the dinner), we all sat together and had a wonderful time! Even Midi got to enjoy—he ate a bit of chicken and was in 7th heaven.

Friday, mom and I got me some new scrubs, and visited the Hallmark store to look for some birds (for the window above the fireplace). We found a neat collection of birds drinking from a pretend fountain, which were very cute.

Somewhere in the middle we cleaned the house real good… not sure exactly when.

Everyday up to Saturday Midi got a nice walk in the morning, but on Saturday, he got a nice walk during noon time… I slept in until 10am :o)

That’s it… after spending much needed time with mom, dad, Omer and Midi, I had to fly back here to Kansas City. Again, thank goodness to the cats, because I really didn’t want to leave my family.

On the flight home, I met Michelle (one of my Arizona friends who also go to KCUMB), and we got to talk a bit. This time I didn’t have a kid sitting next to me… so I got to read a whole lot.

On Sunday I had loads of stuff to do… I bought food, got caught up with school, and played with the furry trouble makers!

Monday was great… we only had online presentation and then 2 pathologies and a micro lab. Nice and easy.

Today (Tuesday) we had 2 internal medicines, physiology and a radiology class. Then we had path lab. I tutored during the morning and during the afternoon. Then at night time, my friend Keith and I went out for dinner, coffee and studying. It was very fun.

OH! The other thing I did today… I saved another cat from the cold Midwest weather! My friend Melissa was standing outside, when a cat came to her and tried to rub at her feet. She is allergic to cats, so she came into class and asked me to go catch it. I went out but couldn’t find it. After an hour of class we went back outside, and she showed me where the cat was at last. We couldn’t find it anywhere. Then we thought that perhaps he went down the storm drain—so I laid on the pavement and looked down—called it a few times, but nothing. Then I went to the other side of the street and looked down. Nothing. So I called it a few times, and then I heard it meow back at me. It came up, and of course, ran straight to Melissa with the allergies. I grabbed it and brought it inside.

Once inside, the cat started to freak out, and jumped out of my hands and started running in the first floor. After talking calmly to it, I caught it again and brought it up to the 4th floor to awesome Dr. Cole who took the stray straight to the vets…

So the only thing we got to do now is find it a home…

That’s really all about it, I have got to go to bed,

Much love,


Reut
30 nov 05 @ 12:43 am

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Tuesday, November 22, 2005
I'm home!!!
11-14-->11-22-05

Hello hello!

Well, another late posting (I’m starting to become a procrastinator or something… ugg!)

At the moment, I am sitting at my home and Arizona, and just enjoying being with my family. This past week (or I suppose, last week) was a little hectic, but it is all the past now, and all is left is to enjoy this holiday :o)

Monday of last week was a decent day—in the morning we started late due to some independent study and “case of the week” which I have already finished. We had 2 physiologies followed by biochemistry lab. This was the “pee-lab”, where we learned how to test urine. It was really fun, and I truly enjoyed it! After the lab I think we had path lab, but I am not 100% sure…

Tuesday was a bit hard: pathology first thing in the morning, two microbiologies and a pharmacology. I absolutely loved this pharm—all about medicine for urinary tract infections. It was not overly difficult, and I just had fun with it. During the afternoon, Tala and I conquered biostatistics.

Wednesday was Score One for Health all morning long. This time I was in the blood pressure station. It was quite boring, but that’s alright… I got to do plenty of physicals before, and it was my turn to enjoy blood pressure.

Thursday was quite interesting—2 pediatrics, family medicine and surgery. That afternoon it was biostatistics once again. Friday was also short—internal medicine, pathology and surgery.

In anycase, during the weekend, Tala and I studied hard and were prepared to take the quiz on Monday morning. By that afternoon I was going crazy! I couldn’t wait to fly home, and so I bid goodbye to my little fur balls—made sure they had enough food and water for a day (to last them until my friend made it there the next day), gave them many smooches, and drove to the airport an hour early :o)

The flight was neat—I was sitting next to a 20 year old with a 2 year old child. I had a great time playing with the little kiddo, and I think that lady was happy she had me as ‘the person in the next seat over’—she got a tiny bit of a rest.

Then, finally finally I got home! Mom, Dad and Midnight all came to pick me up from the airport. I got home and had a wonderful dinner with them. Then today (Monday), Omer called early in the morning and told me he is skipping a class in order to come see a movie with me. We watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire together, and it was just so much darker than I imagined it in my own head. They did a decent job with the movie!

That’s about it for now,

I’ll write a tad more at the end of the week.

Love to you all, and to all
Happy Thanksgiving!

Reut
22 nov 05 @ 11:34 pm

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Monday, November 14, 2005
Miracles do happen
11-07-05-->11-14-05

Hello everyone,

Last time I wrote I was in a pretty crappy mood—mainly because I was tired from the delay in the flight, but mostly because really missed home. Well… this time around this entry will be influenced by happiness!

First of all, renal is cool! As much as I thought I was disliking it during the first 3 or 4 days, this weekend, when I was reviewing everything, things started to click, and it all became like a game. It is definitely nicer.

But first thing ‘s first, Monday morning… Oh man, I was in a really grouchy mood. Getting only 3 hours of sleep after that delayed flight was not enough. I was planning on missing the first lecture in order to sleep a tiny bit more, but I forgot to re-set my alarm clock, and so it happened that I woke up for the first lecture, which was only an introduction to the section plus administrative stuff.

The first real lecture though was an hour later with 2 histologies, and a physiology. Ugg… physiology was not pretty. We have a different professor than Dr. K, and… well… I really like learning from Dr. K, so it is hard to get used to a new person. In anycase, that afternoon we had path lab and an anatomy thing on the computer. Not a big deal, but I was really tired and missed everyone.

My friends decided that we need to work on path during lunch time—it is totally cool, but during that sleep-deprived Monday I was not too happy to review the material. Oh well…

Tuesday we had 2 hours of physiology, a sexual development in the male and ethics in health care policy (with an amazing speaker). Path during lunch, and then… a miracle (for me at least)à I’ll tell you about it after I finish my review of the week.

Wednesday morning was devoted to boundary setting with patients—a nice presentation, then 2 physiology, sexual development and hooray for score 1 for health!!! This time I didn’t find anything too interesting, but I had a really great time.

Thursday was all about finishing physiology, then a short biochem lecture and then a histology of male reproductive system. Quite interesting! Then we had End of life lab—I had Dr. McCandless (the daughter)—she has to be one of my favorite people I enjoy listening to. She always has pearls to pass on, and is just compassionate and… I have just nice things to say about her—I hope that she always keep working with our school.

Friday was great—just a histology class and an inter departmental conference. Nice and easy!

This whole weekend was devoted to studying, catching up and playing with the cats—I did a whole lot, but worked a tad too slow for my taste. Oh well…

So… you read all the way down to the end of the entry, and you want to hear about my miracle…

Well—two amazing friends— my angels, got me a way to fly home for thanksgiving. They have requested not to let the whole world know who they are, but I’ll just let you know that in about 8 days I will be with my family for five whole days, and this has to be the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. I am not even sure how I can thank them for this, but I will somehow.

They are just wonderful

And that’s all I have to say—



Well, love and kisses from here—I will write next week, right before my quiz.

Loads of kisses,

Reut

OHHH! I forgot one important thing! The match results are here—I will be in… New Jersey next year!!! Wow, what a change!
14 nov 05 @ 1:04 am

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Tuesday, November 8, 2005
Late post-- sorry!
10-31-05-->11-07-05

Hello family and friends

This one is a really late entry…

I’ll start with last Monday and try to catch up. I got to school pretty early in the morning (7:30AM), and was so excited to have a nice Halloween breakfast that student affairs has put on—yummy bagels and muffins!!! I don’t quite remember what we had that day, but in all reality, I just was so excited that at the end of the week I was going to fly home!!!

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were devoted for studying… nothing major. I was excited to be done with ‘mind’ This was not my favorite section.

Friday morning I had the final examination, which I hope I did well on… In the middle of the exam I did the mistake of thinking : “in about 3 hours I’m going to be on my way to the airport!!!”… after thinking that I couldn’t quite concentrate on the exam. Oh well.

In anycase, finally finally the final was over, and I came home, cleaned the house, talked to Katie one last time about everything with the cats, and then I went downstairs and waited for Matt and Erica to show up. When the did, we all got in the car, and I was SO excited to be driving to the airport!!! I just couldn’t wait!

In any case, the flight home was fine—I got loads of sleep. When I got to Sky Harbour, I met Erica’s parents, and than I went outside to wait for Omer. It was SOOOOO nice to be back home.

So home update—I had a wonderful time, and really really didn’t want to come back to Kansas City. It was nice just being there with mom, dad, Omer and Midi. We somehow managed to watch a movie—“Dreamer” it was quite cute.

On Sunday I had to leave, and got to the airport. My flight was delayed, and then right before we boarder the plane, we had maintenance problems, and so the delayed it more. All in all, we left when we were suppose to have landed… we got here at 1:40AM, and we made it home at around 2:45. Needless to say that today (Monday) I was really tired… definitely not a way to start renal.

Loads of kisses to all, this was just a short update—so sorry for not have written earlier.

Love,

Reut
8 nov 05 @ 12:37 am

October 2005

Sunday, October 30, 2005
Beautiful autumn!
10-24-05-->10-30-05

Hello everyone!

This week was decent—it started out on Monday with a quiz—they are holding the scores until everyone come back from the AOA convention in Florida—so I am still waiting to see how I did in it. Following the quiz, we had a spirituality panel and a spirituality lecture. Basically, we had a discussion regarding important topics and how each religion views them. Definitely important. The lecture emphasized end of life care and spirituality. I thought the speaker was phenomenal. It is so important for us to understand that no matter what our religion (or lack there of) is, we must respect our patients and their religions beliefs, and actually use the patients beliefs to their own benefit.

Right after this lecture I donated blood—this time, the blood just poured out of me like crazy! It was great… I was done after a very short amount of time.

On Tuesday we had a whole day of pharmacology; first Dr. Mizinga with sedatives and Hypnotics, and then Dr. McCandless with substance abuse. Pharm is definitely fun, but later on when we review the material, it takes forever to get through…

Wednesday morning I tutored my little sister Sarah and her friend Monica in OMT. It was just so much fun teaching the material!!! I think I might have to come back and teach at a medical school after I will become a clinician :o) I just enjoy it too much. After an hour of tutoring, I went to my physiology classes, and then studied all of the afternoon.

Thursday and Friday were filled with psychiatry. I don’t know about it… so far, we are still in the introductory part, and I just don’t know enough about it to decide if I like it or not. Also on Thursday, I tutored the girls, and it was fun.

OH!!! I forgot to tell you, at the beginning of the week (it must have been Monday), it was freezing cold, and ‘Kitty’ was crying outside the apartment complex doors. I finally had enough. I grabbed a carrier that someone had left there, grabbed the cat (he wanted me to hold him and pet him) and put him in the carrier. Then, I took him to Dr. Cole (she is AWESOME!!!) who called the vet and my friends and I drove him there. When I came back to campus I wrote a mass email to both classes and asked if someone had a home for “Carbon” (Dr. Cole (rightfully so) decided that Carbon was a better name than Kitty). LOL! In any case, a girl from the first year has decided to adopt him, so now that saga with “Kitty” is over, and I am so happy that he has found a home! :o)

Saturday and Sunday were devoted to studying. I tutored OMT on Saturday again. Overall, I didn’t get enough things done on the weekend, but I will definitely get them done during this last week of the section.

After my final next Friday, I will be flying home to Arizona!!!!! Yes!!! I am SO excited and cannot wait :o) My friend Katie will be watching over the little fur-balls, so I am set to go. Also kind of neat, my friends Matt and Erica will be flying to phoenix on the same exact flight as me! How fun!!! It would be so much more exciting to fly over and back with friends.

In any case, much love to all,

Reut
30 oct 05 @ 10:32 pm

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Sunday, October 23, 2005
It is really cold here... brrrr. I don't like cold weather... brrr!
10-17-05-->10-23-05

Hello friends and family!

So… we have started our “Mind, spirit and Behavior” section at the beginning of the week. In comparison to Neuro, this is much slower.

This week was really fun—On Monday we had an interesting domestic abuse lectures. It is very scary to see the control the abusers have on the victims, and it is so sad that this is very common in our country. Monday night my friends and I continued studying for OMT—since we started studying for it on Saturday, by Monday we all felt pretty confident with the material.

Tuesday came rolling around with Pharmacology, Physiology and Pathology lectures, and during the afternoon pathology lab and medical informatics (biostatistics! YEAH!) After that we studied some more OMT. But, we stopped at 5, because… that night was MY night!!! In the middle of ‘Neuro’ student affairs started advertising for a movie night. I decided back then that I was going to go, no matter what… and so I did just that. The movie was Batman (the new one), and it was actually really good—I truly enjoyed it.

Wednesday was all about pharmacology, preventive medicine and physiology. That afternoon we had Score One for Health. This time around, we went to the Woodland school (which is right across from my apartment). It was difficult to work there, because the light was awfully dim, and we didn’t appropriate chairs, but it was still very fun. I found a few interesting things—first one was ring-worms. In all reality, I wouldn’t have recognized it, because it didn’t look like typical ring worms, but the kid kept saying to me that it’s ring worms and that her friend told her that, so I decided to ask Dr. P. The kid was right, and I learned something new! Ring worms look much different on darker skin—how cool! Then I found a kid with slight rails, and on the same kid I listened really good and found a Grade II systolic murmur. I really enjoy listening to hearts—I tune everything out—and then I close my eyes and just listen really carefully. It is great. That was about it—the rest of the kids were normal. It was really cute when one of the girls said that she was “either going to be a doctor or a model” :o) I told her she was pretty enough to be a model, but being a doctor was just so much cooler! Of course I had to let her try some of the different tools… I mean, she is a doctor in the making, right? She thought that my ophthalmoscope was way cool. What a cutie.
After all of this, I returned to school (after playing with my ‘tzemed-chemed’ (my cats at home)), and finished a pharm lecture and then studied some more for OMT. Trust me, by the time we were done, I felt so confident and ready for the exam… I wish we always had so much time to study for it :o)

Thursday was the OMT examination. I really wanted to get a cranial station… I really knew that material well and wanted to show-off, but apparently showing-off isn’t acceptable by the gods or something, because as luck had it, I didn’t get that station. Oh well, I had a lower neuropathy station lecture, a cervical lecture and a cranial nerve examination. Then at the end everyone had to write SOAP notes (subjective, objective, assessment and Plan)—with all of the things that go with objective. Also at the end we had to read some x-rays and identify some pictures. It was great.
After I finished the exam, I went straight to Smith hall and studied until night time.

Friday was fun! We had a psychologist come and teach two presentations. It was very interesting. At the end we had interdepartmental conference and then Primary Care Day. Primary Care Day is a day where all of the clubs organize and each takes upon itself to teach a clinical skill to the 1st years. Docs 4 Tots showed how to perform BMI testing. It is a really easy skill, but necessary for our screenings. I too learned some new skills—I once again intubated a fake pt. And… I finally conquered surgical knots!!! Hans explained to me how to do it, and I got it! All I needed was the right person to show me :o)

That night I begun studying for our quiz, and also begun tutoring Sarah for OMT.

That’s about it from here. It has been a fun week, and as Hans says: “Good times… Good times…” He cracks me up!

Loads of kisses,

Reut
23 oct 05 @ 11:58 pm

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Monday, October 17, 2005
Goodbye "Neuro", hello "Mind"
10-10-05--> 10-16-05

Hello family and friends,

That’s it, we are done with Neuro—I am kind of sad and happy at the same time.

