Schools out!

Sort of. I still have my final exams the week of December 6th, BUT I have no more classes until January!!! How lovely :) This week I will be shadowing in the OR, catching up on Dev Bio, shadowing some hospital rounds, and making sure I know all my anatomy. And of course, celebrating Thanksgiving!

Since I've finished up my classes for the quarter, let me reflect:
Anatomy: The smell got worse, not better, over time. I think I like real people a lot more than dead people, which is why I'll take surgical anatomy next quarter (unfortunately still dead people).
PoM: Brushed up on my quant skills, feel more comfortable analyzing the statistics of research papers. I have my basic taking a medical history skills down, but still need a lot of work!
Genetics: Still want to get my genotype sequenced, all the fear-mongering didn't work on me.
Dev Bio: Development is just really cool and fascinating
Cost Effectiveness Class: Presentation completed! I can't get away from approaching all topics from a cost benefit or cost effectiveness perspective now that I know about it.
In all: I don't feel like I am now 1/6 prepared for the boards or my clinical years, but I am much more knowledgeable of my ignorance, and much more exciting to dive in to more shadowing and volunteer opportunities. I look forward to working with patients every single day. I still believe that this is 100% the path I'm supposed to be on. I still love medical school but am very thankful for the break!

Ominous skies around Hoover Tower

Today was a fabulous day

I love my life. Today was a great example of why that is. I start class at 8am, to hear about the history of Exubera, the first inhaled form of insulin, from Rob Chess. Then I work on a project to understand the costs and benefits of IVF with blastocyst or two, for several hours, arguing over what the analysis is sensitive to. Then I race over to the Palo Alto VA to shadow my E4C mentor, who is Chief of Internal Medicine, get to see the amazingly cool VA electronic medical record in action as well as meet with a patient and learn about a bladder ultrasound. From there I race back to campus, singing to the country music on the radio, to grab a quick lunch and meet up with my group to discuss Project Easy, an initiative to include patient safety and quality improvement into Stanford's medical education. Then I get free, delicious dinner, learn about Stupak's abortion amendment that is currently in the House Health Care Reform bill, listen to my British anatomy professors tell stories of their experience caring for women in Britain who took the choice to have an abortion into their own hands before medical abortion was legal, and write letters to my senators, Harry Reid and President Obama urging them to allow the public option and insurers taking part in the national insurance exhange to receive government funding for safe abortions. Today was a fabulous day.

Knot Tying Skillz

I learned how to do a surgical square knot today, one-handed and two-handed. It's really fun, and very similar to cross-stitching and needlepoint.