Suture Clinic

Last week, I went to a skills lab offered by the Emergency Medicine Interest Group to learn how to suture! Even though I don't really think I will be going in to Emergency Medicine, every doctor needs to know how to suture... So, I was really excited to learn this skill.

We worked 3:1 (3 students:1 emergency medicine resident) on our suturing skills and learned several different types of knots. These sutures included a simple knot, a two-layer suture, a horizontal mattress, a vertical mattress, and a running stitch!

My first suture: Simple Stitch

Horizontal Matress and Vertical Mattress

2-layer suture (used dissolvable layer underneath)

Running Suture

I had a really great time and learned a lot...Suturing was definitely not as hard as I thought it would be, but I guess thats because I was suturing on a pig's foot and not a little kid thats moving around while I'm trying to sew...

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving: A day for many Americans that is about visiting with family and stuffing yourself full with as much food as you can possibly force into your stomach. The last three years, I have been spent in Michigan with S. This means that I have had to learn how to cook Thanksgiving dinner without the help of my parents, who have much more experience cooking a huge Thanksgiving feast than I am. Well, this year...I think I have perfected my Thanksgiving dinner meal!

The menu this year:
-Chicken breast (sadly, the grocery store was out of turkey and rotisserie chicken)
-Rice boiled in chicken broth
-Stuffing
-Scalloped Potatoes
-Garlic Crescent Rolls
-Green Beans w/ Bacon and Almonds
-White Wine
-Strawberry cheesecake

It was a really fun/relaxing dinner and Thanksgiving Holiday!

S and I went shopping for our Thanksgiving feast
on Wednesday night. 

Thanksgiving morning tradition:
Baking Orange Cinnamon Rolls for Breakfast! 

While I baked, S continued to sleep.... 

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! 

:) 

Starting to cook! 

My amazing green beens! 

All of our yummy food

S doing dishes. Thanks love!  

Giving Thanks...

Today, was my third year celebrating Thanksgiving in East Lansing, Michigan. Thinking about how much I have accomplished and where my life has taken me even in these last 3 years gives me so much to be thankful for. So here are my top 10 things I am thankful for this year:

1) Family: Even though I don't get to see my parents as much as I would like to, I am so lucky and thankful for a mother that I can call at any moment, that I know would be willing to talk me through a problem, calm me down from school meltdowns, or simply talk to about the weather. I got so lucky to have the parents that I do and (although I don't always express it) am thankful for them everyday.

2) Sarath: This January, we will be celebrating our 5 year anniversary. Over these last 5 years, we have survived and grown together through many challenges that other couples never will have to face. From me leaving to study abroad across the world in Europe for 6 months, from S moving away across the country to Michigan for 2 years, and from simply having a relationship built of 2 medical students that have 0 free time, I am especially thankful that we have used all of these challenges to grow together and develop a relationship that is full of love. He encourages me everyday, he puts up with my med school meltdowns, he makes me laugh, and he makes me feel like I can accomplish anything I could ever set my mind to. So, today, and everyday, I am thankful for my wonderfully amazing boyfriend.

3) Friends: This is a huge category, because I have been so lucky in my life to be surrounded by such amazing people. Today, I am especially thankful for the friends I have had since high school, for the friends I made at UCLA, to the friends I have made studying abroad, and my medical school friends that have made Michigan feel like home. Even if I do not talk to you everyday or haven't talked to you in a year, I am thankful for the many wonderful people in my life that I consider to be my friend.

4) School: I am so thankful to have the privilege of having graduated from a great undergraduate university and for currently studying in medical school. I know there are many people in this world that have all of the capabilities of earning college and graduate degrees that never have the opportunity, I feel so fortunate that I have never had to worry about having access to education.

5) Home: I am thankful to have two homes: one in California where my parents live and one in Michigan that I have developed. I am thankful that I feel like Michigan is my second home after such a short period of time living here.

6) Travel: I have been so lucky with all of the places that I have fortunately had the opportunity to travel to. In the last 5 years, I have traveled all across the United States on a road trip with my parents and on a road trip down south with some med school friends and to Mexico a few times during college. I have traveled to Europe (Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Scotland, England, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, and France). I have traveled to Central America twice (Honduras) and South America (Peru). I know that I have seen more of the world than most people and even though I have a lot more traveling to do in my life, I am so thankful for every opportunity I do get to go to a new place.