This week was filled with lots of hard workà On Monday we still had lectures: we had 3 hours of neurology and then an hour of pharmacology. I always feel like lectures on the last day are difficult to internalize, but… Dr. Hon did such a great job with the neurology lectures, that it was very doable. After an afternoon neurology review, I continued reviewing for our pathology practical and our neuro-case presentation.

On Tuesday morning, Tim, Julia and I presented our neuro-case. It was very interesting to do, yet kind of nerve wracking! Two or three weeks prior, we chose a neurology case, analyzed it, and then prepared a short presentation with: patient’s history, sign and symptoms, neuroanatomical analasis, and diagnosis. It was so nice to be done with the presentation… for we still had to finish getting ready for path. Path practical was decent.

Wednesday and Thursday were kind of a blur… Tala and I reviewed non-stop. By Friday morning, we were pretty ready. It was nice to be done with the final examination, and that Friday night I took off!!! I went and saw “Just Like Heaven” with Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo. Very very cute movie!!

Saturday and Sunday, we attempted to study for our OMT examination, but I bet we will do more studying this week… :o)

That’s about it. Vega and KC are just cute—at the moment (6am) they are running from one side of my apartment to the other playing!

Well everyone, have a great week!

Reut
17 oct 05 @ 6:09 am

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Monday, October 10, 2005
Five more days of neuro!!!
10-02-05-->10-09-05

Hi family and friends, Shana Tova! שנה טובה ומתוקה!!!

What a crazy week! We had a quiz on Monday, and even though I thought it was very very hard, I ended up performing very well—I really am hoping that the final (this week) would be just as successful.

In any case, after the quiz on Monday, we had 2 Pharm lectures—it was all about anesthesia and such. Fairly interesting. Later that afternoon we had clinical conferences, and independent study. As it was Erev-Rosh ha’shana, I went with a few of my friends (Erica, Matt, Elisha, Adam & his girlfriend Jen) to a local synagogue (Beth Shalom) for their services. It was fun, but mainly much more fun just being out with my friends. When we were there, we met Mike (also from our class) and his girlfriend. All and all: decent service, great company.

Tuesday was lovely—we had the last two lectures of neuroanatomy (HURRAH!!!!!) We had a path lecture and some physiology. That afternoon I was working hard to catch up from Monday.

Wednesday had to be the greatest. The morning was filled with OMT and treating TMJ dysfunctions, but the afternoon was even better. Once again we had score one for health—working at the local schools doing physicals on children. This time around, I actually got to perform physicals, which was so much better than dental screening. I actually found a bunch of stuff, but these were the main things—the first child I assessed had a grade II systolic murmur. I saw a child with a bifurcated uvula. The main thing I was proud of was catching an undiagnosed asthma… It definitely is exciting to help children.

Also on Wednesday… I caught another cat! (this one is the last one). I was coming to school, and talked to Dorothy between classroom B and Smithhall. All of the sudden, I saw this cat following Dorothy. I stopped and grabbed Kitty’s cat food (Kitty is the cat from outside that doesn’t want to get in), and gave a bit to her. I dared and touched the cat and it started purring right away. Naturally (to me, that is), I picked her up and took her to Dr. Cole’s office. Dr. Cole was just awesome and took her to the vet for me—the cat had to stay there until Friday.

Dr. Cole is the nicest lady—she has a cat carrier in her office and she always take in stray cats—as I had to be in Score one for health that afternoon, I couldn’t just leave

Thursday was filled with pathology, physiology and clinical conferences. I just wanted to go home and sleep, but to no avail.

Friday was fast—an hour of oncology and then two hours of pharm. My memory is getting to be so much better now. It is much easier to memorize stuff. I guess they are right: it is possible to train the brain :o)

As I was finishing reviewing the pharmacology lectures at Smith hall, Dorothy came knocking on my door letting me know that a certain little white and black cat was waiting downstairs with Dr. Cole.

Ooooo! This cat is SO cute! About 20 people were standing next to Dr. Cole petting the cat, and I was just in 7th heaven.

I brought her home, and had a very entertaining hour or so of hissing competition from Both KC and the new cat. After that, they started chasing one another and playing. They are so good together.

This weekend was dedicated for studying… we have our path practical on Tuesday, Presentation on Tuesday morning, and final on Friday morning.

As I am very tired, I have got to go to bed,

Much love to all of you,

Reut
10 oct 05 @ 12:07 am

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Sunday, October 2, 2005
neuro... aka how to reshape one's brain!
09-26-->10-02-05

Hello everyone,

Wow… it’s October once again—this section is flying by!

This week was very difficult, especially our neuroanatomy lectures. I am not going to vent about it here, but it took me a long time to really understand them and I was quite frustrated with it at times. …However… now that I get it, it is very rewarding.

Monday was maily neuroanatomy and physiology—I just love physiology… I wish I could study it more in depth. It is very fascinating. That afternoon we had Clinical conference and pathology lab. I went to the later path lab, and found it to be relaxing with the smaller group. I am going to keep going to the later lab.

Tuesday was a breeze—we had neurology, pathology and physiology. We had a directed study that I still didn’t get to yet (oops)—I’ll do it tomorrow afternoon.

Wednesday was the greatest day this whole week!!! We had a lab with Dr. Karty—“eye exam” lab. It was just great! But the best part of the day was actually during the afternoon. We had our Score one for Health—we went over to inner city schools and performed physicals, dental, BP examinations etc. I got to work in the dental station. All I have to say is… thank goodness I’m not in dental school!!! I had the basic knowledge to perform a dental screen, but in all reality... this is probably all I will ever know about it. I had a few cute kids—I’d ask them “How many times do you brush your teeth everyday?” and they would respond with “Seventeen!!” or… “59, no! wait! 72!!!” I thought they were adorable. I saw some very bad cavities and decay, but also some kids that were proud of keeping their teeth nice and clean. Next week I get to perform physicals!!! Hurrah!

Thursday was nice—we had ENT, and two pharmacology lectures with a guest speaker who was phenomenal. I like exciting people, and she was one of them. That afternoon, we had clinical conferences that lasted until 4pm.

Friday was cool—we had 3 neurologys, one of which was with Dr. Hon- Another very exciting person—definitely great to learn a lecture from her—All I need to do is listen, and it just sticks… I wish this was the same with Stephen’s lectures :o)

That’s about it—I studies all weekend long—reviewing and quizzing. Tala was sick on Friday and today, so we got through less quizzing, but that’s okay.

My little KC is sitting next to me purring like a tractor—I think I should have named him John Deer, or “CAT”… The cat outside “Kitty” has been eating all the food that I (and some of my friends) have been leaving it/them. Tonight however, I dared and touched his tale and belly. Oh… he was very upset with me… he gave me a warning meow and a mean look…Sheesh!!

Loads of love from here,

I have to get to bed tonight!

Reut
2 oct 05 @ 10:39 pm

September 2005

Monday, September 26, 2005
Fun week!
09-19-->09-25-05

Hello everyone,

It is so nice when things “click” in school. This happened on Friday!!! We had one lecture that tied everything together, and walla, it made a whole lot of sense :o)

This week was busy and difficult, but it was still fun.

On Monday we had a quiz (difficult and annoying, but I did okay), then we had 2 hours of Dr. K (physiology) and a radiology hour. We didn’t have the paper copies of radiology slides, and it was difficult to take good notes. Personally I learn everything so much better with pictures (visual learner, yup, that’s me), and so when we don’t have them (especially in radiology), it is difficult. That afternoon we had our weekly clinical conference followed by pathology lab and micro lab. This was the first time ever that micro lab was absolutely great!!! I think it is mainly because it was after a quiz—I have already learned the material inside-out and so the lab was more of reinforcement.

Tuesday was very difficult—we had 4 hours of neurology with Dr. Stephens. That was difficult, but just like I said, it all came together on Friday.

Wednesday was the greatest!!! We had Score 1 for Health mock patient lab. Basically, with Score 1 for Health, we go out to inner city schools and perform physicals on the children. We benefit from the practice; they benefit from the examination. In anycase, on Wednesday we reviewed how to perform physicals on children—we had many young volunteers helping us out :o). It was really fun to be around kids… I took care of a little 7 year old boy. I felt like a fish in water—

Thursday was Ophthalmology, physiology, clinical conferences and end of life conference that included Stem cell research in it. Quite a fun day.

Friday… thank goodness for Friday. We had 3 or 4 hours of neurology with Stephens, and he reviewed brainstem lesions. Everything just fell into place, and started to make a whole lot of sense. It was awesome! During the afternoon I took KC to the vet for his second round of shots. He is getting to be a big guy! (2.6lb :o) LOL!) Just to let you know—he finally figured out how to climb on the window seal…

On Saturday morning I volunteered at the Kansas City Marathon. My friend Liz and I drove there at 6 in the morning and helped until about 10am or so. We basically directed cars away from the runners, and cheered everyone. We were at mile post 17, and had people getting to us about an hour and a half into the race. It was great fun, and we had a good time. Maybe, maybe, one day when I’ll be in shape again (yes, it can and will happen…) I will run a marathon also :o)

Sunday (today)—grocery shopping, and quizzing with Tala. It was very fun to see that we have learned a whole lot.

In anycase, it is getting to be late, and I have to go to bed.

Much love from Beautiful Kansas City,

Reut
26 sep 05 @ 12:29 am

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Monday, September 19, 2005
...so tired...
9-12-->9-18-05

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the late entry—I have a quiz on Monday, and have been studying this weekend.

So…6th week of neuro… hard work.

Monday started great with a fun Peds lecture. I truly think that this is what I’ll end up doing. Then we had two neuros with Stephens, and then pathology and pathology lab.

Tuesday was fun microbiology. It is getting a little better—I got some micro- “bug-cards” and it is helping me a whole lot. I am determined to understand this, not memorize. Then we had 3 hours of neuro, and an immunology. This was a long day, and the next day was no different…

Wednesday’s OMT lab was interesting, we had two OMM lectures and then in the afternoon “Score 1” Orientation. Score one for Health is a program that we as second year students participate in—we go to inner city schools and give the children physical examinations. It should be very fun! I cannot wait! :o)

Thursday we had 4 different neuro lectures and a pharm. Then we had a neuro review. Uggg. Long and tedious.

Friday was great fun! We had Hospital day :o) Remember me telling you about it last year? We met with many different programs and many different residency sites. It was more important this year because I had many questions to the different hospitals and it was nice to have them answered. That afternoon I went out for lunch with my friend Julia—It was so much fun to go out :o)

That afternoon I got all of my stuff and started ‘quizzing’ with my study-buddy Tala and just finished tonight (2 days later).

Okay, enough with school… I have to tell you what KC did last night. We had a huge storm roll through the city in the middle of the night. The lightening and the thunder woke me up, and all of the sudden I felt something move on my belly. I looked down, and saw my funny cat curled up on my belly, sleeping like a log, and not hearing the storm. It was quite an amusing thing.

Another exciting news I forgot to tell you. I got another scholarship! The Ida Foreman Fleisher Scholarship, from the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. I am very honored to receive this scholarship.

Well, that’s about it; This is a ‘tired’ entry… I need to get some sleep.

Night!

Reut
19 sep 05 @ 12:13 am

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Sunday, September 11, 2005
Middle of Neuro
09-03-->09-11-05

Hello all,

Last week I left you right before I flew home to Arizona… I shall continue from that point :o)

Home was wonderful—I love being home. I need to live a maximum of 2 hours drive from home, I don’t see myself on the other side of the country, far away from mom, dad, Omer and Midi. We had a good time, and I was sad that I had to leave on Monday night.

… but I had a kitty to take care of, so it was a little bit easier…

I got home, and KC was bouncing off the walls for a good hour, finally we went to bed, and got up fairly late on Tuesday. Tuesday was filled with neuroanatomy—it was interesting, but a bit too much. Thank goodness for radiology at the end of the day!!! That afternoon I took KC to the vet, and I was finally ‘clued in’. KC is not a girl, KC is a boy! I was laughing with the vet and saying how I needed to go back to basic anatomy :o) (me and the other 5 medical students who the same as me).

Wednesday was great fun—we had OMT lab in the morning (following a lecture), and in the afternoon, I performed my first ‘well patient’ physicals. I loved it! It was awesome! :o) I wasn’t perfect, but who is on the first time?

Thursday was cool—we had physiology, pathology, neurology and… micro (ugg). I got some new cards for micro, so it should be a little tiny bit easier.

Friday was also fun—we had micro, and virology, and then, the rest of the day was homecoming! The alumni came and visited the school, and we had a nice lunch together. That night, I was invited to the president dinner. This invitation came due to my scholarship I received last year. In anycase, I had a good time. The first few minutes I was a little nervous, because I didn’t know anyone, but after a little bit I found some fellow students, started talking to some of the alumni, and had a really good time.

Yesterday (Saturday) I studied all day—I had to finish going over virology and micro. Today will be ‘quizzing’ day with my study-buddy Tala. Tonight I will go and volunteer at the fall Festival—I will take some blood pressure and some blood sugars. It should be fun!

KC is sitting right next to the little ventilation area of the computer—he likes the warm air :o) besides that, he enjoy walking on the keyboard when I am typing, follow the computer mouse on the screen. …he is too cute for words!...

Okay, much love from here, I have to get going to school,

Reut
11 sep 05 @ 8:36 am

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Friday, September 2, 2005
Good bye Anatomy :o(
08-28-05-->09-02-05

Hello everyone,

I have just completed the first section of ‘Neuro’. We had our Anatomy practical yesterday, and I am kind of sad to note that we will have no more anatomy lab. We have completed the human body. Actually… I think I might go in with 1st years and tutor them—good for them, and good for me :o)

Yes, so this has been quite a week… Monday morning started out normally, with me in lab at 6am. I was minding my own business, working on the brain, but then, a group of about 15 of my classmate walked into the lab calling my name. My reaction of course was… what in the world? Then my friend Hans stretched his hand out and I realized that he had a little tiny black kitten!!!!

…Introducing… K.C.
My new little black kitten!!!

No, it is not the kitten I’ve been feeding outside the apartment building, he is still very timid. This one was found by Rochelle and caught by Hans in between classroom B and the administration building. The little baby was running from bush to bush trying as hard as she could to stay away. But of course, Hans is faster and stronger than all kittens put together! What a great guy!!

In anycase, my routine Monday has changed dramatically! I grabbed the little kitten, took her home, dried her up. My friend Katie helped me with everything, which was very nice of her. Once we got her some food, we had to go back to class, so we left the little kitten there. During my lunch break I came back, only to find a very terrified little kitten.

In anycase, it has been 5 days today, and she is like a completely different being—she is happy and funny and running around in circles, and chasing imaginary enemies. She is just hysterical. And today was the first day she climbed onto my lab when I sat at the computer… so as I am writing this, K.C. is sleeping and purring on my lap :o)

So why K.C.? Kansas City, of course, but… I had a very difficult time naming her. I really wanted to call her ‘Neuro,’ but it just didn’t fit right. Then I tried Gubernaculum (look it up in the medical dictionary, it is a word)—and for short Goober, or Goobie, but that didn’t work, and only a few people will find this name amusing. I also tried ‘Toolie’ תולי, but that’s too common of a cat name in Israel, and we had like 2 Toolies already. Mom and Dad suggested Berry, but that didn’t fit either… so finally… she became K.C. in a moment of brilliance. I really should have named her Kit-Kat, but that will be her nick name :o)

It is just wonderful to have a pet in the house. It makes coming home after school so much nicer—I love talking to her and explaining pathology and anatomy to her. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to both of us.

