Children of Abraham

Wednesday, August 22, 2007
11:00 PM

So it is around 11:00pm and I should be sleeping…especially after how tired I have felt all day long. However, I made the mistake of watching the provocative CNN documentary done by Christiane Amanpour titled, "God's Warriors." Having so much family over in Muslim countries fighting the "War on Terror," I wanted to watch. The program only made me mad. Mad that religion is used to control the way people think, act, and live. Over and over again during the program I couldn't help but think that the Jihadist movement is just a ploy to unite the Islamic people and form a powerful nation. Religious fervor is a strong motivator for so many people who are fighting on the other side of this war. I was also struck at the apparent lack of freedom. The religious leaders don't believe in giving their people a choice, but rather to limit their options so the people will chose according to their religious tenets. For example, in Iran one of the towns puts on a play that depicts the martyrdom of the grandson of Muhammad. Though the story calls for the role of females, men portray the females because having an actual woman on the stage will tempt the men. The local that was explaining it said that men have much more to be tempted with these days, so they have to limit the temptation.

The jihadist movement wants to establish Islamic rule which will force all to follow Islam. There will be no freedom, only the strict Moslem law. Hearing the crazed religious fervor of these "freedom fighters" is enough to scare most people, I think. Having three of my immediate family members either already over there or leaving over the next couple weeks probably doesn't help to ease the situation. I am proud of my family and what they are doing, though I'm also upset with the way the war has been handled. I don't have any solution, but it is easy to point out all the problems.


Seriously, why can't we just chill out?

In other news, more related to my medical school journey, I shadowed a local Radiologist today. He is in the Army and works at the military hospital. He tried to convince me that Radiology was what I wanted to do, and he actually did a pretty convincing job. They make a ton of money, can work from home, and can take a ton of vacation every year. By the time I got out of residency, I could probably read films from a beach somewhere in the Caribbean if I wanted to. I don't know what I want to do, but hopefully shadowing different doctors will give me a better idea. Ideally I would like to go to the department of the specialty that I want to go into, tell them what I want to do, and ask them how to do it. That way I can get in early on and ensure greater success later down the line. If only I could figure out what I want to do...

Mnemonics and the Universe

Tuesday, August 07, 2007
8:57 PM

I think I have blogged about this before, but it is worth mention again here. Mnemonics. They are good to help you remember things, but how good are they really? I mean is anyone supposed to actually believe that there are actually 5 T's of early Cyanosis? (Tetralogy, Transposition, Truncus, Total anomalous, Tricuspid atresia). Why would the universe, when it is putting itself together make early cyanosis consist of four things that start with the letter T?

I fully realize this is a silly pet peeve of mine, but seriously! The last time I went to a financial aid seminar they had a mnemonic for remembering how to budget, where they came up with a different word relating to budgeting the started with each letter in the word "budget" (I'm sure you know how these things work). Sure they are good memory devices, but when it comes to things like budgeting, I bet there are better strategies to be a good budgeter than to only use the words whose letter start with B-U-D-G-E-T. Seriously.

If I find myself listening to a presenter in class give a nifty word trick mnemonic, I almost always discount it as not credible. Maybe that's why I have such a difficult time remembering things.

Speaking of things…We watched this universe show last night on NOVA about alien galaxies, which actually means all galaxies other than the milky way--but then they started talking about the Milky Way so I guess it should have just been called Galaxies, but that isn't a cool name. I think throwing a run-on sentence into the mix every now and then is a good way to keep things interesting. But seriously, this universe show was mind boggling, both because of the special effects and because it gives you this incredible perspective on things. Well, not so much perspective on things, but rather just stuns you. I worry about things like food and sleep and money and studying, but my life is so incredibly insignificant in the entire scheme of things. Religion aside, we must live in the most boring pitiful corner of the universe. Our earth is a very average planet in a very average solar system in a very average galaxy (though one of the bigger galaxies here in our local group--oh, and we are located in a very average local group for that matter) in a very average, uniform universe. The expanse and mass of the universe is so incredibly unfathomable (that might not be a word) that is just boggles my mind. Seriously, we are fighting a couple people in the Middle East (or rather they are fighting us with 9/11), Britney Spears is something we talk about, and people save up money for years to buy diamonds??? I guess it is easier than to imagine how much is out there. Our lives give us stability and things we are able to manage. The universe is very unstable and represents a truly giant unknown. To think that we thought going to the moon represented the final frontier…Not even close!

