Rob Goes To Medical School

He DFO'd

2008-11-09T17:20:00.001-08:00

Technical term, stands for "done fell out." An appropriate use for this phrase is anytime somebody "done fells out." For example "Timothy was drinking his normal daily pint of whiskey when he done fell out" (actual quote from today in hospital).

Other appropriate uses are when you have done something that you don't want your doctor to know about (i.e., some type of "street pharmaceutical). Often if DFO phrasing is used, the story doesn't quite fit. For example "I was just walking in my back yard when I done fell out." The real story probably involves ingestion of antifreeze or similar chemical not meant for human ingestion in search of a high.

Another tip: if you have a DFO-er, be highly suspicious of cocaine use. This is especially true if said DFO-er is from Augusta, GA. Apparently Augusta didn't get the memo about crack falling out of vogue and is so stuck in the mid-1990's. So, if you suspect cocaine use and they are denying it or saying it has been years, then ask again, telling them it is really important. They will come back saying they last used a couple months ago. Again, stress the importance of how imperative it is to know exactly the last time they used it. This is where things will get fuzzy and they will pretend like they are thinking and will say two weeks ago. At this point, you tell them it is extremely important and that the only reason you are repeatedly asking them this is because they need a life saving medication, but if they have done crack recently it will kill them. At this point their memory will come to and they will admit to doing the crack just prior to DFOing. I couldn't make this stuff up.

Paranoid schizo's and other fun stuff

2008-10-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

Haven't blogged in a while, you know the story. I am now on neurology over at the VA (for the non-familiar, that is the veteran's hospital). I had a gentleman come in today with unsteadiness. He also happened to have the additional diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. His unsteadiness only occurs in the morning when he is getting out of bed and when he attempts to put on his underwear. Being the good history taker I try to be, I ask all the questions I can think of: Do you black out? Does the room spin? Do you drink alcohol? Have you had a change in medication? Has this happened before? You get the picture. As he isn't able to give me a straight answer, I finally ask him what in the world he thinks is causing his unsteadiness. He responds by telling me that it is the devil that enters his body every morning and causes him to be unsteady. He goes on to tell me how he figures the devil should leave him alone because he spends his days out in the backyard hanging out with Jesus and the Holy Ghost. Good for him.

Another quick story. I have another inpatient who suffers from multiple strokes and dementia. When I ask him every morning where he is, I never know what he is going to answer. Today when I asked, he told me that he was in jail, that Judy Johnson (name changed to protect poor Judy, if she exists) put him there, and that he wanted to go home. I told him that we were planning on letting him go home and you wouldn't believe how his face lighted up at that prospect. Poor guy. Yesterday when I was checking him for reflexes, he asked me in the most childish, sincere way you can imagine, "why are you hittin me?" Poor guy indeed.

So, how about that debate tonight? We're screwed.

Only cars in the parking lot

2008-09-10T17:51:00.003-07:00

Well, surgery is done and true to form I hardly recorded any of it in my blog. So much for getting third year off to a good start. I do have a good excuse though: Surgery. I did general surgery here at MCG with the GI team. I was one of the first 4 cars in the parking lot every morning (5:00am): (literally, the first 4 cars - me and my 3 buddies also doing general surgery)

I usually didn't leave until 7:00-7:30pm. My first morning there, they gave me 6 patients (supposedly the max was 4) to go visit to learn all I could about them and them be able to present their story a half hour after I started - this is called pre-rounding. Keep in mind this was my first day and I had no idea what I was doing. I was able to at least meet my 6 patients, but when it came time to present them to the chief resident, I had no idea what to report. I'm pretty sure my presentation went something like: "Um, they're cool, no problems." Later in the day both interns (1st year residents, aka bottom of the bottom of the barrel - right above medical students) on our service pulled me aside to tell me that my presentations sucked - I emphatically let them know that I agreed with them, but I also let them know they had unrealistic expectations of me my first day. I'm a firm believer in being thrown into the water and I will learn how to swim, but don't be a punk about telling me how bad I am doing. Needless to say my second day was better and it was all uphill from there.

I did pull a couple weeks where I worked over 90 hours. Those were long.

Anyway, I am now on Radiology. We all refer to it as "radiholiday." I think I like it so much because I love not working. Literally, the doctors come in around 9:30am and as near as I can tell they are gone by 5:00p. And you know they are making decent money. Here is a picture of what me and my buddy Garrett did last Friday before work:

FISHING! Radiology as a potential career, here I come!