7) Food: I am thankful to be able to afford food everyday. I am also thankful that I have developed a liking of cooking and have the ability to make yummy Thanksgiving dinners for the last few years.

8) Warmth: This one might sound silly, but I love being warm. So, I am thankful to have an apartment that I can afford and warm blankets that I can curl up with on a warm night. Its easy to forget these simple conveniences, but there are many people in this world who do not have these luxuries.

9) Success: I am thankful that I am two years in to my medical education and I am almost at a point in my life where I will consider myself "successful." I know this word has many definitions, but for me, I am proud to say that I will be a doctor by age 26. :)

10) Blogging: I am thankful for my blogger friends that originally inspired me to start a blog. I think it will be a great gift to be able to look back on all of these posts after a few years and have all of my time of medical school journaled.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Hem/Onc

Welp! I haven't blogged in a WHOLE MONTH, because I have just survived the hardest domain of my second year curriculum- Hematology/Oncology. I was warned about this class from 4th and 3rd years basically since I entered medical school...so I was prepared to put myself in hibernation and learn the heck out of the subject for the month.

After many long hours sitting in our underground silent cubicle study area, referred to from students as the "nerd cave", after gaining about 10 lbs because there was no time to exercise/grocery shop/cook healthy, and after many nights of under-sleep, Monday morning was FINALLY here and it was finally the moment of truth -- exam time. Our exam started at 7:30, which meant doors opened at 7 AM...wayyyyy too early to think critically, but hey, there was not really any other option! The exam was 120 questions, which was also a challenge. This was the longest exam we have had up to date. The second longest exam thus far was only 90 questions, so this also was an added stress of this exam. Nonetheless, by 9:00 AM, I had finished the 120 questions, double-checked a few unsure answers and fearfully hit "submit". I then collected my belongings and left. From calculating the number of questions I knew I had definitely gotten correct, I was fairly confident that I had at least passed the exam (a 75%), but wanted the official grade report just to make sure.

The official grades arrive every exam day at 12:00 noon...This is directly after our first PBL group of our next domain. So, usually my fellow students are fairly brain-dead from a morning exam and constantly re-freshing their emails until grade reports are sent out. This was definitely the case for me during this particular Monday.

So, when 11:55 arrived and my last re-fresh of my inbox finally showed an update, I fearfully opened up my grade report and let out a huge sigh of relief. Not only did I pass, but I did pretty well! What a relief.

After getting our grade reports back, it was time to celebrate. For lunch, a group of us went to an Indian restaurant for a delicious lunch buffet. Michelle, Caela and I then (finally) went to watch the last Twilight! [side note: I have been to almost all of the Twilight midnight premiers, so I was pretty sad that I had to miss the last premier to study Hem/Onc...finally getting to see this movie was the BEST post-exam gift.] After the movie, we went to forever 21 to costume shop for 90s costumes. Our class was having a 90s-themed post-exam party that night and the G-Phi in me (who LOVEEEESS costume parties) was all about finding the perfect costume. Caela and I decided that we were going to buy matching outfits and be Tia & Tamara Mawry from Sister-Sister!

Roomie love. 

Now that I'm done with Hem-Onc, I feel much more confident about myself in medical school. This was always one of the big humps that I never thought I would overcome, and now that I have....I'm even more excited about the rest of the year. We will see how long this lasts as boards approach haha.

Step 1

So, this happened today:

Yes. This is my registering for my board exams. I can't believe I am already getting to this point in my medical education....crazy.

For my non-medical student readers, the USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Exams) are broken up into 3 parts. The first part is taken after your second year of medical school and tests all of the basic-science knowledge. The second part is during your fourth year of medical school and the third part is during residency. So, I know I am only starting in my long string of licensing exams, but its still pretty crazy that I am already at the point of Step 1!

Besides registering for my Step 1, I also had a final exam today! So, far I have completed 4 classes; 1 ethics class and 3 blocks: Neurology, Infectious Disease, and Musculoskeletal. So, although I have not been blogging as much as I would like to... I sure have been a busy bee in all of my classes.