In any case, with K.C. in the house, I had to find someone to watch over her this weekend (I am flying home to Arizona)-- My friend Michelle agreed to feed her and play with her during the time I am gone. I am sad to be leaving her, but oh-so-excited to go see everyone back home!!! K.C. will probably have to get used to me when I come back.

Beside wonderful K.C., I have also studied very hard all week long—Tala and I covered everything about 4 times. It was difficult, as we had both the Anatomy practical and the final, but it was doable, and I felt good coming out of both examinations.

Well gang, I better go pack a bit before I fly out.

Much love to you, I miss you all!

Reut
2 sep 05 @ 6:50 pm

August 2005

Sunday, August 28, 2005
Loads and loads of anatomy...
08-22-05-->08-27-05

Hello friends,

I am still insanely busy, but decided to write a short entry now instead of no entry later.

This past Monday we had our first Neuro quiz. It wasn’t too bad. Most of it was actually anatomy, and out of that, a whole lot of it was innervations. After the quiz on Monday we had anatomy lecture, histology lecture and radiology lecture. I really like radiology! During the afternoon I had a topography lab (learning all about the brain). In any case, that night I decided to go home and do work at home instead of Smith hall. But I was really tired and didn’t get too much stuff done.

On Tuesday we had two ours of histology, and an ENT lecture. ENT is quite interesting; I think I might want to go into that… That afternoon we had an anatomy lab that was really annoying and hard (our opposite group didn’t do their dissection right, which made it difficult to do our dissection.) After lab I went to a club meeting that had free Chinese dinner… yum!!! Then I went to smith hall and worked my butt off on everything I didn’t get to on Monday.

Wednesday was wonderful! Dr. Boyajian is just awesome. She gets right to the most important things and gives you the big picture. I like learning from people who are excited about what they do! The lab we had ran through muscular examination—we did a lot of it last year, but it was a much needed review. OMT is so much more fun this year than last!

Thursday… uggg… I was really really REALLY tired on Thursday. I woke up early and went to lab, and then I had 2 lectures of anatomy that were long and tedious. Then by the time biochem (which I like a whole lot) rolled around, I was starting to nod off in class. It is a terrible thing to be falling asleep, not just because it is disrespectful, but also because I don’t learn the material in the classroom, and then I have to go home and learn it again. Yes… I paid for this one by studying this lecture for way to long today. During the afternoon we had a physiology lecture, and then a path lab. This was the first week I solved a pathology case and voiced it out! It was so nice…and I just can’t wait for the next path lab. I must have done a lot of studying on Thursday night, but I don’t quite remember…

Friday was just fun—we had 2 Ophthalmology lectures (or as dad says: “The pokey-man doctors!”) Than we had pathology lecture which was way cool! Then we had a great Pediatrics lecture.

Today was a long day. We studied many things, but what killed both of us was the anatomy lecture. It was just SOOOOOoooooo long. We still didn’t get all the way through, but we will. Oh well. Lab was fun, but I want to get there a few more times before the practical.

For those who are interested, my practical is next Thursday, and my midterm is on Friday. Then… I get to fly home to Arizona and visit my family!!!!!!! I can’t wait!

Kitty update: I’ve been feeding the cat this whole week, and I petted it a few times (every time I did that he looked up smelled me and walked backwards. I guess I smell bad from the anatomy lab.) Tonight when I called it, it came running towards me and then climbed into the bushes where he/she got the food.
My friend Hans told me that there are actually a pair of cats… they look identical… so I might have been feeding two of them.

In any case, I am hoping that the kitty(s) will learn to trust me before it gets too cold. He/she let me stand next to it and put my hand about half an inch away from it—once in a while it gets freaked out, and it runs backwards when it sees my hand, but most of the time he/she is okay with it.

Well, I really have to go to bed, so goodbye from me,

Love,

Reut
28 aug 05 @ 12:39 am

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Sunday, August 21, 2005
hello from rainy Missouri!
08-15-->08-21-05

Hi Everyone,

What a fun week! On Monday we had an interesting day—biochem, anatomy and embryology. Late in the afternoon we had our first topography lab where we studied the brain. Definitely interesting.

I’ve been going to lab every morning and I am feeling okay about all of the new structures we have to know. I really need to go over the osteology in more details. We have a little under two weeks for the mid-term, that I really have to get this done soon.

Tuesday was also fun—we had biochemistry again, anatomy, physiology, and an anatomy lab. That night I had an organizational fair—where everyone who represented a club tried to convince people to join. It was actually really fun.

Wednesday was really long… family medicine in the morning (all sorts of neuropathies), then Communication skills lab, and a special stem cell research lecture. Although some of my classmates did not agree, and were upset by this lecture, I thought it to be thought provoking and interesting. Later that afternoon we had an OMT lab, and I got to go up on stage and present a treatment.

On Thursday we had physiology, anatomy histology and path lab. In our pathology lab we are presenting individual cases. It is SO much better than the group presentations from last year. It is low key and fun! That night I had a peds-club/Docs for Tots meeting.

Friday was all about clinical medicine. We had ENT doctors coming in and giving us presentations. I really enjoy these. Anyways, during the afternoon we had an anatomy review, which was useful, and then I studied until 7 or so and went home to sleep…

The last two days I’ve been studying a whole bunch for our quiz tomorrow. I feel quite prepared, and hope I’ll do well.

Oh! I forgot to tell you that I found a cat outside… it is still not convinced that I am nice enough to get close to, but it does like the food I give it. Maybe in a few weeks it’ll trust me a bit more and not be so timid. He/She is black, and is just so cute! I just love animals. If this kitty doesn’t want to adopt me as its owner, I’ll wait for E-ma to come and pick my two cats from the humane society with me!!! :o) Hurrah!!!

Well, I know this was a boring entry, but I am tired and need to go to bed… you’ll just have to forgive me this time around :o)

Love to all,

Reut
21 aug 05 @ 11:42 pm

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Sunday, August 14, 2005
Back to school!!!
08-06-05--> 08-13-05

Back to school!!!
Hello everyone,

Yes, I am back to my normal hectic schedule, and it is oh-so-sweet!!! I really missed school (really, I am not kidding!). Our current section is ‘Neuro’ (Neuroscience), and it is really interesting!

So… last time I wrote I think Banana had just left my house, and I was getting ready for school. I don’t quite remember what I did over the weekend, but a lot of it was just missing my family a whole lot…

On Monday we had a registration day that was pretty much a waste of time. Nevertheless, it was nice to have a ‘get back into thing’ day before really starting again.

On Tuesday I had a full day—Histology, a double dose of Anatomy, and physiology. That afternoon I had an interior of Skull + lateral neck Anatomy lab which lasted until 5pm. This lab was actually much more difficult than the first anatomy lab last year (the first ever, that is) because our cadavers were completely whole. Last year our first dissection was done after the 2nd years have done their head and neck dissections, and so it was much easier to ‘forget’ that this was a person. In any case, I hope I am not grossing anyone out (sorry mom :o) ). Regardless, after the first incision it all became much easier and now we are all back in the game.

On Wednesday our school had a picnic and a baseball game planned for the afternoon. Since I went last year and had a fabulous time, I REALLY wanted to go again this year. Only problem… I had school work to finish. My motivation for Wednesday was finishing everything I needed to do and then just going to the picnic and game. I have to report that this was the best motivation ever. I finished my anatomy and communication skills without wasting any time, and was so happy! The picnic was awesome (except the food, that is…) I saw many of my friends, and saw my ‘little sister,’ Sarah. It was just a blast! The baseball game was pathetic, but I didn’t expect anything out of the Royals… as such, I only stayed 1 inning. I would have stayed longer, but it really was a sad game.

Thursday we had an interesting lecture: Clinical conference. It included Intracranial Hematomas, Herniations and Hemorrhages. Later on we had a family medicine lecture (cervical trauma) which was both great and scary; scary because of how we can so easily hurt ourselves. Then we had physiology and a path lab. I really enjoyed pathology lab, mainly because I recognized many different things!!! I was so proud! I think I get the main picture now, and can start filling in the little details.

Friday was real fun! We had an AWESOME embryology class—we learned about the development of the head and neck. This is by far my favorite topic. I just find it so fascinating! Following this came two hours of difficult anatomy lecture. It took me all of Friday night and a tad of today to really understand it. Still… I’m glad I put in the time and figured it out, because it is actually not too complicated and actually very useful for everything else.

That afternoon the Pediatrics club organized a meeting to show us what they do in the different health fairs (health screening). What a wonderful thing to go over! I signed up to volunteer at a health fair the following day.

…and so today, I woke up early in the morning, finished reading a lecture I had left over from yesterday and went out to volunteer! It was just so much fun :o) I started out with the hearing test and later on did a vision test. The children were just so very cute, and it was fun helping out! I am hoping to add this type of volunteering to my schedule. It is important both to me (practice-practice-practice…) and to the community here in Kansas City. I got home at around 1pm, and started studying a tad later.

Both Tala and I studied the osteology of the head today. It has a lot of info, but it is actually not too bad, and does make sense. With a mid-term coming up in 3 weeks, it is going to be extremely hard to learn ALL of the head and neck anatomy (including neuroanatomy), but alas… I am ready for the challenge! After we have finished most of the osteology, we dove into the difficult lecture from Friday. It is nice to really understand the material, and I am feeling really good about it!

Tomorrow we will be reviewing the week, and I will go over next week’s anatomy in a short 20 minute session.

Love to all,

Reut
14 aug 05 @ 12:54 am

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Friday, August 5, 2005
back to KC land.
07-30-05--> 08-05-05

Hello to all,

Wow, this has been some week! I left home on Saturday morning, and drove all day long to Colorado. The drive is really pretty—but my car didn’t like ascending to Flagstaff… a lot of 3rd gear. Now, the thing is, yes, I left home, but… I was talking with my family on the cell phone almost all the way to Albuquerque (at least it felt like it). All of us had a difficult time saying good-bye, and I really will make it a point to live within a 2 hour drive from my family. I hate living so far away! >:o( grrr!

In any case, at around 9pm Colorado time I made it to Banana’s house (Anna-Banana). We went out to dinner with Azadeh, but I was so tired that we parted pretty early and went to sleep.

The next morning Banana and I packed her stuff in my car, made some sandwiches and hit the road. The drive from Colorado back to Missouri has about 7 hours worth of Kansas… and oh-boy is it boring! It was so flat, and I swear I could see the earth’s curvature. Ugg. We stopped somewhere in Kansas for a picnic lunch, and then stopped for gas and ice-cream (it’s a lovely combination!). I was so happy that Banana decided to come with me, because this drive would have been so incredibly boring without another person to talk to. I don’t know how I managed to pass the time when I drove to Colorado at the beginning of the summer. I must have sung a lot.

We have made it to Kansas City at around 8:00 local time. It was still light outside, and we got everything unpacked by nightfall. Needless to say, we were both pooped, and we went to bed pretty early.

The next day I showed Banana all around my school—she rather liked our little campus. We were planning on staying there a bit longer, but then came the realization… we had no food in my house… we needed to go venture. Now, normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem—I would have driven to the grocery store and got whatever it was I needed. But, if you remember me telling you a few months back, Kansas City is doing some works on the Missouri Bridge—a main artery for getting north of the river. I needed to find a detour. Well… that took a good chunk of the morning, but I found a few ways to getting where I needed to go. After we got the food, we came back home, ate and then went and seen a movie. Can you guess which? Quoting my dad: “Wait, I know! I bet it’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’”. You will just have to smile and nod on this one… I can’t help it, I adore this movie; it is just so wonderfully unique. That night we built my bookcase and two other shelves together. I really like building stuff… I think dad trained me well over the summer.

The next day, we drove to Hallmark visitor center. The factory is here in town, and it is really interesting to learn about the history of the business. We saw lots of old Norman Rockwell letters and drawings. It was a very unique experience. Afterwards, we drove around a bit (I was attempting to get to the plaza, but got lost a few times). It is amazing how much better I know the city now after Banana was here. During the year I didn’t get a chance to go explore, and now I did, and it is so nice to (sort of) know where I’m going. When we finally made it to the plaza, we had a nice lunch and a lot of window shopping. Banana works at Ann(e)-Taylor, so we ventured there to see if they had anything nice for us. They didn’t. In any case, we went home after a while, worked out again and watched “Shall We Dance” on DVD. This movie was very cute.

The next day we really went crazy! We drove to the visitor center in the Harley-Davidson factory!!! It was definitely cool, and reminded me a whole lot of the Boeing factory in Seattle. Don’t worry I am not planning on getting a motorcycle. Afterwards, we went out to see another movie; no, not ‘Charlie’ again, but rather “Must Love Dogs”. It was very cute! By that we finished our ‘Odyssey,’ and Banana had to fly home. It was really fun having her here. That evening I hung all of the pictures in my apartment.

The next morning, I fixed the old hutch and put all of my school binders and books on the bookshelf and hutch. That afternoon, my new neighbor Cheri and my old neighbor Katie went out to lunch. It was Katie’s birthday, so we went out to the Cheesecake factory. It was rather delicious! That night I finished re-organizing the kitchen. It turned out really nice.

Today I visited school, bought a few books I needed, got a few library books I wanted, and got all of my summer school mail. And now, as I am writing, I am making muffins and hoping with all of my heart that these won’t turn out salty like the last batch I made… (blach!)

Well, I am very excited to begin school again, and next week I will tell you all about it!

Reut
5 aug 05 @ 7:18 pm

July 2005

Saturday, July 30, 2005
Sniff sniff :o(
07-24-05-->7-29-05

Hello to all,

I decided to make a short entry for this week before I leave for Kansas City tomorrow. This week was bittersweet— for I was (am) sad for leaving, but still had a good time. Although I planned on going to lab this week, I ended up not. I just wanted to spend the last week with mom, dad, Omer and Midnight... It is definitely hard to be leaving again.

I got tons of stuff done at home— I finished going through about 3 or 4 boxes filled with school memorabilia. Everything from Pre-K through about 9th grade… It was just wonderful looking at Omer’s 1st and 2nd grade notebooks. SO CUTE! I got a kick of my million drawings, and it was just funny to read a few of the scribbles on the side of the notebooks. In any case, since we just had SO much of it, I decided that anything after 3rd grade wasn’t ‘cute’ anymore, and so I threw away most of the old notebooks and paperwork. I still didn’t get to go through High school boxes for both me and Omer, but I’ll do that on my next vacation.

A few days ago Omer and I swam in the pool. I waited all summer for the water to be around ‘pee temperature’. I just hate it when the water is cold. Since this was the first time I got in the pool this summer, I was very excited. We swam for a tiny bit, got Midi to jump in the water and play with us, and just had a good time. However, about 10 minutes after we got in we started seeing lightening in the distant sky. We had to get out fast and by that we (or rather, I) have officially ended the swimming season. Rats.

Yesterday (Thursday), the whole family went to see ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. Even though both Omer and I saw the movie a week before, we enjoyed watching it again—It is such a wonderfully bizarre movie! :o)

Today dad and I finally finished putting all of the main pictures on the wall—plus the mobile! It is so much fun to see the house shaping up.

Well, that’s a short summary of the week. I still have to finish packing, get some sleep, and then I will be off early tomorrow morning.

Night y’all!

Reut.
30 jul 05 @ 12:02 am

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Sunday, July 24, 2005
it's cooler!
07-17-05 --> 07-23-05

Hello to all!