Yep, I'm Bored and I have a Confession

2008-07-28T20:21:00.001-07:00

**I will preface this post by saying...it's a long one. Be forewarned...I'm bored. The amount of my boredom will correlate well to the length of the post. Oh yeah, and the "confession" doesn't come until the end...so sit back, get yourself a drink or some popcorn or something, because you'll be here for a while (assuming someone out there in the Internet world is actually reading this). **

My favorite part about teaching school is that I get great vacations (you know, summers off, spring break, Christmas, all major holidays and a few of the minor ones). Since rob has been in school for most of our married life, he has also had some summers off. We have been able to take advantage of a lot of this time and do some great traveling (see www.egberttravels.blogspot.com). This summer was no exception--we went one our wild tour across Mexico, then off to Jacksonville, NC for a family get together, and just recently got back from a weekend trip to Charleston, SC. We had to squeeze all of those trips into a 3-week period between when Rob took step 1 of his boards and when he started up his surgery rotations in the hospital. Well, as you may have surmised from the title of this post, Rob is back to work/school and I am not yet. So I sit at home trying so hard not to spend money because a). we went on all of the trips mentioned previously, b). I have already surpassed my budget for buying school-related stuff and c). I am saving for one last trip to Charleston before school starts (Whoo-hoo for girls trips!!).

Now if you have always had a job that keeps you busy year-round, you may not realize how expensive it is to not work. First off, staying in the house all day gets a little old. So right off the bat if you want to leave you have to factor in gas money. Then you think to yourself, "Where should I go?" My first thoughts are always shopping or eating. Even if it is necessary, like grocery shopping, it still adds into the budget. I also think about doing something outdoors, but it is so crazy hot and humid with pop-up thunderstorms threatening at any moment lately that that is really out of the question as well. I've thought about joining a gym, but again, it costs money. So I try to keep the shopping trips to a minimum. Well that leaves me sitting at home. While I could do something productive like clean or plan stuff for school, that usually doesn't happen. So my other options are the computer, the tv, the kitchen, or a book.

First off, the computer. This is almost as expensive for me as going out shopping...possibly even more expensive. I guess I realized this when I was booking a hotel online with the girls tonight and they were impressed that I have my credit card number memorized as well as the expiration and the security code. I did not have that memorized before the summer started. Online shopping is just so nice and convenient now that so many places offer free/cheap shipping. In my defense though, most of the stuff I've ordered is for school and I will be reimbursed for it...most of it...

Secondly, the tv. While I do have my dvr set to record Days of Our Lives everyday, I am not much for daytime television. Mostly because I usually don't have time for it. As I have had more daytime free time on my hands, I have come to see the dangers of the Food Network and HGTV. I've always liked these channels, but it is a little too easy to get hooked from one show to the next. They're all interesting enough to me that, if I don't have something else planned, I can easily waste away an entire afternoon and not even realize it!

Next, the kitchen. I like to cook and bake. When I get bored, I make food--usually a dessert of some kind. Now this can be a money thing again, but more pressing is the health issue. I have a major sweet tooth and I could eat desserts all day. Luckily, its been so hot that the thought of using any heat in the kitchen in the middle of the day is so unappealing that I have stopped spending my days baking. But this leads to more boredom.

So that brings me to my last major choice for entertaining myself at home, which is reading. And this is the part I am most ashamed of. Now I know you're thinking, and no, I have not started reading trashing romance novels. It's worse. I started reading non-smutty, teenage vampire romance novels. Yes, I've gotten hooked on the Twilight books. I like to think of myself as having very cultured tastes in media. I always read the reviews on movies (www.rottentomatoes.com) and books (www.amazon.com) before I watch/read them. I try not to waste my time on "fluff." But alas, I am counting down the days until the 4th book in the saga comes out. And unfortunately for me, these books are super quick reads so it only takes me a couple days to get through them (not to mention I can hardly put them down). So this will only satisfy my boredom for a few more days. Well my sisters have been telling me to read these books for years now (or at least it seems like it) and I finally read them this summer. I guess I can take solace in the fact that I got two of my other friends completely hooked on the books as well. So at least now I have brought two other intelligent beings down to my same level of guilty pleasure. So there's my confession. I have succumbed to the boredom and tossed my pride out the window in favor of living in the fantasy world of vampires, werewolves (I am a big fan of Jacob), and the flutterings of a hormone-filled, teenage heart.