This year is going by RIDICULOUSLY fast.... I am officially more than 50% done with this semester. Only one more domain until Thanksgiving break (Hematology/Oncology) and one additional domain  (Psychiatry) until Christmas! :)

Planned Parenthood

Ok...let me start off by saying I tried realllllly hard to keep my political opinions off of this blog, but after last night's presidential debate and after a lunch-time talk I attended today, I decided I needed to get all of my thoughts out. So, here we go....

Today, I went to an optional talk offered by the Reproductive Health Elective at my school with a representative from Planned Parenthood. As I am sure all of you readers know, funding for Planned Parenthood is a current hot topic for this election, so I was very eager to attend and hear what the representative had to say. Mitt Romney has stated on many occasions that under his legislation, he will discontinue federal funding for "pro-abortion" non-profits, namely Planned Parenthood. So, if elected, one of his missions would be to shut down the thousands of Planned Parenthood clinics around the nation.

As someone who is pro-choice, a fervent believer in women's reproductive rights, and a future medical professional, I find it an absolute tragedy that this is even in discussion. For the last 10 years, since these issues of womens' health and reproductive rights have really been brought into light, women representatives have been silenced and denied opportunities to speak out about womens' health rights. Many of the legislatures that are making these decisions are conservative, white males with no medical expertise and no base understanding of what women's health involves. In fact, when Lisa Brown (a representative supporting continued financial support for Planned Parenthood) began discussing her views about an anti-abortion law and used language like "vagina" and "vasectomy"; she was immediately looked down upon and silenced.

A quote:

“I used that word because we were debating a women's health issue. Vagina, by the way, is the correct medical name of a part of women's anatomy lawmakers want to regulate. My statements were within the rules of the House and were clearly appropriate in relation to the bill we were discussing. One of my counterparts, Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville, said ‘vagina’ is such a disturbing word that he would never deign to use it in the presence of women or ‘mixed company.’ This, from a man who earned a bachelor's degree in biology.” -Lisa Brown

That was kind of a tangent...but lets get back to the main topic....

The support to discontinue funds for Planned Parenthood are founded on incorrect and incomplete information. The support is based on the idea of wanting to stop abortion rights by discontinuing organizations that provide these services. However, what many people with this view do not understand is 1) the wide range of services provided by Planned Parenthood, 2) the current policies on funding abortions, and 3) the larger societal implications that stopping this funding would create.

First, Planned Parenthood does not simply provide birth control and abortions; instead, there are three realms of services offered: medical, education and patient advocacy. So, along with basic medical care, PP also offers safe-sex education courses, parenting classes on how to discuss the birds and the bees, and advocacy for patients having the ability to obtain the health care that they deserve. In fact, 90% of what Planned Parenthood provide are preventative services. Only 3% of what they provide are abortion consults and procedures. Moreover, in Michigan there are only 2 centers in the entire state that offer the options of having abortions. Thus, the majority of centers are simply medical centers for women and men who cannot afford to see a physician (due to lack of health care...which is another different issue). So, for supporters of stopping federal funding to Planned Parenthood to say that this is stop abortion, it is clearly obvious that this lack of funding is missing the point.

Secondly, the current policies on funding for abortion is this: NO public fundings go to pay for abortions. NONE. This has been fact since 1976. So, again, this claim that stopping funding for Planned Parenthood would stop the funding of abortions is ludicrous, because these have not be funded for 35 years.

Thirdly, when you think of the larger implications if planned parenthood services are stopped, it is crazy to think of what will happen. Imagine what such a decrease in preventative medicine will do for reproductive health. Imagine if there is no funding for contraceptives, no options for women to get gynecological care and no education for teens about safe-sex practices.

This policy of defunding Planned Parenthood is a huge huge mistake that will have huge burdens on our future populations. It is easy for people who are pro-life to be swayed by the idea that stopping funding for Planned Parenthood will decrease the access to abortions, but it is critical for everyone to truly understand what this lack of funding will do and what larger implications may occur if this legislative action takes effect.