Not much is going on here— I am kind of sad that this was the penultimate week in lab. :o( I am planning to get everyone there some nice chocolate brownies as a thank you gesture.

Neat stuff this week—
-Omer and I saw “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. This movie was just as bizarre as the original movie, yet in a very different way. It was fun and exciting and weird. I highly recommend it!
-The Half-Blooded Prince (Harry Potter # 6) was wonderful! I really enjoyed it, and was impressed by the change in writing style in the past two books.
-After much nagging from my parents I made it to the optometrist. I finally got prescription sunglasses. It is absolutely heavenly! It was really dumb of me not to get them earlier than I did. Thank you parents for the constant reminder.
-Took Midi to the vet—he had two abscesses in his paws. He needs to stop stepping on so many cacti!

Today I finally managed to take the time and re-stain a picture frame. It holds in it Ruth Tzarfati’s beautiful ‘Island of the Cats’ pictures (from the book אי החתולים ). This picture hung at my grandparents’ living room, and found its way to us. Over the years the frame lost its beautiful blue staining, and it turned a greenish-yellowish color. Well, now after I took care of it, it looks just wonderful! It’s a good thing the Arizona sun is still shining—it took the stain about 5 minutes to dry completely! Amazing.

Speaking of the sun—it has been much cooler this past week. We went from 116 to 105! Hurricane Emily’s moisture had finally reached us and we have been having monsoons every night so far! This change in temperature is making everyone’s mood much better. Even with the increased humidity (I believe it was 70% yesterday!!!), this feels much, much better than the scorching temperature we have seen in the past month.

Well, as you can see, I don’t have much to tell… It is a good thing that school is starting soon… you won’t be too bored then… :o)

Love you much,

Reut

24 jul 05 @ 11:56 pm

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Saturday, July 16, 2005
Short entry :o)
07-12-05-->07-16-05

Hello to all!

Since Harry (last name Potter) is currently at my house, my entry will be shorter than normal :o) … what can I do, I got hooked on this series!

This week was fine—I saw a case of AML, which was interesting. I must say that I am feeling ready to go back to school. My pathology knowledge has grown during the summer, and it will be enjoyable to use it in school.

It has been hotter than the normal average… it has been 112 throughout the week, and it should be cooling down just a tiny bit over the next few days. We still did not have our first monsoon, but there is a chance that the humidity from hurricane Emily will increase the potential for a monsoon sometimes next week. Hurrah!

Today I finally finished putting the photographs and albums in ‘library’ and packed some of it in plastic containers to go over it at a later day. One of the photos I found was of mom pregnant with Omer!!! This is the only known picture so far! I hope to find more :o) … So as far as house stuff, we really only have a few more boxes to go through and pictures to hang on the wall!

What else…? I tried making cupcakes on yesterday, but they turned out a bit too salty… yuck! I followed the recipe, and I am not sure what went wrong. Dad suggested that maybe the flour I used is a bit too old… I should go buy new one.

Well friends, I have got to go read!!!! I’ve been waiting for this book for over 2 years :o) :o) :o) I guess the next (and last) book will come during my residency… Oh well.

Goodnight!


Reut

16 jul 05 @ 7:52 pm

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Monday, July 11, 2005
cool week!
07-02-05-->07-11-05

Another late posting… sorry! I got very busy this weekend with building the “library” (a huge bookcase) that I didn’t get a chance to write.

On Tuesday I saw Dr. E at lunch and reminded her that I would love to see some deliveries and other OBGYN procedures. She invited me to come see a tubal (tubal ligation). It was very neat to see! It was definitely much pinker than the gross we get in pathology :o) I know that’s a given, but it was still interesting to see. I was suppose to see two C-sections on Thursday, but got there too late. Bummer. I hope that by the end of the summer (which is approaching rather fast) I will be able to see it.

Lab was interesting, but nothing too unique; although, I did get to see a 22 week fetus with trisomy-18. This I thought was interesting and at the same time sad. On Thursday afternoon I coined the term: “gallbladder-galore” to describe the amount of gallbladder we see everyday. This week we saw cholesterol stones, bile stones and mixed stones (which was bile and cholesterol together). So you see, nothing too amazing.

This weekend dad and I finally built the “library”, and I’ve been working very hard on putting our million books on the shelves (and organizing boxes for donations). Going through books is one of my favorite things to do—I love seeing who the book was from, who the book belonged to, but most of all remembering what it felt like to read the book. After so many years I finally found two of my favorite childhood stories: "אי הילדים" and "אורי".

Okay, enough shtuyes!

Love to all, see you next week,

Reut

11 jul 05 @ 1:17 pm

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Saturday, July 2, 2005
Summer time!
06-26-05-->07-01-05

Hello everyone!

This week was pretty interesting, I saw some very interesting cases in lab, but won’t bore you with the details… (lucky you!) :o)

Funny ‘Tzchokim’ on Wednesday: My grandma Blanka has this weird anti-hiccup magic that works all the time (until you learn it by heart). Still to this day I have no idea what it means, or if I’m repeating it right, but it goes something like this: “Etche-toopiscomeh, etcheh, ferekteh tzoorik, Lemichlipa lemichliplipa, etcheh, fereckteh, tzoorik.” Anyways, this week I’ve been having frequent hiccup attacks … it was terrible! Mom tried Savta Blanka’s magic words on me, but obviously since I know it by heart, it didn’t work. She then proceeded to make up some weird new magic sentence that sounds a lot like snake language—something on the lines of: “Maaaashhhhhaaaaaaa hhh.” During that afternoon, dad said to mom: “Maaaa haaaaa sha’ahhhh….. Shaaa loshhh Vaaaa chetziiiii” which means in Hebrew (still sounding like a snake whisper): “what time is it? Three thirty” mom and I started cracking up, it was SO funny!!! Okay… so you are not laughing? Guess you don’t speak Hebrew, and if you do, you probably never encountered an anti-hiccup magic sentence! :o) Trust me, it was hysterical!!!

A few weeks ago, KCUMB sent me the name and contact information of my ‘little sister’, an incoming first year medical student. Today (Friday), I finally met her! Her name is Sarah, is from Arizona, studied at UoA, and is just awesome! We met at Starbucks and talked for a long time; I tried to answer all of her questions, and give her the general information she needed about being a first year student. She is going to be such a great addition to our school, and I am sure she will love the university. Hope I didn’t flood her with too much info… Listening to her, I was reminded on how exciting and stressful it was to begin last year. It is nice to be of help, and I hope she will find my experience useful. Actually, I enjoyed our meeting so much, that I emailed the school and asked them to let me know if anyone else is from Arizona that might want to meet. Dad said it will end up being the “Arizona club.”

That’s about it from here—more to come next week.

Happy 4th of July!

Reut

2 jul 05 @ 2:18 am

June 2005

Sunday, June 26, 2005
Hello from burning Arizona
6-19 (mom’s birthday!!!)-->6-26-05

Hello everyone!

Another week has gone by. This vacation is flying by too fast…

This week there was nothing really too amazingly interesting in lab—I saw a whole lot of things that I have seen before, so it was a nice review.

At home, we finally received our container from Israel—so the whole family has been working on making the house look decent again… Yesterday we finished the kitchen! I love that mom has a kitchen that even a chef would be proud of! Most excellent! Prior to the kitchen, we put everyone’s beds and rooms together—it looks very nice! We still have a lot to do, but we will probably finish it soon.

It was mom’s birthday on the 19th—one more time: Happy Birthday mom!!!

As some of you know, Arizona is now known as “Burning Arizona”. During this week we have had many fires that were started by lightening. It has been so dry that burning conditions are just right for many fires. The “Cave Creek Complex Fire” was about 7 miles north of our home, and for about two days it was very smoky around here. Now the wind has changed and the air has gotten much better, never the less, the plume is still very impressive.

Well… that’s really about it.

Love,

Reut

26 jun 05 @ 9:56 am

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Saturday, June 18, 2005
Another summer week!
6-11-->6-18-05

Hello to all!

So this week in lab was quite interesting, but I’ll tell you only about what I thought the most amazing thing was! Out of the products of conceptions, we had two with fetuses—the first one was maybe 10 week old… (plus or minus a week or two), and the other one was a 4 week old. Now, I was amazed when I saw it, but also sad. This was potential life that did not make it. To see a fetus that has 10 little toes and 10 little fingers was just heart breaking. Nevertheless, I thought it was very interesting.

During the same afternoon I got to see the placenta of twins. After viewing it under the microscope (and reading about it in Big Robbins and having Dr. G go through it with me one more time), we could determine that they were identical twins (this was a Diamnionic Monochorionic)à that was just very interesting and fun!

Anyways, life overall is very calm in comparison to school time. I started visiting the public library for a little bit everyday. I am trying to read ahead on anatomy—So far I have learned most of the bones in the skull—next week I’ll work on the muscles. It really shouldn’t be that bad, and it is actually fun to spend time in our new public library.

Omer and I star gazed a few nights ago—it was very fun! Besides admiring our amazing moon, we saw Jupiter and its 4 moons, what we think was Saturn (both of us thought that we saw the rings… so we are going with that assumption), and other unnamed (to us) stars. Next time we do it, we’d grab a star guide :o)

Other fun stuff I did this week—Mom and I saw two awesome movies. The first one was “Up town girls” with Brittney Murphey and Dakota Fanning. I randomly picked it up at blockbuster thinking it would probably be a B rated film, but it turned out to be a wonderful touching story! The other one was “I am David” based on a book by Ann Holms, and that was another movie we randomly picked and absolutely loved! Also in the movie department, last weekend mom, dad and I went to see the “pants” movie (the Summer Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)—as I read the story prior to seeing the movie, I was skeptic on how successful they would be at recreating the wonderful book-world, but alas… the movie was just as good as the book if not better (this almost never happens)… What can I say, this week was an awesome movie week for us!

Last thing—I am finishing one more scholarship application this week—and then I’ll start reading some material for another (this next one has an essay question on a topic I did not give too much thought to yet, so it will be fun to learn about it and make up my own mind about it).

That’s it you guys… vacation is great!

Much love,

Reut

18 jun 05 @ 11:16 pm

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Saturday, June 11, 2005
Hot hot hot!
06-04-05-->06-11-05

What a fun week!

Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit and it was really nice seeing them both! We did a lot of catching up. Even though Saba and Savta were here I still went to the pathology lab. I saw several interesting things this week:

-Pleural effusion
-Products of conception and its 3 requirements, of which one has to be present to confirm this is product of conception, (chorionic villi, trophoblastic cells, fetal tissue)
-Many appendices… :o)
-Many gallbladders—learned about Rokitansky aschoff sinuses
-Many distal esophageal biopsies
-Many colon polyps
-Stomach biopsies (and then yellow elastin stain looking for H. Pylori)
-Fatty liver
-Cirrhotic liver
-Adenomyosis
-Leiomyoma (we saw many of these)
-Ovarian tumors
-Small cell- “oat cell” carcinoma
-A case of Hashimoto
-Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)
-AND I got to see a frozen section done—that was very interesting.

I did not get to see any deliveries this week, which was disappointing, but most of the action happened during night and I was already home… maybe next week!

During one of the drives back from the hospital I got a chance to talk to my friend Deepa—I missed her and it was nice catching up on things. I cannot wait to see her baby daughter (she is almost a year old). Last time I saw her she wasn’t even crawling yet, and now she is walking and talking a little bit.

Today, Saturday, Dad and I got some stuff out of the house and enjoyed a little garage sale. It was fun, but it got so hot that we had to call it a day and go inside—horrid Arizona sun.

Well, that’s about it for now—

Enjoy the week!

Reut

11 jun 05 @ 5:15 pm

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Friday, June 3, 2005
Ahhh... summer!
05-28-05 --> 06-03-05

Hi Everyone!

So, another week has gone by. Vacation is great! Memorial day was this week, and we did… nothing… :o) No, that’s not true, mom and I went to see “Monster in Law” (2nd time for me) –Very cute. Besides that we exercised and watched “the incredibles” on DVD, “the Brook Ellison story,” and “Sandy Bottom Orchestra”. I think that I really was TV deprived :o) and I am much better now. But… we really should start planning something fun for the 4th of July.

On Tuesday I got a haircut—I love my hair stylist, so every time I get my hair cut I have to share with the world. It turned out SO cute!!! My hair is so much curlier here than in KC, which is just bizarre… it should be the other way around.

On Wednesday mom and I visited the humane society. I saw the cutest cats and dogs there—both “schmoopie” and “baby” were adorable cats and “Red-Cowboy” & “Salma” were awesome dogs. The thing is though, I really should visit the humane society in KC, and not here in Phoenix. If I fall in love with a pet here, it would be quite a long way for them to drive back with me. And… both my brother and my dog wouldn’t like another additions (Omer is allergic to cats, and Midi is opposed to having another pet in the house).

At lab we saw tons of interesting stuff. Today I saw cholesterol crystals for the first time. It was absolutely gorgeous—almost like an abstract picture. I loved it. Dr. S is on vacation, and so Dr. R and Dr. G are letting me follow them around. Also, one of the OBGYN Docs was looking for me on the day I was off to invite me to see C-section. I was so sad I have missed that opportunity that when I saw her in the cafeteria today I asked if I could come next week—and she told me she’d come looking for me on the days I’ll be in lab. I am SO excited for that!

In order to make sure I don’t forget everything I am learning in lab, I am keeping a running list of the different cases I see. It is quite interesting. I have seen many gallbladders and appendices, and have seen quite a few distal esophageal and terminal ileum biopsies. I really would love to have more microscope time at school. Hmmm… I might have to find extra time to do just that.

What else… Grandma and Grandpa are coming for a visit next week. Dad is coming home tonight and then he is coming again next week. It would be fun!

Anyways, love and kisses from here,

Reut

3 jun 05 @ 8:59 pm

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

April 2005

Friday, April 29, 2005
End of GI (the anus!) (ha ha ha!... okay...laugh...)
April 24th- April 29th

Hello world!

So, this was a busy week, but a bunch of cool stuff has been going on, so I have plenty to tell you about!

First of all, we had an awesome pathology lecture on Monday. I really thought it was great! ERF gave a great lecture and I just had a great time with it. On Monday, we also had the last anatomy lecture of the year AND the last anatomy lab of the year! It is a bit sad, b/c in this past section I finally figured out how to study for the lab… I stay there until 5pm and just follow Karen, Stephanie, Dr. Thomas/Cole/McWhorter/Nelson around. They tend to go over everything over and over and by 5pm it’s just a handful of people there, and so it’s really one on one session :o) Quite great! I’ll definitely give “pearl” as an advice to my ‘little-sister’ (a first year student) next year.

On Tuesday we had a neat OPP lab—Aaron was my partner again. He cracks me up—just a funny guy. We had 2 lectures also that day—I think it was virology and a rectal/prostate & hernia exam lecture. I got to practice rectal/prostate examination on a “dummy”. That was definitely cool! I would love to do this on a real-live person!

On Wednesday Dr. Joslyn gave us a biochem lecture. She is a local physician, and her lecture was fun. I find that most clinician’s lecture are just so much fun… I think it’s b/c they orient everything around the patient, and not around the basic sciences. Oh, we had tons of classes on Wednesday, I don’t remember them all, but we did have an abdominal x-ray sign out with Dr. Sumad (from pathology). That was just great! I am so glad I waited until the end of this section to go through the sign out, because at this point I have heard/seen discussed most of these diseases. If I would have taken this on the 2nd week, I would have not benefited much from the small group interaction. Good stuff.