In Session

Monday, August 06, 2007
11:23 PM

School started today. Luckily they are easing us back into things by starting the year out with a week of ECM, or Essentials of Clinical Medicine. This is the class where they teach us how to interact with patients and how to be doctors. Many people view this as a useless class, but really it is the actual class where they teach us how to be doctors. I think it is good, though last year's ECM was riddled with problems. This year they are revamping ECM for our class which could either be really good or bad depending on how things go. I don't like the idea of being a guinea pig, but if that's what it takes than experiment away.

I'm trying to set up some goals to follow:
○ Work Out
○ Shadow some doctors (figure out what I want to do in medicine)
§ My top 4 choices right now for specialty:
□ Anesthesiology
□ Dermatology
□ Radiology
□ Opthalmology
§ On the radar:
□ Plastic Surgery
□ Emergency Medicine
§ Bottom choices:
□ Gynecology
□ General Practitioner
□ Psychiatry
□ General Surgeon
○ Keep myself organized (clean and on schedule)
§ Try to ward off ADD (undiagnosed)
§ Prioritize and don't waste so much time
I probably have other goals too, but those are the big ones that come to mind. Now that they are written down, I have to do them, right?

To get things rolling, I worked out with Andrew today. After our third set of bench press, I realize that Andrew wants to keep going. 3 more sets later, my boobies really hurt. Then we do the shoulder press and decide that we are done with weights for the day. My boobies are really gonna hurt tomorrow. After that, we decide to play on the elliptical machines. 20 minutes later, I am gasping for breath and barely able to walk. I then make the comment "I wonder if they have stair steppers here." Andrew found them and I'm not sure if he mistook my comment for "I wanna climb on the stair steppers now" or just thought that we needed to work out a little more. 10 minutes later, nearly passing out, I make it to the locker room shower that doesn't seem to turn cold enough. Good first day working out. Hopefully I'll make to a second.

Oh, and it happened to be the hottest day of all time. Compounding the problem, I get a parking ticket my first day back because I haven't picked up my new sticker yet. I should probably note that I had to park my car SOMEWHERE in order to walk into the building to get my sticker. That is basically what happened. I parked, went to class, then to the parking office. Then realized I have a ticket, go back to said parking office, tell them they are dumb for giving out tickets on the first day of class because this is the first day everybody is back and we are all getting our stickers today. Lady was reluctant to see my point but eventually caved with a stern warning about what would happen "next time."

Oh, and I almost forgot: I totally ran out of gas today. I met Haley for lunch and on the way home I ran out on the freeway. Haley was able to quickly get me a little gas to get me going (she had already gotten off on her exit --needed to make a walmart run). As I waited for my return, I quickly remembered how this was the hottest day of all time. Turns out that your AC doesn't work when you are out of gas.


Good night.

Bourne Again

Saturday, August 04, 2007
11:34 PM

Just saw the Bourne Ultimatum with our peeps, Bob and Daniel, and decided on a couple things-

Rob's "To Do" List:
• Add Ludlum to my reading list
• If med school doesn't work out, become a secret agent
• Learn Jujitsu

Seriously, that movie rocked. The fight scenes made you feel as though you were right in the middle taking and landing punches. It was a couple hours of nonstop adrenaline.

Yesterday, Haley and I went over to some friends house down on the Savannah river. We played some "sharks and minnows" and some pool volleyball. It was a lot of fun, but the pool was overloaded with chlorine and Haley and I are now recovering from some mild chemical burns. Haley woke up with blurry vision that didn't clear up until around noon today.

Oh, and back to my pal Bob: It turns out he writes screenplays on the side. He has written a couple different scripts and has come close to selling some of them. Hearing this makes me want to do more with my free time than watch American Idol or House, MD.