CARDIO!!!

Its my birthday! Big 25. Im spending the morning in the library studyin cardiology. Hey, its way better than endocrine. But, who knew i would need all that physics I learned at SDSU. To summarize. Endocrine=alphabet soup, Cardio= equation city. Its gonna be hard but I am excited, its the heart...how can that NOT be interesting?!

Endocrine Quotes

“You will all agree I hope that this is your favorite lecture of this system.... it’s the only lecture of this system...” - May

“there’s a certain amount of shrinkage in there…that’s normal.”-May

“this one he had a lot of trouble taking it out, it’s just extending always.”-Parsa

On insulinoma... “Very classic, you give them insulin and they jump right out of the chair...” -Parsa

“He got shut down” - Mehta on a student trying to answer a question during large group

“The answer was true” - Mehta on the answer to a polling question that we are supposed click in on, but haven’t had a chance to yet...

“I’m going to make a disclaimer.. I don’t know where my phone is... so if it goes off...” - Mehta --> a few minutes later her phone begins to ring --> “I still don’t know where it is, I dropped my real phone in the ocean this weekend.”

“Dr. Bi these next questions are yours, so don’t go anywhere.. come down here.” - Mehta on Dr. Bi wandering around the room to ask students questions.

“I can tell you that 76% of the class will become endocrinologists” Dr. Mehta on the right answer to a quiz question.

“I’m afraid to touch this thing again... It’s upsetting my mojo.” Pummy

“These pathologists, they come in late, they take out a journal...They are very busy saving lives.” Pummy

“Our pathologist just finished his coffee, so we’ll go back to him.” Pummy handing the mic off to Parsa after he walks in ten minutes late.

“Is his name really Elmer?” Pummy“Yeah, I think so...” Dr. MehtaEmory: “No, that’s not my name...”Dr. P will refer to him as Elmo for the rest of the large group session.

Dr. Mehta asks a question to us during large group. The room is filled with Silence.“John” Mehta calls out... “C’mon theres gotta be a John in the class...”There’s an Elmo, but no John.” Pummy

“An adenoma, is an adenoma, is an adenoma...” Dr Parsa

“Dr. Davis, should we ask you for a consult? Is that appropriate?” PummyDr. Davis, slowly grabs the mic, turns it on, and says “Yes.” and nothing else.

“So would ACTH affect the cortisol levels?” Pummy repeats a question from a student while wearing the lapel mic to Dr. Mehta.“The question is, would ACTH affect the corti....oh yeah, they can hear you...” Mehta

Mehta: “We had a patient who was called Annie, but my program director called her Robert.” - on her patient with Congenital Adrenal HyperplasiaPummy: “Where did she get Robert? Is it like Elmo? Did she just pull it out of the air?”

"you dont want her to go blind and then have to cut off her feet...so do you tell her to stop eating tortillas?" - Mehta

“Casey??? I didn’t want you guys to miss Dr. Pummerantz” - Mehta asking for the answer to a question in class.

“Hey, I’m running this show here, okay??”-Mehta

“...which is interestingly funny...”-Mehta

“Go ahed to the next sli... no wait go back...” - Parsa on having someone help him advance through his slide set.

“It’s not just a fanm it’s informative...” Pummy on the packet of papers that he has been waving in front of his face to cool off actually containing our quiz answers.

“We have a biochemist in the room.” -Mehta“What do I talk about?” - Kandpal

“When I asked my son, where do we get cholesterol, he said... McDonalds... and I said... Correct” - Kandpal

“We are all going to McDonald’s after...Supersize me baby, oh yeah!” -Dr. Pummy

Mehta:“So more than 66% of U.S. adults are obese..what’s the future of America?”Student (yells out in class): “Hispanic!”Mehta: “I’m not going to repeat that...”

“I’ve also taken Niacin..you know, I try ‘em all once,”-Walters, on drugs..


“Where is cholesterol made” RajStudent “The skin”Raj “yes”Mehta “Dr. Kandpal the student said skin, is that correct?”Raj “No”

“Look you’ve got a twin!” Mehta to Emory about the elmo doll Dr. Pummy put on the podium.... no one in the room understood why....

“Why is LDL bad... because the DO said so...” -Hu

“What if he goes home and dies?” MehtaEmory “That would be bad....”

Dr. Mehta calls on Casey.Casey: “I’m going to phone a friend [pulls out iphone] Ryan are you there?”Ryan: “Hey Casey, what’s up?”Casey: “Ryan, they are asking me a question and I don’t know the answer...”

“Why are we concerned about obesity?” - Mehta“Because americans are fat.” -Student“I didn’t say it, a caucasian did...” - Mehta

“...I start thinking, spontaneous human combustion. Seriously, I thought I would catch on fire!”-Walters, on Niacin

“...and if you don’t believe it..we have proof!”-Parsa

sunday funday (thats complete sarcasm FYI)

I have my first cumulative final tomorrow. Not that all of medical school isnt cumulative...its not like i can just forget stuff after i was taught it, im sure i will need to know most of this stuff for life, but being TESTED cumulatively is a different story. Covering a weeks worth of new material and 2 weeks worth of OLD material (pretty much learning about the entire endocrine system in the body) in a weekend? i don't want to say its impossible because I have to do it and that would be discouraging...but you can see where i am going with this. good lord tomorrow cant come fast enough, at least we get the afternoon off after the bloodbath.

from earlier today on facebook:

Leigh's status (she lives below me): WTF!!! Why does the car alarm right in front of my room keep going off???
(our responses to her status)
Dorothy Habrat: thank god im at the library!