Thursday was filled with microbiology. It was sort-of-kind-of fun. I am not a big fan of microbiology, but I can say that it is getting easier on me.

Today was all about parasitology. Ewwwwww some of those nematodes are just gross! :o) Oh, and then we had our Health Care Policy class. I really love that class—it incorporates business and medicine.

Extra activities this week: KCUMB’s photograph competition! A bunch of students (me included) turned in photographs for the annual competition. I think there were about 40 pictures or so, they were all just beautiful! In all reality, I didn’t think my pictures were going to win anything, because the other pictures were just gorgeous, but I was wrong! I won “first Honorable Mention” (right after 3rd place :o) ) I thought it was really fun and exciting, and so I had to call mom and dad and “Shvitz” a little, and now I’m “Shvitzing” to all of you :o) But I did it for fun, not to win anything, so it’s all good. … I liked Dad’s reaction to this: “So… would they give you $3,000 for it?” HA!!! Too funny! I have the same exact sense of humor, and I know for a fact that Saba Tzvika has the same dry sense of humor too! (we all think we are funny, but really, we are not…) To all of you that have seen some of my pictures before, it was the fly on the grapefruit one that I took a few years back-- I named it "A Moment's Rest".

Anyways, that is just about it. This coming week I have my finals and practicals and lots and lots of stuff… so I’ll be extremely busy. A week afterwards we have the end of the year final and clinical skill examination, so I’ll be even busier…

And then…

I get to go home!!! I am SO excited!!!! I can’t contain my happiness! :o) :o) :o) Jigg-dance!

Love to all,
Have a wonderful week!!!

Reut
29 apr 05 @ 4:48 pm

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Monday, April 25, 2005
Better late than never... :o)
April 16th--> April 23rd

Hi everyone,

This entry is coming out a tad on the late side… I had a quiz today (Monday), and spent the whole weekend studying for it, and just didn’t get a chance to slow down.

Chag-Samech to everyone, and I hope you all had a wonderful Pesach! I had a most lovely one, but I’ll get to that soon.

So, overall this week was not bad at all… The best part was actually the radiology lectures! I had such a good time analyzing both X-rays and CT’s. Ultra sounds are a tad tricky for me, but I think I’ll have an easier if I know which angle we are looking from. I wish we had extra small group assignment or small group teaching sessions with radiology—the best way to learn is just to go through many of those…

Dr. Arnold’s surgery is just awesome. I think I’ll end up being a surgeon (… no, not really, but I just think it’s loads of fun!) This week we went through different hernia surgeries. Very exciting stuff!

Overall, pathology and anatomy slowed the week down. There is so much information that we have to go through and it is just painstakingly long. Needless to say, I wish we had an extra week to really get a handle on it.

On Saturday, a bunch of my friends and I were invited to Dr. Karty’s house for Passover. It was just great! Pesach is my favorite holiday—I love the food, I love family, I love sitting around a huge table, I love the tradition, and mainly… I love the songs! We had a wonderful time— and I thank Dr. Karty for making us feel at home.

Well gang, I have got to run to my Anatomy lab, so lots of love and kisses to all of you, I miss you loads!

Reut
25 apr 05 @ 12:17 pm

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Saturday, April 16, 2005
:o)
April 10th--> April 15 (tax day)

Hello everyone,

This week was just great! I was in the best of moods and had a fabulous time! It all started with me waking up on Monday morning (after getting only 5 and a half hours of sleep) with a smile on my face. I mean, there I was, off to take a quiz on quite difficult material and there was no way for me to stop smiling… My classmates did not like that one bit, and after the quiz (which was hard), when I was still smiling and joking and just having fun, they told me I needed to stop. What a bunch of sour hens they are! Can’t one be in a good mood without being scrutinized???

Anyways, Monday was a piece of cake—we had a few lectures in the morning and an afternoon anatomy lab. Not too bad. I had an epiphany in lab—I can’t really tell you about it at the moment, b/c it is a surprise for someone who worked really hard for us this section, but I’ll tell you all about it after the section is over. Let’s just say that I came up with a great idea and went ahead with it.

Speaking of letting you know of stuff—finally finally I can tell you what Tala and I did for James—he has been the sweetest guy in the world and we decided we have to treat him, so for the past 2 weeks I’ve been dropping hints (most of them had nothing to do with the surprise) and overall just messed with his mind, and tomorrow (Saturday) we will take him to his favorite restaurant—Golden Corral. Personally I hate it, b/c it has meats and not too many veggies, but he likes it…

Anyways, back to Tuesday. It was most okay. We had an OPP lab again—sacrum. Again… nothing much to report. Despite having the afternoon off, I ended up going to anatomy lab with a bunch of my friends. It was SOOOOO smelly there. Ewwww. We are doing the GI at the moment, and frankly, this is a smelly learning experience :o) (hey, I was still smiling!)

Wednesday—our professor was sick, so we did not start class until 10!!!! WOW! I still got up early and went to school—lucky for me, b/c I got a huge cookie-on-a-stick from Dorothy—YUM! Not a healthy breakfast, but a really delicious one. Anyways, we still had a full day of classes b/c we had a rotation presentation during lunch, and then pathology labs in the afternoon. By the end of the day I was a starving Marvin, so I had to run home and eat something :o)

Thursday was long and torturous day, but it was still tons of fun. We had a financial aid presentation during noon time. There is only one thing I can say—“Thank heaven for… (no, not seven eleven) Financial aid!” It will be interesting paying it all back, but I have the rest of my life to do that, so that’s just fine with me.

Today was an awesome day! We had neat classes in the morning (I like Dr. Dew’s preventive medicine, it is really interesting), and then we had student organized review for the Clinical skills final. Today we went over Respiratory examination. It was really fun! Like I said before (a good month or two before), I really like clinical skill labs. It is exciting and pertinent to what we will do. Anyways, after IDC, my friend Phuc and I went to volunteer at Operation Breakthrough. It was so nice—I was with the toddlers today. I love them!!! They really crack me up, for they have such personality!

Well, I am off to continue studying.

Love you so much, and miss you!

Reut
PS—Mom and dad, I’m glad you liked the present!

16 apr 05 @ 10:11 pm

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Saturday, April 9, 2005
2nd week of GI... guess who wants to go back to cardio? :o)
04-03-05-->04-09-05

Hello to all and welcome to the “birthday week!” April 3rd—Saba Tzvika birthday, April 5th—Dad’s birthday, April 7th—My birthday. Happiness goes hand in hand with Sadness, and On the 8th it was the 6th “yom Hashana” for Saba Ramiro. I miss him—we all do, but I know that wherever he is, he is proud of me, his “Doctura.”

This week was really weird. We had a funny schedule, and loads of labs.

On Monday we had 2 hours with Dr. Seidler’s biochemistry. Biochemistry is interesting, but in all honesty, I don’t really see myself using it later on in practice. I guess it is a good thing to understand… Later on in the day we had Anatomy with Dr. Thomas. The only thing I have to say in regards to that is that I am really up to my pupik with this Shtuyes! There is just SO much to know and so little time. I looked at the schedule. We are in the 2nd week of this section already, and it is going to be over before I know it. Why can’t I slow time a bit?

On Tuesday we had an OPP lab. It really wasn’t all that interesting, so I won’t elaborate on it. I’ll just say that the story of “kidnapping Mr. Sacrum” was the high point of the lab. Then we had another anatomy lecture—do you see a trend here? The nice thing I did on Tuesday was to go out to lunch with one of my classmates. I’ve been cooped up in my apartment and school for too long! It was really nice to go out.

On Wednesday we had a morning Anatomy lab. A lab in the early hours of the day is just very weird. We have always had the labs in the afternoon, so all morning long I kept thinking it was afternoon. This lab was all about the portal hepatic system, and really it was a hard dissection. It was a good thing Dr. Cole was there to help us out with figuring out exactly what we needed to do.

On that afternoon I came home and had a package waiting for me: Brownies for my birthday from mom and dad! I loved the card that went with it, especially the line that said: “with every bite you give to these yummies, remember how sweet we are :-)” I was sure this was a mom joke, but for the first time in my life I didn’t realize it was really a dad-joke! :oP I loved the brownies SO much! My friends loved them too. Mmmmmm… brownies!

On Thursday I turned 26, and as a special treat we started out an hour later than normal. We were suppose to have an online assignment but the school server had problems, so everything was delayed. My day ended up starting 2 hours earlier, as I hurried to Smith hall to catch a room before the 2nd years snatched everything up. They are studying for the boards and signing up for a study room proves to me much more difficult than before. The day consisted mainly of biochem and embryology. It was most lovely. What can I say? I was at school until 11:30pm… not the best way to spend a birthday.

Friday. Lovely Friday. All and all… filled with anatomy to capacity. But on the plus side, Dr. K’s IDC (interdepartmental conference) was just amazing! I am so happy that she went through it—she has a way of making everything become clear.

My Nany and her table mates (I call them the “dinner table gals”) sent me a really sweet birthday card! I got it today and loved it so much I showed it to all of my friends :o) Thank you, it is wonderful!

Well, it is now 1:12AM, and I am tired but awake. I’ve been having this weird thing where at about 10 or 11 at night I get an energy boost. I am never productive at this point in the day, and not being tired isn’t helping my feeling of wasting my time. I guess it’s okay—everybody, me included, need time to not work.

You know, even though school is almost over, I really miss home. It was so nice being there during spring break, and I really want to be there now. When I chose KCUMB, I knew I was picking a great school, and I had no hesitations coming here. However, even at 25-26 years of age, nothing could have prepared for just how much I would miss my family. Umph. I need to be close to them.

Well friends, as much as I hate to say goodbye, I must,
I will keep you all posted with next week’s entry.

Love you all,
XOXO


Reut

9 apr 05 @ 1:52 am

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Saturday, April 2, 2005
It's Spring!!! :o) :o) :o)
03-28-05--> 04-01-05

So… I was right. Going back to school after a teaser holiday is difficult. But I did it, and I am back into studying mode (almost…)

We are in the last section of the year—Gastrointestinal. So far I do not like it as much as cardio, but that’s just the first week of this section, so it might get better. Our section director is cool Dr. Karius—I’m sure we’ll get lots of online activities and interaction!

On Monday we had a lovely anatomy marathon. I have a love-hate relationship with anatomy. I love it because I enjoy orienting things in my head, and also because it is pretty darn amazing. I hate it because I have a difficult time just memorizing things. Just the other day I was telling my mom that medicine (but especially anatomy) is like a foreign language—you got to keep practicing until you get it right.

That afternoon we had an interesting End of Life section. Dr.B. McCandless lead our group, and it was very interesting. We talked about living will, the need to talk about it with patients, friends and family, and naturally tied it with Terri Schiavo case. Overall it was very interesting. Everyone should think and talk about it. As Mike Myers in SNL would say (dressed up as Linda Richman in ‘coffee talk’): “The Living Will, neither a will, nor living, ‘tawk’ amongst yourselves” (thick new york accent here). :o)

After that (still on Monday) I had to do my Path presentation. It went just fine, but I ended up mispronouncing one word, and ERF made the whole class say it together. He does it whenever someone mixes up a word—pretty effective, we all at the end are able to say difficult words.

On Tuesday we had a cool clinical skills lab—Abdominal examination!!! I had such a great time with this one!!! What can I do, you give me a stethoscope, eyes, hands and a brain and I bound to do something with it! I love clinical skills lab, and really wish we had more of it.

My early clinical experience happened to land that afternoon, and so I drove to a neighboring suburb—Liberty, and shadowed Dr. Peters. Actually, I ended up following one of the 3rd year students around. This was just the most excellent experience I had in a while! Because she (the 3rd year student) isn’t that far a head in her medical education, I was able to enjoy the realization that I too will be doing just that. It was a wonderful experience, and I came out of there determine to conquer any obstacle that come my way. Actually… I called my mom and dad and told them: “Guess what I’m going to be when I grow up!!!” :o)

Wendsday and thrusday were both looooooooong days filled with Anatomy and anatomy lab. Today was a little better, b/c we had some biochemistry which made things interesting and physiology which explained everything. I like these classes a lot better because there instead of just memorizing names you have to learn a process. When comparing physiology/biochem to anatomy, it’s like a story, where Anatomy is just the index at the back of the book.

This afternoon Tala and I were suppose to give James his surprise, but Tala left for a wedding, so we’ll have to find some time next week. Bummer.

In anycase, that’s what’s been going on. We only have 6 more weeks of school :o( That’s sad… first year is almost over :o( :o( :o(

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Reut

2 apr 05 @ 3:18 pm

March 2005

Sunday, March 27, 2005
Eizeh Keif Sheba Aviv!!!
3-20--> 3-27-05

How in the world am I going to go back to school??? I just love being home. This is such a teaser vacation; it really ought to be a month long and not just a week long. Agggg! Next week is going to be very difficult, because I will be home-sick and out of school mode. Hopefully it will only take a few days for studying mode to kick in…

So, I bet you all want to know what I did on my vacation… here is a short account:

I came in on Friday night and slept until late the next morning!!! Very needed sleep. I felt much better afterwards.

On Saturday, I got a hair cut. Now that’s a major thing for me! The only way I cut my hair is when I do it by myself (chop chop chop! Very fun to do, but always dangerous results). But… mom found the sweetest person to cut hair! Hurrah!!! So now I’ll just keep going to her. My hair was long overdue for a haircut, and now it looks very cute. It is right above my shoulders and is layered at the back. I feel very girly-girl with this hairdo. Maybe I’ll start wearing a dress under the scrubs! (just kidding!) ;o)

This whole week mom and I have been walking 6 miles everyday at approximately the speed of light. Mom is so in shape that I basically had to run the whole way to keep up with her. Good news though-- I am now officially back in shape! Mom has a way of doing that to you-- one week with her and you reach new levels with your physical activity (… that, and I wasn’t sitting on my butt studying all day long!)

Movies I have watched:

The pacifier-- Okay… so this one was a movie for 9 year olds, but it was so funny!!! I just loved it!

Miss congeniality 2-- cute, but very much a chick-flick. Mom fell asleep at the end--but I enjoyed it.

What else? I worked in the garden, did house work, talked to old friends, enjoyed just being with mom, Omer and Midnight-- I hope I get to see dad tomorrow (crossing fingers!), also-- I ate like a pig this whole week! It’s great!!! I think I put on 5 lbs just yesterday :o) We had ice-cream in cold stone creamery--those things are just heavenly! Yum!!!

OH, we got me some new scrubs-- they are so COOL! One is a set of camouflage scrubs, and the other is a set of Orange- bell-bottom scrubs and a top of horses pattern!!! I don’t think my school will allow me to wear it, but I am going to try and get away with it :o) What can I do… I am a wild kind of a person! I can’t wait to hear the guys’ comments on the camouflage scrubs-- I am expecting them to say something on the lines of: “Be all that you can be in the A-a-ar-my!” Or-- “Atten-hut!” :o)

Highlight of today-- I was cleaning the screens from the outside, and just as I started hosing down the first screen I heard a “pshhhhhhhhhzt!” I stopped moving and just looked frankly to where the sound was coming from. Finally I spotted it-- a rattle snake 1.5 m away from me (about 4.5 feet). It was curling up into the defensive mode that they get in when they are scared, and so did I… I slowly backed away (straight into a cactus. OUCH!) and shut the water down. Then I screamed at a very high pitched tone: “MOM!!! There is a big rattle snake here!!! EEEEEEPPP!!!” Anyways, a few minutes later the snake relaxed and crawled to a hole under the air-conditioning unit. I too relaxed and went home to find the number for the snake removal people.