Summer Externship

I spent my last 4 weeks of the summer volunteering at the St. Johns Hospital & Medical Students, in a summer program for first year medical students. We each got to pick one specialty per week that we would like to work. Since I chose to do 4 weeks, I got 4 specialties. My first two picks were fairly easy, because they were the two specialities I was most interested in: Pediatrics and OB/GYN. The second two weeks I decided to try specialties that would allow me to see/do the most I could in a week. These selections ended up being Emergency Medicine and General Surgery.

Week 1: Pediatrics

I always knew that I would love the field of Pediatrics. Out of almost every field of medicine that I have shadowed, I always enjoyed working with the babies or young children more than any of the adult patients. So, needless to say, I was thrilled to be spending a week on Pediatrics. This week, I got to try out a whole bunch of different subspecialties. These subfields included: General pediatrics, In-patient pediatrics, Peds GI, Peds Nephrology, Peds Allergy/Imunology, Peds Hematology/Onccology and Neonatology. Overall, I had a really great week. However, I also had some moments of clarity on what I would want/wouldn't want in my future profession.

First, I want to say that I absolutely loved the patients! Kids are just so dang entertaining. However, I figured out that I don't really love working in the clinic all the time. Some days would be ok. but if my entire medical career was centered on clinic work, I think I would go nuts. In fact, my favorite days were working in critical care, especially in the NICU.

Positives: the patients and my love for children
Negatives: wayyyy too much clinic time.

Week 2: Emergency Medicine

After realizing I didn't love clinic during the first week, I was really excited to try out Emergency Medicine. The ER that I worked in is right on the border or Grosse Pointe (a very nice neighborhood) and Detroit (one of the poorest cities in America). So, I prepared myself to see quite a diverse amount of cases...and boy did I! The ER is sure not short on its excitement. From gun shot wounds, to Congestive Heart Failure, to car accident traumas, to foreign body obstructions (ex: kids sticking beads up their nose)....you truly don't know what you are going to get one minute from the next.

Positives: Excitement, diversity of cases, shift-work/no call
Negatives: Never really get to see a case to its end, very little time actually spent with the individual patients, and a lot of distrust in patients (because many people come to the ER for drug seeking)

Week 3: OB/GYN

This week, I got to spend 1/2 the time on OB and 1/2 the time on GYN. For OB, I spent some time in clinic doing prenatal visits and ultrasounds and some time in Labor and Delivery. For GYN, I spent some time in clinic doing gynecology visits and procedures and some time in the OR doing gynecology surgeries.

After this one week, I can say confidently that I LOVE OB/GYN. Seriously, what an awesome field of medicine! You get a perfect combination of clinic time (most attendings only did about 2 afternoons per week) and operating room time! I realized that I love the OR...both during C-sections and with Gyn surgeries. You get a great combination of procedural work and "medicine". You get a great mix of healthy and sick patients. You get a great fulfillment with bringing life into the world or with performing surgeries on women to alleviate suffering. It really is such an amazing field!

Positives: EVERYTHING! The mix of patients/OR/clinic/preventative medicine; many of your patients are coming in happy and leaving even happier, lots of interactions with other specialties (especially in the ER) and the excitement that comes with L&D and the OR.
Negatives: The crazy hours and crazy malpractice insurance...

Week 4: General Surgery

Going in to this rotation, I was kind of terrified. When I was told "you start at 5:45 AM", I thought this would be the hardest week of my life...even though I was really only following the residents around with no real responsibility. Yes, it was very busy, but I had a really really great experience. We spent about half of our time in the OR and half on the wards with Pre-op and Post-op patients. This week was really great for me as a medical student for a few reasons: I saw a crazy amount of diversity of cases and pretty much everyone there was very very sick. While I would never wish illness on anyone, as a student who needs to learn proper medicine, I was thankful for the opportunity to see all that I got to see.

Positives: Excitement of the OR (Yes, I clearly love the OR), lots of procedures, and lots of interactions with other specialties.
Negatives: Surgery residents are not always the happiest people, crazy hours.


So, going in to this externship I was pretty confident that I would be going into Peds. However, after this, I could honestly see myself going in to any of these 4 fields....but if I would have to pick this second, I think I would actually have to pick OB/GYN..I know I have a lot of time to decide, but for now...I will say that I am so so so excited for third year!