Hetch Hetchy for Mother's Day!

The crew packed up and headed to Yosemite National Park this weekend in celebration of Mother's Day. Our destination: Hetch Hetchy, the Yosemite Valley that never was...Yup, in 1908 they damned up this beautiful valley against the activism of John Muir and naturalists around the country. That damn dam! After seeing it for myself, I can't believe it. A true travesty, because it is an absolutely amazing place. I'll be writing my representatives about this one...Even with the ugly dam, it's a remarkable place. We did an overnight backpacking trip, hiked up the valley, camped amongst the bears (no joke), and had an all around wonderful weekend. Happy Mother's Day Mom! Hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did!

Riding my bike

For the past week I've been using a bike as my primary mode of transportation, I thought I would share my thoughts:

• It takes me less time door-to-door to bike to class then to drive, park and walk to class. About 13 minutes on a bike, 20 by car. 
• Cars smell bad, are too big, and are scary.
• It's really hard to turn left as a biker, because of the smelly, big, scary cars I mentioned above. 
• Biking is really enjoyable when your breaks don't squeak.
• Biking prevents me from wearing skirts and dresses. Slightly annoying. 
• You see a lot more animals and small wildflowers when you bike than when you drive. 
• I used to hate locking up my bike, but it really only takes me the same time as starting a car. 
• Helmets aren't that bad. 
• I think more when I bike, I get annoyed at other drivers when I drive.
• Still don't know what I'd do if it was pouring rain tomorrow. Will have to figure that out. 
• I could easily bike to cool hikes if I had a better bike.
• Biking makes it a lot more likely that I'll go to the Farmers Market on Sunday rather than loading up on giant bags of groceries at Safeway.
• Biking doesn't require filling up a gas tank and spending money.

I like biking.

Really, 0/46?

This evening, after studying cardiac reflexes for a few hours, I decided to skim over all the lectures in my Cardiac Block. By the time I got to page 360 in the syllabus, I casually noted that there hadn't been a female professor yet. So I continued on, quickly turning  page after page, growing more dismayed...I made it to page 561, the last page, and was shocked to realize that I wouldn't have a single female lecturer in the Cardiac Block of HHD. I double checked the Table of Contents. Sure enough, it struck out, 0/46. Zero female professors.

I'm chagrined at this finding. I think its statistically highly improbable. I doubt that there are zero highly-qualified and capable female physician-educators at Stanford to teach the cardiovascular system to medical students. If there are zero, that's a whole other problem. I wonder how this could happen, how it could be unnoticed. I will make sure to raise this point with my peers, faculty mentors, and administration.

One of my favorite quotations is by Dr. Martin Luther King, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". I try my best to be alert and cognizant of the small, seemingly innocuous injustices that happen everyday around me. This is one that I'm speaking up about.

Wilderness First Aid Training

After 16 hours of training, I'm now Wilderness First Aid certified! I can assess spinal cord injury, hypothermia, heat stroke. I can fix up your broken ankle, clean that dirty wound, and splint up your dislocated patella. I will be investing in many more additions to my first aid kit after realizing all the terrible things that can happen in the wilderness. What an awesome weekend with my SWEAT crew.