The first company I called wanted 100 bucks to remove Mr. Snake. I said thanks-but-no-thanks to them and searched the internet for the free removal that I knew existed in phoenix. Finally I found them-- Arizona Herpetological association!

They sent a guy named Kevin to come and help us. He called me and told me I had to watch the snake and make sure I see him until he gets to our house to catch the snake. I told him that that’s asking a lot out of a big chicken like me. He still made me do it. Uggg..

When Kevin got here, he tried grabbing the snake with the special stick that they have, but the snake was pretty fast and dove under the big AC unit. So a new plan had to be made-- if the snake doesn’t want to come up, we’ll just flood it out!!! We got the water hose and stuck it in the hole and just let it run for 5 minutes. The hole was HUGE, and so it took a little bit longer than 5 minutes to get the snake convinced that it wasn’t a good idea to stay in the wet hole. There we were-- and all of the sudden Kevin signals me with 2 fingers-- so I whisper (as to not alert the snake) two what??? The response: “Two snakes!”

AAAAHHHH!

2 beautiful Diamond-back snakes! A female and a male!

So-- The first one was caught and it was really docile-- didn’t rattle or anything. The second one was the aggressive one, and it was pissed that it was being bothered, and just showed the whole world who is the boss.

After the snakes were caught, we got a short snake-education. How interesting! I didn’t know that rattle snakes don’t hatch out of eggs!

It is a little bit early in the year for rattle snakes to be roaming the streets, but obviously, we are in the desert, and when in Arizona, you got to look out for snakes!

Fate of the snakes-- normally they are released into the regional desert (1 mile radius from where they were found). But our guys are going out for educational display. In about 3 months they will be released back into the wild in the local desert.

Please look at the pictures page for the snake adventure!



Good night everyone, I had a long day and have to get some sleep--
Love and kisses,

Reut

27 mar 05 @ 10:14 am

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Sunday, March 20, 2005
Spring break!
03-13-05--> 03-19-05

Hi everyone!

Wow… this week was the busiest it has ever been. We had a quiz on Monday, an anatomy and a pathology practicals on Thursday and a Final examination on Friday. I can sum it up in one word: Hectic.

My friend Tala and I ended up studying together. It worked really well, because each one of us has different strengths, and we just quizzed one another over and over again until we got it down. It was a nice change to study together with a friend than just by myself. Definitely effective.

On Tuesday we had the greatest class with Dr. Boyajian. She basically went through different cases with us and showed us how to analyze them. I found it to be so wonderfully useful. I am going to make it a point to go through 3 cases every week. The benefits of doing just that are tremendous! I will be starting that during the GI section.

Many many thanks to Savta Adina sent me amazing Mandel-bread. YUM! I am such a sucker for goodies :o) Thanks grandma! Also, I got a really nice letter from Aunt Sue, it totally made my day! (and Susie, I am feeling much much better now, thanks!)

Want to hear the sweetest thing ever? For the past week, my friend James has been trying to get me to his place to show me something-- and he wouldn’t tell me what it was. Anyways, due to lack of time, I only managed to visit him very late Thursday night. I walked in, and he gave me the sweetest present!!! 2 episodes of “once upon a time-life” (in Hebrew, the cartoon is called: “Hachaim”) This used to be one of my favorite shows as a kid, and after I told him about it, he looked it up for me. It took him a MONTH (!) to download these shows for me!!! I was very touched. I really have some wonderful friends up here :o) Anyways, I have a comeback for his sweetness. I am planning a lovely surprise for him-- I won’t tell you what it is, just in case he comes up here and read my page. I’ll tell you all about it in about 2 weeks!

Well, yesterday I flew back to Arizona, which is where I am at the moment. I am so happy to be back home. I missed everyone so much, and I just needed a little bit of home. Today I went walking with mom (she is in such a good shape that I had to keep running in order to keep up with her), washed Midnight, rested, ate tons of mandel-bread and tons of mom’s food, and just had a lovely free day. This week was going to be dedicated all for resting, but I have a pathology assignment that I need to finish… bummer.

That’s about it,

I’d love to hear from all of you, so drop me a line,
Love! XOXO,

Reut
PS-- I got a haircut!!!

20 mar 05 @ 12:14 am

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Sunday, March 13, 2005
One more week until spring break!
Week of 03-05-05-->03-12-05

Hi guys!

One more week till spring break!!! Hurrah! I really miss everyone, and I can’t wait to go home already. This section went by quick, it seems like we just started it and now…we have a quiz on Monday and then practicals and the final. Wow.

You know, med-school time is an interesting natural phenomenon. Each day at school goes by at the speed of light, yet, the rest of the world time seems to be much slower. Meaning—even though I talked to mom and dad yesterday it seems like 2 weeks since the last time I talked to them… Anyways… that’s just what I think.

Well, for the most part the week was interesting. We had an awesome surgery lecture at the beginning of the week—it is quite astonishing to see the astronomical numbers of vascular disease we have in the US. The American fast food culture is bad. We have to change it—our collective health is at risk here!

We had a trillion pharmacology lectures this week, or at least it felt like it. Statins, Beta blockers, Calcium blockers, Diuretics, ACE inhibitors and many more took center stage. Pshew… that was just exhausting!

Somewhere around Thursday, I was very grouchy. I am not exactly sure why, but I just was. The good thing is that by Friday night I felt like myself again. It is much easier to do work when I’m in a good mood.

Well gang, I better get going to bed, I have to wake up fairly early tomorrow, as one of my friends and I are going to the anatomy lab to review some materials.

Hugs and kisses, I miss you all!

Reut

13 mar 05 @ 12:06 am

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Sunday, March 6, 2005
It's almost spring!
Week of 2-28--> 03-05-05


Hi Everyone,

This past week was kind of fun. The first few days of it I was sick, so that wasn’t any fun, but then by the end of the week I was feeling most excellent, and thus having plenty of fun!

On Monday we had our quiz, and I took it while having a high fever. I did pretty well, but it was really hard to study for the quiz when I was sick. I took Tuesday off, as I woke up with 103.8F (39.9C ahhhh!) By that point I went back to the doctor at the student clinic and got antibiotics.

Wednesday was a loooooooong day—I was still feeling very iffy, and it was just a really long (and boring) day. By Thursday I was feeling better, and I started enjoying class again. We had 2 pharm, internal medicine and microbiology. I really missed Dr. Buxton—she teaches the virology part of microbiology. It was nice to have a lecture from her! Then we had path lab— I diagnosed both cases that our classmates presented correctly, and one of ERF’s cases right!!! YES!

Friday was awesome... school was nice and short, then I had a make up session for the lab I missed on Tuesday, and then… I went home and got ready for…. FOLLIES!!!

“Follies” is this big formal event that our school has every spring. It is composed of a nice dinner/bar, entertainment (funny movies by the students- and boy, was it funny!), and then a dance. This year it was done in Union Station, a beautifully old train station that was renovated into a museum/hall.

We got there at about 7, mingled around a bit, found our table, sat and had dinner. Then they started the movies, and I thought I was going to pee in my pants (Dress, actually) from laughing so much! Let me give you some of the titles I remember—“Napoleon Dynamite in KCUMB”, The milk challenge (drink 1 gallon of milk in ½ an hour…. Watch out for projectile vomiting soon thereafter…), “Gunners, just DO it (but don’t over DO it)”, “Fight or Flight”—(in this one they dressed up stupidly as a gorilla and scared people out of their wits in the middle of the night), and many others. It was very clever and very funny. Anyways, overall, this night was just wonderful. It was so much fun, and I think all of us needed a night where we’d dress up beautifully and just have fun.

Well, as I am still behind on school work (is that the new motto?) so I am going to continue the quest of “catching up.”

Hope everyone is doing well—drop me a line, I miss you guys!

Re

6 mar 05 @ 9:31 am

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

January 2005

Monday, January 31, 2005
01-22-05 --> 01-30-05

Short entry: difficult week, but all together we are definitely a bunch of tough-cookies!
31 jan 05 @ 11:47 pm

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Sunday, January 23, 2005
Sorry-- didn't get a chance to post until now :o)
01-16-->01-21-05

Hi Everyone!

Well, this week wasn’t too interesting. It was over-crammed with pharmacology and internal medicine. We didn’t have anything too exciting in class. The only cool stuff we did was completely on our own: a bunch of us got together on Thursday afternoon and we practiced listening to lung sounds on one another. One of the people was a smoker and she was also sick. On her I found crackles on her lower right lung and on her lower left lung. It was quite exciting! I can’t wait to find someone w/ bad asthma so I could hear wheezing!!!

Everyone has been sick around here, and I am doing my best not to catch anything, but b/c we are in a closed environment for such a long time, and with everyone coughing their lungs out, it ceased to be a lecture hall and became a nasty Petri dish!

The weather has been wonderful! I never thought I’d say it, but 50F feels REALLY warm!!! :o)

I have a big quiz on Monday, so I will spend my weekend studying. We are almost done with this section- we are in week 3 right now, and this section only lasts 5 weeks. After this section we will have cardio and then GI, and then the year will be over (ahhhhhh!) I can’t believe how fast this year is going. It needs to slow down a bit.

Well gang, I really better go study, or at least go over today’s notes

XOXO,

Reut

23 jan 05 @ 11:02 am

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Sunday, January 16, 2005
It is currently 7F (-14C). Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Week of 01-08-->01-14-05

Hi everyone!

Okay, so you know how I never drove in ice and snow and any type of wintry weather? (still haven’t, not planning to do it unless really have to) Well, after the huge storm we had a week ago, I ran out of groceries and had to get some food… I figured that the roads weren’t bad, and that I’ll just have to clean the car and everything will be dandy.

So I went downstairs and with my ice scraper/chipper/brush thing attempted to get in the car. Finally after good 20 minutes I got the driver side door to open and I went inside and turned on the car—figured that my poor car would love me if it was running after sitting there for such a long time.

Anyways, 40 minutes later I’m out there in the freezing weather chipping away at the ice and just having a good time, and then my friend Moe comes over. He said to me: “Reut… what are you doing???” So I answered: “I’m chipping away at the ice so I could go to the grocery store.” So he looked at me funny and asked me: “Is your defroster on?” (now mind you, I have NEVER used the defroster for anything but “de-fogging”… I’m from Arizona, I never drove in this weather)… so I say to him: “Moe, I don’t have the thing to spray on the windows!” He looked at me like I was crazy and said: “The defroster inside the car.” Then it hit me… “D’OH! So THAT’S what it is for!”

Moe and I just stood there cracking up at my “weather-ignorance,” and now, a week later I still think it is funny :o) It’s a good thing no one has it on film, or else I’d be taunted for life!!!

So, this week has been a whole lot harder. We had TONS of pharm, and TONS of physiology online. I am pooped from learning the different drug—Dr. Hentosh isn’t teaching this section, so… I have to come up w/my own mnemonics…

Anyways, it is Sunday today, and I have so much more material to go over. Yesterday I did Antibiotics, and today I better go over medications given with Asthma and do some Acid-base problems.

Love, love, love,

Reut

16 jan 05 @ 9:20 am

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Friday, January 7, 2005
Back to school
Week of 01-03-05--> 01-07-05

Hi everybody!

Wow, coming back to school was difficult… but actually now that the week is over I can say that it’s nice being back.

So far Respiratory section is well organized. On Monday, we had embryology (which everyone knows I love), and we had a few hours with Dr. Nelson in Anatomy lecture. The way he teaches is absolutely great—lots of drawing things out by hand—it is so much easier for me to remember things that way.

Tuesday was really awesome, and in the afternoon we had Anatomy lab— the lab itself was really fun, but due to really bad weather they shut the school down at 3pm and kicked us out!!! (This usually doesn’t happen… they almost never shut the school down.) I walked back home, and it was raining in buckets. The only thing was that this rain froze on contact, which means that by the time I got home (a 5 minute walk) I had icicles around my umbrella and icicles on my back pack!!! Don’t forget, I just came back from sunny Arizona, so this winter-weather was not something I wanted to experience.

Anyways, during the night we had a terrible ice-storm, and on Wednesday they basically shut the city down. It was terrible! So we got a snow-day, or rather… ice-day. I didn’t waste the day and worked a head on the lectures.

Thursday and Friday were catching up day. …what can I say, I never want to have another snow-day. Catching up is just very difficult, and in these 2 days we got just massive amount of information (double the usual basically). Yuck. But, despite my behind completely disappearing due to sitting all day today, we are done with the week and now I have the weekend to study for the test—hurrah…

Have a great weekend,

Much love,

Reut

7 jan 05 @ 3:49 pm

December 2004

Friday, December 24, 2004
VACATION!!!

It is SO nice to wake up at 10 in the morning, so nice to read the 5th Harry potter book for the second time, it is SO nice to walk with Midnight, go see movies with mom and talk to Dad and Omer…it is so nice to go over pathology, immunology, microbiology and cardio material when I want to, and not when I have to! It is just so wonderful! Now that I experienced the wonderful feeling of being on vacation, will I ever be able to go back to school??? :o)

It has definitely been a great vacation so far, and in all honesty, Phoenix is the best city to be in during the month of December… I can’t help it… I just don’t like snow very much!

Well, my movies count so far:
-“A series of unfortunate events”—so very very cute!
-“Meet the fockers”—a great sequal!!! (But I’m biased, Ben Stiller is a cutie pie, I adore Barbra Streisand, and both Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman were GREAT!)

Fun reading so far:
-Doctors by Erich Segal
-If I get to five by Fred Epstein
-Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Year 5) by J.K. Rowling

Fun stuff:
-Macabia with mom
-Shopping!
-Hiking on the trail
-Seeing old friends

What can I say, I am having a blast!!!

Well goodnight to all,

Love,

Reut

24 dec 04 @ 10:55 pm

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Saturday, December 11, 2004
I have completed the first semester of medical school!
12-04-04-->12-10-04

Hi everyone!

Wow, what a week this has been! It started out on Monday on with a quiz, than classes and stuff until Wednesday afternoon. THEN we had pathology practical and today (or rather yesterday, as it’s the wee-hour of the day right now…) we had our final exam. If they want to build in us the ability to function under stress and lack of sleep, I think they are doing a really good job! :o)

Actually, as this section closes, I wanted to say that I truly had a good time. I really enjoyed Hematology- Oncology. It’s challenging and exciting and really makes me think. Not so much Derm though… so I guess my plan of becoming a dermatologist, going off to Hawaii and taking care of skin there isn’t going to work… Ha!! (I’m kidding!).

In anycase, I just finished cleaning my place (it’s 2AM!!). I had to organize all of my papers, and throw away everything I didn’t need. It took a long time because I really wanted to be able to come back from break and have all of my papers organized. But also because I had SO much material from this section (My 5” binder has literally exploded!).

You know, it’s amazing how much stuff has been going on since the beginning of the school year. It’s amazing how close people in our class became. I am fortunate to do what I am doing, and to be here. And lastly, it’s amazing how much I have learned (and hopefully remember :o) ). The past few months were an interesting challenge. Difficult at times, never easy, but most of all… exciting!

Well, in a few hours I’ll be flying off to Arizona. I am SO excited to see my family!

So goodnight to you all,

Love always,

Reut

11 dec 04 @ 2:14 am

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Friday, December 3, 2004
the light at the end of the tunnel-- SLB section is almsot over!
11-27-04-->12-03-04

Hi everyone!