Lindsay: i have no idea, im about to throw a gallon of milk at it. not yours dorothy, i will use mine.

Leigh: While you are throwing things from your balcony, I wouldn't mind if you "accidentally" hit one of those power scooter kids either :)

Dorothy: Library studying-1, Home-0

only 2 more days of endocrine....YAAAAAYYYY!

i live a pathetic life these days, and endocrine is OFF the list of interest (mostly because it is so damn tricky). life is pretty much 75% school and then 25% having a good time. but we still have a good time so thats all that matters.
its ok though, only 1 more year of classroom work and then they release me into the wild (what you would call the hospital). the more i learn the more i get excited. its also really fun to hear the 3rd years, who we got really close to last year, talk about their experiences.

oh, this was a fun quote from class today:
(after a question was asked to us about what drug you would prescribe a patient and everyone answered correctly):
"yes very good...theres really no science here this is just route memorization. theres really no way around route memorization in any subject.....whats your best long acting insulin? (as he casually goes back to the lecture topic)" -Dr. W

So today was our first standardized patient encounters of the year and my job was to counsel a patient on their drinking habits, even though they came in for back pain. it was an exercise on communicating with our patients and building repore again....blah blah blah. To get us back into the swing of things, they put us into groups of 6. Each one of us got 12 minutes with a SP (standardized patient--ps they call them standardized because every patient seen is the same to each student regardless of age or sex..they are all coming in with the same stories and symptoms so we can discuss them in lecture later). While we talked, 5 other students watched and then after the 12 min we got 5 min of feedback from the actor and our peers. after the encounter, the SP left the room and a new one came in. we had 3 scenarios, a diabetic patient, a smoker and an alcoholic then we had the same SPs come back and we pretended to do follow up visits. not sure if that makes sense but oh well.

Anywho, it was fine...nothing to write home about. its much more fun seeing ACTUAL patients. today was another 8:30 to 5 day and i got to unwind a bit by playing volleyball with my classmates. its always a good time. ok, im getting back to work. studying again till 12 and then bedtime.

a friend found this on the internet. sadly Ive tried all of them...the last one doesnt work. maybe it was because i feel asleep with the notes ON TOP of me rather than vice versa. hmmm..

to note; medical school mnemonics are WAAAY dirtier than that. think rated R, not G

round two...DING

Well, i just finished my second week of second year and am already sleep deprived, stressed and a little bitter about life. getting off of summer vacation/break is one thing but being thrown into school (especially with this new curriculum) is exhausting. I was speaking with my good friend/classmate Sarah who had gone on a long trip as well and both of us seemed to be in the same boat of depression. Not a true 'SIGECAPS' depression (that is a mnemonic for all the symptoms of depression we learned in Psych last year- sleep disorder, interest deficit, guilt, energy loss, etc etc) but just a minor depression...mostly sadness. It is very hard to have been allowed to sip from the glass of freedom and then now be dyeing of dehydration as it was taken away.... seriously, thats exactly what it feels like. free time has gone down the drain, sleep has been severely reduced and life is back to normal as a medical student. only now, I am an MS2 and classes are going to be more difficult and we are expecting to know stuff. i cant use the excuse that i am just a first year anymore. I CANT IMAGINE when one day i cant use the excuse 'I dont know, im just a medical student' or 'i dont know im just an intern' or 'i dont know im still in my residency.' There will be one day when i am on the top of the pecking order and i cant say 'i dont know' its gonna be Doctor, what do you want to do? and i will HAVE to know.....shit that scares me

well anyways, these two weeks have sucked (for lack of a better word). But last night I worked another shift at Montclair and that definitely added a bright light to the tunnel. First off, I got about 5 hours of sleep on Wednesday night mostly because I had coffee in the early afternoon and then couldn't fall asleep (and im sure anxiety wasnt helping) then I got up Thursday to be in class for 8am. After just an hour of one of our only lectures this week, i met with my small group at 9 until 12 going over our cases and answering the questions about differentials, further testing, treatments, mechanisms of treatment,etc. Then i took an hour lunch and went to OMM from 1 to 5. After OMM i went straight to the Montclair clinic were I worked until 10pm. Now THAT was a long day but it wasnt to bad because it was women's clinic and i have been wanting to work one for a while now.

SOoooo, one of my patients last night was a 41 yo F (who did not speak English). She presented for a routine women's health visit (you should start to learn the short hand too--42 year old female---that one was hopefully not to difficult). Basically, she was here for a pap smear and breast exam. This was the first exam I have seen and I felt privileged that this women trusted me to learn from her. The resident at the clinic did the exam, i watched as he explained and the clinic coordinator assisted. Sadly, the coordinator was the only one in the room who spoke Spanish and it was probably not the most uncomfortable experience for the patient. But, I was there and learned how to do both a pap smear and a breast exam and I will always remember her as my first womens health patient. There is another first.....and I may have ruled out OB/GYN with that one...

ok. its time for a nap, dinner and then a fun night of studying and playing music very very loudly in my headphones to keep up my moral. that is the silver lining of studying...good music. monday is our 2nd endocrine exam, its on the thyroid gland and adrenal glands...then next week we learn about the wonderful world of diabetes. that is gonna be an important week since its gonna affect my daily work for the rest of my life. ill try to pay attention and learn some stuff for my future patient's sake...cant make any promises though

back to spending the best days of my life (early 20s that is) studying. Only have a few weeks of them left since i turn 25 soon

summer made my body forget how to study

"I would be okay with being a quiter right now..."

Byron