I forgot to tell about my snow “adventure” last week… A day before thanksgiving we had our first snow of the season (about a foot… that’s a lot for me!). Anyways, I had to go do stuff out of the house, and so I was going to go and drive in the snow for the first time (mind you, most of the snow was shoveled by that point). Well, I went down to my car, and much to my chagrin (and you can even add here—my horror), my car was covered with a foot of wet cold snow!!! So I took out my brush/shovel and started working on the car. It took me 30 minutes to get all the snow off of the car and by the end, all of the snow had transferred on to my cloths! I was SO drenched that I had to go upstairs and change cloths!!! I hope I NEVER have to do that again (wishful thinking :o) )

Okay, now on with the week—

This week was full! Because of Thanksgiving, we had extra stuff we had to complete this week, and it was quite hectic! Over all, I was a happy camper, because some of the diseases finally clicked. It’s a wonderful feeling to let the material sit there in the brain and stew until suddenly with no warning, it begins to make a whole lot of sense. :o) Now I’m waiting for some of the blood tests to click. It better happen this weekend, and not after the quiz!!! Ha!

Monday was a very long and difficult day, but we did have Dr. Hentosh for Pharmacology, so I was very happy. She is absolutely great. On Tuesday we had Osteopathic manipulations, and I stayed at school until 5pm. It was a very long day. Wednesday was the actual day the diseases clicked for me. We had Pediatrics Oncology in the morning and then 2 adult oncology lectures and 1 adult hematology. It was awesome! Thursday was a bit more difficult, because we had 3 immunology lectures, pediatrics, Blood lab, which was GREAT!—I drew blood off of Kendle (he has HUGE veins!), and Shellie (she has tiny veins)—and then did an analasis on my own blood. Actually… the computer did the analysis on me… but it was interesting nevertheless. This was the last of the blood labs, and now if I want to keep sticking people, I either have to contact Dr. Karius to plan a time when we can do it, or become a phlebotomist for the summer time :o) (I’d LOVE that!)

Today… we had 2 hours of Dr. Hubbard, with Adult Oncology—Lymphoma is making sense now, and the rest of it is cooking in my brain. Dr Hubbard’s lectures are great—I am so happy he is one of our clinician lecturers. THEN, Dr. Buxton taught Dr. El-sawi’s class, because Dr. El-Sawi had to be somewhere else. Poor Dr. Buxton, she had lost her voice last night and was squeaking. I felt so bad for her! I was so happy that she taught it though, because I really get her style. It’s so interesting to see how each one of the students enjoys different teaching styles, and have a hard time with others.

IDC—was cool. Dr. Karty is always awesome. And then… back home.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, where I am planning to sit and study in Smith hall. We have our last week next week. That means- a quiz on Monday, classes until Wednesday afternoon, Pathology practical on Thursday, and a final exam on Friday. But, with the end of this section, I get to fly home and finally get to see everyone!

Well gang, I must go to bed,

I love you and miss you,

Reut

3 dec 04 @ 10:46 pm

November 2004

Sunday, November 28, 2004
Happy Thanksgiving!
11-20-->11-28-2004

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Well, there isn’t really much to write about this week :o)

We had a quiz on Tuesday, and thus on Monday less than a quarter of our class appeared in school… I don’t think the section director was very happy with our class… I am very glad I went to school on Monday, because there was a very interesting presentation by Dr. Hicks regarding pediatric hematology. I enjoyed it.

After the quiz on Tuesday, I had an afternoon lab, and then back home for break!!!

Break was absolutely WONDERFUL! I slept a whole lot, took the car to the shop, volunteered at Operation Breakthrough, went out with the few people that stayed in town, and even did some academic work. It was great…

Sadly, we have to go back to school now, and in the next 2 weeks we will be bombarded with information… aaack. But, two weeks from now I will be home in Arizona!!! I can’t wait! I miss everyone so much (especially Midnight—my dog).

That’s about it,

I miss you all,


Reut

28 nov 04 @ 11:21 am

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Saturday, November 20, 2004
Cool blood lab!!!
11-13-04-->11-19-04

Hi everybody!

This week was interesting—

On Tuesday we had our Osteopathic manipulation exam, and it went fine— The way our OMT exams work is that we partner up, go from station to station and rotate between being the doctor and being the patient. In each station they have 4 or 5 cards that are facing down with questions on them. You choose 1 card and then have 3 minutes to explain and show how to treat for each question. All in all it is very random, and there is no guarantee as to which questions you will get. All of the questions I picked were ones that I knew (phew!) I got out of there feeling pretty good about the test.

Wednesday was very long. We had Physiology and pathology in the morning, then we had our discussion group and then… we had our 1st blood lab!!! It was just AWESOME! This was the first time I have ever drawn blood, and it felt wonderful to do it! All I need to do now is to practice and practice and keep practicing! On my first try I got into my friend’s vein but when I put the tube on I moved the needle a bit, so I had to abort that one. Then I tried again on a different friend’s vein and got blood out of hers with absolutely no problems! It was just awesome! I had 2 friends draw my blood also—they did a good job too. Actually, one of them did it better than any doctor, nurse or phlebotomist has ever done it on me! I was quite impressed! So now as Dad said, I got a new job—being a vampire!

I can’t wait till a week after next when we have another blood lab :o) :o) :o)

Thursday was hard—We had peds (fun class!), pathology, and 2 lectures of pharm (not with Dr. Hentosh though, so I don’t have any of her cool mnemonics to share with you…) In the afternoon 2 of my friends and I had a pathology presentation. We were very worried about it, but it went just fine.

Today was interesting—3 lectures of Hematology, one lecture of histology, and interdepartmental conference. Just as I predicted, we were chosen to present during the conference. Even though we had to stand in front of 230 some people, it went just fine and was actually kind of fun.

After school I went and volunteered at Operation Breakthrough— This time around, we went there as a group and had a Thanksgiving party with the kindergartners. We read stories, and enjoyed apple bobbing, pin the gobbler on the turkey, we drew turkeys and had a snack. It was loads of fun, and both the kids and we had a good time!

My weekend is going to be devoted to studying—I have a big quiz right before break.
My love to all of you,

I miss you!

Reut

PS—Just a big thank-you to Nany and Aunt Sue for getting me the most wonderful gloves!!! They are just perfect! I love them!

20 nov 04 @ 3:11 pm

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Saturday, November 13, 2004
It's almost Thanksgiving!
11-06-04-->11-12-04

Hi everyone,

This week wasn’t too bad—maybe it’s because I knew that in about a week and a half we will have a break (thanksgiving!!!).

We had tons and just tons of pathology, which is okay. I enjoy looking at the slides, and now (after 3 months of school), it actually looks like something more than a pretty picture with lots of dots and colors… :o) My only problem with pathology is quiz bank. We have a bank of questions that we are required to do for every lecture, and it’s on the computer. We have thousands of questions, and after about 50 or 60 questions I get a major head ache, so that is kind of annoying.

Tuesday was a great day for me—I had only 1 class, and then I spent the rest of the day working on quiz bank (and getting a head ache)

On Wednesday we had a bunch of pharmacology—this time around it was Antineoplastic agents (cancer drugs, basically). Dr. Hentosh did such a wonderful job with it!!! Whenever she comes to class I get a huge grin on my face, b/c she is just SO cool!!!! She has those great mnemonics to remember the different drugs, and w/o knowing it, I pick up complicated names of drugs. I can’t say I am any good at it yet, but I am very determined to become great at it! …Okay, so you want an example for a great Dr. Hentosh mnemonic? Okay. Irintican, a camptothecin analog has a very unique delayed severe diarrhea (in addition to Bone marrow depression, and a bunch of other things). The major thing to remember with Irintican is that horrid diarrhea that comes together with it. Then mnemonics: “Hey man, I ran to the can!!!” Get it? Irinotecan, delayed diarrhea… get it? :o)

Thursday was a really long day—we had Dermatology in the morning (which is getting harder and harder with all the different rashes we have to recognize), then we had microbiology (blah… I don’t like micro too much), and then we had Surgery with Dr. Arnold—he is a very unique individual. Very sarcastic and with a dry sense of humor. He was okay. The afternoon was filled with a lot of labs, which was kinda a drag. I was very tired by that point.

Oh, the other cool thing on Thursday, we organized a cookie sale for Docs for Tots. I made a bunch of posters to put around the school—with cookies and cookie monster—it was cute. We actually made a whole lot of money! It was fun selling the cookies and it was fun organizing the sale.

On Friday we had oncology, which was interesting. Then we had surgery, and then histology. Dr. McWhorter’s lecture was much better this time around!!! I actually enjoyed it a whole lot. Then in the afternoon we had interdepartmental conference, which was actually tons of fun! Dr. Buxton created cases for all of us to present, and our name is called out of a hat, and then we stand in front of the class and have to present our case. This is done in groups of 6, and we have about five or six different cases to go over. In anycase, she didn’t pick my group this time around, but all the other groups that were picked were just so funny! I really had a fun time with this!

On Friday afternoon I had a tutor for pathology— with a bunch of my friends, so I didn’t go to Operation Breakthrough to volunteer. I will definitely go next week. Then, late at night I practiced OMT with 2 of my friends, and it was fun.

Today, Saturday, I have a few things going on—first of all I will try and finish writing all the drugs for pharm—I hate being behind on a class I actually love… Second, I have a mock practical for OMT. I am definitely going to participate in it, b/c the Anatomy mock practical helped me so much to find out exactly where my weak points were and be able to concentrate on them. …and to all of those who are wondering, a mock practical is not a practical that we stand around and let others mock us (… ha-ha, very funny... yeah, right…)

Okay, off I go to work on some stuff,

Much love to all, I miss you SO much!

Reut

13 nov 04 @ 8:33 am

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Sunday, November 7, 2004
10-30-04 to 11-05-04
(I can’t believe it’s November already… sheesh!)

Hi everybody!

We started Skin Blood and Lymph this past week. So far it’s okay… not too interesting, but not too boring… We have a few new classes, and one of them is dermatology. It’s fairly cool—we probably go through over a hundred slides in a lecture, but he makes it seems like a piece of cake. I bet it’s really fun to rotate with a dermatologist (you get to see all kinds of different rashes and growths—very interesting stuff!)

Overall, academically, the only thing I found to be interesting enough to share with you guys is a guest presentation we had on Friday. Dr. Buxton’s neighbor, a lady that has psoriasis (skin disease) came and talked to us about her disease. It was very interesting and inspiring to see how she deals with the disease (both on the practical day-to-day side, and also the emotional side of it)

As everyone knows already, Tuesday was a very depressing day, as Kerry lost the elections. Many of the professors were poking bad jokes and taking jabs at W. For example, one of our professors (who shall remain anonymous) went off at a virus in a shape of the letter ‘W’ infiltrating the nerves. You really had to be there, it was funny, and I don’t do it justice. Just like in the rest of the country, our class is divided in half. So, half of my classmates were on cloud # 9 for the rest of the week… Still, as my friend Karen says—“Yeah, I'm pissed that 50% of our country re-elected that nitwit, but I did my duty—I voted for the guy I thought would do a good job. But more people thought President Moron would do a better job, so they win. That's the way democracy works, and frankly, I wouldn't trade it for any other form of government there is.”

On Friday following the inter-departmental conference, I drove to Operation Breakthrough and volunteered. I spent my time with the little babies, and it was absolutely wonderful! I think next time I’ll volunteer with the 3 year olds. It’s amazing how much I missed kids in general! When I’m home over break, I’ll better go see my kids at my old work place…although at age 2-3 they probably won’t remember me when I come to visit them… Oh well!

I have a bunch of new pictures posted in the picture page, so check them out!!! Click on them to make them larger.

As another quiz is coming this Monday, I better go review my notes.

Much love to all,

Reut

7 nov 04 @ 12:15 am

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

September 2004

Saturday, September 25, 2004
We started musculoskeletal unit!
9-17-->9-24

Overall, this was a very long and difficult week.

Musculoskeletal unit began this week; this is an exciting unit, and much more organized than FOM. We did SO many things—we started our Anatomy lab! (and I absolutely LOVED it!!!), we had our first clinical interviews, first pathology case diagnostic, and lots and just LOTS of school. I won’t bore you with any more school-details of this week, because there is just too much to go over. Just believe me when I say that it was a long and difficult week :o)

Yesterday we got our FOM (Foundations of Medicine) tests back—I did just fine, and passed the unit with flying colors! Hurrah! No more FOM!

Last night I went to Yom Kippur services in a reform synagogue. I had dinner with a few families, and that was nice! The services themselves were not to my taste- it was too similar to a church, and there was too much English in the service. What can I say, I have an affinity to Hebrew… But it was nice to get out and be around “non-medical-school-people”!

Today I have to play catch up from yesterday, so I have to bid you farewell and go back to studying. With a quiz on Monday, I must study hard.

Much love to all,

Re

PS- my applesauce turned AMAZING! It is all gone now, and after the fast I’ll make another batch!

25 sep 04 @ 10:23 am

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Friday, September 17, 2004
9-11 through 9-17
No more FOM (Foundations of Medicine)!!!

I just finished the last lag of FOM. All I did for the past week was study for my exam, and despite all the studying, it was still very hard…. Blah! Actually, all I really did in the past 6 weeks was study... so I can’t quite complain. However, since the exam is over, I am not going to dwell about it any longer. This weekend is the only free weekend I get (for the next 6 weeks) where I don’t have any school work at all, so I’m going to enjoy it and not think of the exam.

“Non-exam” interesting aspects of the week:

1) A presentation regarding obesity—Mrs. Weaver was kind enough to share her inspiring story. It is amazing to see that sometimes our society forgets that inside every human body a unique wonderful soul exist. I was very touched by her story.

2) End of Life panel. Wow… this one was a bit hard. I basically sat there trying very, very hard to hold my tears in (and you ALL know I am the first one to shed tears… and a lot of them….). I think that eventually I will have to grow up and face and accept death. But at the moment, it doesn’t stop me from hating it. Yes, I know that 100% of our patients will ultimately die, but I just think that this last goodbye is very difficult. Dad’s famous line is: “I can promise you this—everyone is going to die sometimes,” and rationally I accept that, but emotionally I don’t want to. Hmph! We are going to have many more discussions and such on this topic, and I think that it is something I will just have to get through and process in my mind and heart.

Today we had hospital day—basically, all related hospital sites came and set up booths and introduced themselves to us. In all reality this event was intended to the 2nd years, but it was still quite informative and actually fun. I am looking at a possible hospital in MI, but this is really far a head to think about at the moment ;o)

After we were done with hospital day, I went with some of my friends to Vaughn’s apple orchard to pick some apples. Well, some apples is not quite accurate… it is more like TONS of apples!!! I have more apples than I know what to do with… maybe I’ll make some apple pie with it or some apple sauce (better ask Grandma for the apple sauce recipe…). I left all of the apples at my friend’s place, but I’ll go there tomorrow and get a few, so they don’t have to deal with 32544 tons of apples! It was very fun to walk around with a big bag and pick the apples. It might be the end of the season, b/c it looked like a lot of the apples on the tree had worms and stuff in them, but the ones we picked are great! OH! Now I know what Newton felt like when he got that interesting idea of his regarding gravity… I too was hit straight on the head with an apple. Ouch!

Well, seeing as I am extremely tired, I am going to head on to bed.

Goodnight to all, lots of hugs and kisses,

Re

PS—I begun taking pictures with my camera (35mm, sorry, no digital)—I hope that in the next month or so I’ll finish a roll and put it up here!

17 sep 04 @ 10:28 pm

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Friday, September 10, 2004
9/3 to 9/10/04
Fun week!

We had Monday off for Labor Day, but that doesn’t mean I actually had it off :o) I sat and studied from 8am to 11pm… long day.

Tuesday we had the quiz, and then we had communication lab. It was really hard to go to lab right after the quiz (b/c I was just drained), but I did it, and overall it was informative.

Wednesday was a hard physiology/immunology day, but at night time I went to a peds club/ Docs for Tots meeting, and got chosen with 4 other people to be one of the 1st year representatives for Docs for Tots! I’m very excited to take on this responsibility :o)

Thursday was another hard immunology/pathology/microbiology day. Microbiology was kind of neat—we learned about all sorts of parasites and had a lovely disgusting time with the pictures!!! Ewwwww! Right before lunch too!!! :o) We had Micro lab in the afternoon, and that was just boring….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz but nevertheless, I like microlab- it’s a low stress environment, perhaps the only low stress environment at the school, so I’m not complaining about it. It was really gross to see all the fungi though!!!

Today was really great—we had 2 pathology lectures, and one pharmacology lecture (that was very very VERY hard to follow!) Besides being a regular class day, today was homecoming of the school- all the alumni came and visited, and the new building they are attempting to finish by last August (LOL!) was named. I doubt they’ll finish that thing before I’m outta here :o) Then we had a great delicious lunch, a few panels with the alumni, and home!!!!!!!!! Before I actually got home, I stopped at Dr. Buxton’s office (immunology/micro), and talked to her about a review session with the class. She didn’t finish one of her lectures and offered to give a session where she’d finish it and go over questions etc. Anyways in class I asked her when she was going to do that, and she said that we as a class will have to decide. Well…as no one was going to do it, I went to her office, found the times she could do it, emailed all my class mates, will count the votes and will figure out the date/time of the review session. It’s nice to organize this little vote…

I just came back from Wal-Mart and I really am going to study soon (I have to, as we have our final examination on Thursday), but I just thought I’d drop a line and say hello to everyone across the world!

Big hugs and kisses to all,

I miss you!

Re

10 sep 04 @ 6:54 pm

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Saturday, September 4, 2004
8-30 through 9-3-2004

Another week has gone by. This was by far the most difficult week—There is just so much (or rather, too much) microbiology and pharmacology. This week we also had a few labs! Micro lab is really cool—I had a good time with it! We got to streak some plates and stain some bacteria (mine was a most lovely Gram (-) e.coli!) We also had “end of life” lab—which was mainly learning approaches to patient-doctor communication at the last stages of life. In this lab we also had a short role playing. This time around I got to be the doctor and ‘act’ the part :o) It was nice. I think that this communication skills course is a very beneficial one. I get free practice with constant feedback from instructors, community members and classmates. It is an interesting concept. Ummmm… Oh yeah, today we had a pharmokinetics lab—basically we had group and worked on problems. It really wasn’t bad… but I think I was one of the few people that had a fairly good time in that lab… what can I say, I took my time with it, really tried to understand what I was doing. Everybody else wanted to get out of there fast, and when they realized there was no way they were going to finish with this in less than 2 hours they got frustrated. Personally, I came in with the attitude of—this is going to take as long as it takes and… this is going to be fun! Actually, it reminded me of Mr. Dillon’s physics questions in high school—just the same general feeling :o)

OPP lab—fun stuff! “Back cracking” It has a name—High velocity, low amplitude (HVLA) but I think back cracking sounds funnier! Great stuff! I need more practice… any volunteers??? :o)

I joined a new study group! These people are great—we basically go over materials individually, but consult on main issues. Furthermore, during the weekend, we will do a major quizzing session. This should be useful because we have a quiz on Tuesday. Thank goodness for Labor Day, b/c we get another study day :o)

As I was walking out of Smith hall today I saw Erin (who is a 2nd year) and she gave me the application for the volunteering I want to do with the Docs for Tots club. Here is the website for the location—I am very excited about it!
http://www.operationbreakthrough.org/
With all the really bad stuff that is going on in the world, this would be my own personal contribution to helping others in our community.

Well, overall this is the gist of the week. Mainly studying and studying and studying, but that is exactly what I’m here to do :o)

Oh one more thing—the sunrises in Kansas City are so different than the Arizona ones! The sky here is usually very dark blue, and the very red sun just climbs up from the flat horizon. It is very beautiful, and I will take a picture eventually.

Okay guys, I am incredibly tired and it is 1:20AM here, so I better go to bed,

Much love to all of you, I miss you!

Re

4 sep 04 @ 1:22 am

August 2004

Saturday, August 28, 2004
Friday, 27 August, 2004
I think that b/c of the storm their computer system crashed. I wasn't able to put this one on until now :o)
August 23- August 27, 2004

What a week! This one wasn’t too long—I think I am getting used to the amount of work and the pace.

As you all know I had a “quiz” on Monday—I am very pleased with the results. All of my studying really paid off. Overall, I still wish I could find a better system of studying—one that would be more efficient. I will keep trying new things :o)

The rest of the week just flew by with TONS of genetic disorders and TONS of cancer. In OPP we learned Soft Tissue manipulations, and hence we are now officially dangerous ;o) We had our first pathology lab on Wednesday. This is going to be one of those classes that are so hard, and yet so very interesting. Pharmacology is getting harder by the second, but I was expecting that…

The most memorable moment of the week—we had a guest lecturer from Children Mercy Hospital and during his lecture he played a recording of a baby with Cri du chat syndrome—(caused by a deletion of the short arm of chromosome 5). Babies with this condition have a cry that sounds like that sound of a cat (thus the name), and have many problems. Anyways, I don’t think I will ever forget the sound of this cry—

The weather has been crazy. At the moment it is raining cats and dogs. Yesterday it was 92° sunny, but very windy. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday it rained so much that I got completely soaked on the way to lab… (and yes, I did have an umbrella with me…). And last weekend it was so foggy I couldn’t see my hand when I waved it in front of my body!!! This is definitely way different than Arizona.

Well, that is just about it—

For all of the Hebrew users— Thanks to my cool uncle, I can read and write in Hebrew, so you are welcome to email me!

Love you and miss you,

Re
PS—I meant tonight to be my “off” night, but I ended up sitting for the past 2 hours finishing a lecture… LOL! It was sitting there just calling me to look at it, and I just couldn’t resist… I think I might go start on another one soon.

28 aug 04 @ 11:53 am

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Friday, August 20, 2004
Second week in a summary!
Week of August 16 --> 20, 2004

Another long week, but this one didn’t seem to go by too slow. Lots and lots of stuff going on!

First of all, school is getting harder and harder. I need to find a better system of studying, b/c what I’m doing now isn’t working for me too well… at least I feel so. This coming Monday is our first quiz (a 2 hour test), and I’ve been studying non stop, yet feel like there is SO much I don’t know. I can’t wait to take it already so I’ll know what that is all about.

Okay, what else? I have to give you a description of my classmates—they are just so awesome! What a great group of people! I sit in a row full of guys :o) The other day I turned over to Brian who sits on my right side and with a smirk said to him: “You know Brian, I’m feeling just wonderful” he then asked me why and I replied with “I’m surrounded by so many great guys! Seriously though, I feel like I finally met up with people I can talk with! In every University/college I have been at up until now, there were very few people that I felt comfortable with and that were on my level (man that sounds snobbish, doesn’t it… but it’s true…) Well, here, everybody I met (okay, almost everybody) is nice and fun and just is on the same plane as me.
In the row behind me, there are two “gunners”—everybody knows gunners… they are the people who will kill to be the top of the class. They drive me CRAZY, but they are still nice, and if I just hang around them I actually get a free review ;o)

On Wednesday I joined the Pediatrics club. We are going to have a few speakers, many opportunities to shadow pediatricians and we get to do physicals in a few inner-city schools (aka—our neighborhood kids!) I am thinking of joining another club—Docs for Tots—basically it’s a community service club. We’ll tutor kids in the inner-city school for about 2 hours a week. But I decided to wait until the first quiz is over so I’ll know if I can afford loosing 2 hours of my study time.

Speaking on affording time—I came up with this on Wednesday night:

“Time is a commodity I do not have, and loosing my mind is a luxury I cannot afford”
Actually it originated with “Time is a commodity I don’t have, and freaking out is a luxury I cannot afford” :o)

I think I was stuck in Smith Hall for WAY too long!

Thursday was just awesome! It started out being a long day with Immunology and Biochemistry, but then we had a presentation. A child who has chromosomal abnormality and his mother came to us and talked about their challenges and their blessings, and their experience both with the medical world and the world at large. It was very inspiring! After it was over I went and talked (and danced) with the kid—It was most lovely!

I miss all the little kids from my old work place… I talked to Clara the other day and just hearing her talk about them brought a smile to my face.


Today after our review session I joined one of my friends to go donate blood (we had a blood drive on campus). I love donating blood, and was really excited about it. So, all was good until they took my temperature. I had a low grade fever! How strange, I feel totally fine—I think their thermometer was off or something, b/c when I have a low grade fever I usually feel like shit. So, I was disappointed :o( I’m proudly wearing my “I tried” sticker!

Oh, to my Hebrew speaking friends, for some odd reason even though I can read and write in Hebrew on the computer, my email doesn’t accept the Hebrew font (grrrrr! Yossi, any suggestions???) So until I get it working, please write either in English or in “Hebrish” so I can read what you write and not just have funky code on my screen.

Well that’s about it, I’m going to go make some food for the week—I am actually not going to study anything tonight. I need to rest a bit before the next two days. I might go over the silly path root words—Dr. Freelander cracks me up, and I don’t want him to make a fool out of me when I am tested on this vocabulary in front of my 237 close friends! (Yes, he does that almost every other day—it’s very entertaining, but it is definitely a great motivational tool for me…)

Good night, I miss you all!

Re

PS—people here drive like maniacs! It got pretty scary today right before the bridge! They are nuts.

20 aug 04 @ 8:08 pm

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Friday, August 13, 2004
08-09 --> 08/13 The longest week!
Friday the thirteenth, August, 2004.

So…I survived the first week of medical school. It was one of the longest weeks of my life! The amount of work that I have to do is astronomical, and I am a little bit overwhelmed (okay… a lot!) I still need to find a better way of studying, but overall I spent a lot of time with my books and notes.

On Tuesday we had our Osteopathic Manipulation lab, and we got to be “doctors” as well as “patients”—I had a lot of fun with this lab, definitely much better than just sitting in class.

Histology, or rather, cell biology in Histology is kicking my butt! I feel like I need to know every single detail (which I probably don’t at this point), and since I never studied histology, this “introduction”/”review” is just awful. I feel like a whole semester worth of undergrad material was condensed into 2 hours, and it is just very overwhelming. Microbiology is the same story… blah!

So far, I just LOVE physiology. Our instructor is great, and it is interesting and it flows well, and I am not as overwhelmed with that avenue.

What I did notice today was—I went to Histology and the whole lecture just flew over my head- then during physiology and physiology/pharmacology as I listened to their lecture, I encounter information that I didn't realize I knew. So I tried to remember where I knew this info from, and was totally surprised that somehow this newly learned information sunk in during histology. Very cool! I guess the “genesis” program is working!

Anyways, it is Friday night, and I need to go study again.

Much love to all of you, I miss you very much!

13 aug 04 @ 7:40 pm

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Sunday, August 8, 2004
can't wait!

It's the night before school begins... I am very excited!
8 aug 04 @ 7:21 pm

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Friday, August 6, 2004
Monday, August 2nd- Thursday August 5th

Hello to all! I've decided to keep a "journal" of my life as a medical student... a short summary of the weeks will give you a nice update with my life and will leave me with an interesting memory. *Just as a note, the journal might get pushed way down on the priority list as the amount of work will pile up....*

So, before I tell you all about the orientation, I must explain how tired I really was... The previous Wednesday Abba and I drove all the way from Arizona to Missouri—we all were kind of sad on that first day and we didn’t leave until noon, so we only got to Albuquerque, NM that day. The next day we did a HUGE chunk of the way: we finished the rest of New Mexico, got into Texas, went through Oklahoma and then got to Wichita Kansas. On Friday we got to Kansas City and went back and forth between the Missouri side and the Kansas side to find our hotel… then we picked up mom from the airport and… went shopping. Saturday we went shopping again…. Sunday we moved my stuff into the apartment and… went shopping again. I can definitely say that I am SICK of stores, and that I NEVER want to see one again. We ended up going to sleep really late and then got up really early- Dad went to the airport, I went to orientation, and mom helped me organize the apartment.

So… Yes, I was VERY tired the first day of Orientation, but the adrenaline kicked in and I was fine all through the day (barely).

The first day was the “welcome day”—we met President Pletz, Mr. Dalzell, and many, many, many other people— It was very informative, very condense, and a little overwhelming. We got to meet our advisors and eat lunch with them and our peers—in my group I am surrounded by 5 or 6 guys. We ended the day by picking up our bone set from the Anatomy lab! Hurrah! Much to my horror I didn’t remember all the bones I have learned in phys/Anatomy more than 4 years ago… and when I came back home mom helped me relearn the very simple bones I have forgotten (I won’t say which so you won’t tease me). Thanks mom!

The second day can be dubbed as “Let us scare you to death” day. Two words: Financial Aid. It is just insane how much money I will owe the government and private lenders. I am seriously reconsidering the military options for next year. Very insane. There were other speakers, but after hearing Ms. Herman from Financial Aid, the mood in the lecture hall darkened, and I doubt anyone could really stop thinking what a huge investment is on the line here.

During the afternoon we had DOlympics (which I did not enjoy much)—a jeopardy game on all the information we received. My group bet all of our points in the daily double and we got the answer wrong, so… what can I say, I am a sore looser! :o)

Then I went home and found that my furniture got there!!! But… the bed was the wrong one, one of the chairs was scratched… blah! Mom and I had to drive to the store to exchange the chair. Lucky for me, I decided I liked the bed they brought better than the bed I originally chose, so no more stores for me.

In the late afternoon I had IT (Information Technology) session—KCUMB’s computer system is very user friendly, and I don’t expect too many problems with it.

On Wednesday morning I woke up very early to take mom to the airport. Then, after 2 days of sitting cooped up in a classroom, we got to move around and do community service. Some of us built porches, others painted, and I got to pick trash in our local neighborhood. I told most if not all of you that this neighborhood is the Ghetto. Well, it’s true. TONS of liquor bottles, beer cans, and to top it all—Wes (a guy in my group) found a loaded gun. :oS Wow!!! The weird thing is that when we went a mile or two up north, we got to a neighborhood with nice big houses that are being renovated. It was beautiful to see the architecture. I hope that the trend of making this neighborhood better will continue. Since the University is buying more and more land around here, basically reclaiming old property that they have lost in the past, there is a chance that by the time I graduate this area will clean up a bit.

Today we enjoyed morning registration—as we are all taking the same classes it wasn’t really a registration per se, but this made it official. Our night was very special—White coat ceremony. I must admit that I thought this would be lame, but I had tears in my eyes… I have worked really hard to get into this school and I am very proud of myself and of my new class.

That is about it, I have to go to bed because the cable guy is coming here tomorrow morning and I will finally have internet connection in my room!!!! YES!

6 aug 04 @ 9:55 pm

MOVING!!!

Hello!

As I am moving and my internet provider isn't found in my new area, my previous blog (http://home.earthlink.net/~reut) will be moving here until a new home will be found (or... I might just like this enough to leave it here :o) )

Reut