But don't worry. I actually have to get to work on school stuff now (just a couple weeks till we start again!!!) so the boredom has probably already come to a peak. Even though I complain, I know that once school starts again I will be dreaming of my carefree days of surfing the web, eating cookies, watching daytime television and reading books meant for pre-pubescent girls.

back to school

2008-07-17T19:49:00.001-07:00

Just a super quick entry. I meant to be better with this thing, especially now that third year has started. Here is the short of it: I ended up doing good on the boards (note that i didn't say that I rocked them out - I have three close friends that all scored in the 95th or better percentile - you guys suck). I am currently on Plastic Surgery, but unfortunately I wrap that up tomorrow. It has been a really fun two weeks, even though I am quickly realizing how dumb I am when it comes to medicine (I don't know how to write notes in charts or round on patients, but when you are thrown into things, you learn really quick).

One quick story. I sewed on a 16-yr old girls nipple today after a breast reduction surgery. I couldn't believe they let me do it - after all, she'll probably want to use that thing some day. If I say so myself, though, I think it ended up looking nice. I was in the OR for two other surgeries today also and my legs are killing me. I'm gonna see if I can milk a leg massage out of Haley tonight...fingers crossed.

Haley in the garden

2008-05-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

Garden update

2008-05-21T06:03:00.001-07:00

With the boards coming up, no time to blog. I will however post an update on my garden. Enjoy the video.

Oh, the things I'll do for a T-shirt

2008-03-30T21:03:00.001-07:00

Some buddies and I in med school have been working out at the school gym before class since this past August. Somewhere along the way, we started flirting with the idea of entering a local "adventure race" (yes, adventure racing is a real sport) called MedWAR (Medical Wilderness Adventure Race). After talking to people who had run the race last year, we decided to throw our hat into the ring and give it a go.

I'll spare the boring details leading up to the race, suffice it to say the only real training we did was short brisk runs before our workouts and a dry run last Saturday on a local trail.

Our team was made up of Will Potter, myself, Andrew Johnsen and Will Parker (L to R in picture). The race was to be around 15 miles and we were to work our way through various medical/survival oriented tasks in the barren wilderness over at Fort Gordon (Army base). We were told to show up with a wilderness survival/medical kit, a flashlight, water purifier, whistle, a canoe and a mountain bike.

at 11:00am, after orientation and safety briefings (something about poisonous snakes and some other animal that I can't remember because I wasn't really paying attention), they announced all the teams. Most of the teams had really cool names like "turn your head and cough," "gang-green," "toxic megacolon," and "bad prognosis." Because we were number 20 out of 27, we got to hear all these cool names go before us and I started to get really nervous as the announcement of our team name came up: "The Married Men." I definitely didn't come up with it and as they read our name off I am sure I was beet red from embarrassment that we didn't get a more clever name. However, we ended up getting the most arousing laughter and applause of any group (by a long shot) and my embarrassment melted away.

They then handed us our race packets and we headed a mile up a steep hill. At the top we were given the task to find a pigs foot under a tree and were to carry it with us throughout the remainder of the race. We then followed what we thought were accurate instuctions only to come back to the pigs-foot tree two miles later to find out we had done a huge time-wasting loop (luckly all 27 teams made the same mistake so nobody was disadvantaged, or rather we all were). We learned a valuable lesson on that first task - don't follow what everybody else is doing (something about the blind leading the blind).

Back on track. We continue on, running 3 miles or so. Along the way we are tasked with various medical scenarios we have to complete (i.e. diabetic comas, burn victims, bear attacks, broken ankles, altitude sickness...you get the picture). About an hour or so into the race, we divide up into two runner and two canoers from our team. At this point there are probably 8 teams in front of us which we were okay with (our goal was to finish in the top half - or just not dead last). Luckily the canoe events were where we outshined everybody and an hour later we were in first place (the lead team was literally doing circles out in the middle of the lake as we passed them). I guess all those "post-test canoe/fishing trips" paid off.

Our first place lead only lasted a mile before the two muscle teams showed up and passed us. Those teams consisted of some hard core Navy firefighters who supposedly travel around the country doing these things and another local MCG team that made 3rd place last year. We were okay letting those two pass us, but we were determined to try to hold on to third place.

A couple miles later (still less than half way through) we come up to a large swamp/pond area. We see the MCG team on the other side of the massive swamp soaking wet and are told that we must cross the swamp. At this point I am thinking of how insane that sounds. We are all aware that we have another 10+ miles to go and to completely soak ourselves would be brutal. Fortunately this was a race and so we had little time to rationalize how ridiculous the situation was and we all ran into the water. As we trudged through the muddy water literally up to our necks and even over our heads for a couple feet (yeah, trying to doggy paddle while holding your water and supplies over your head can be tough) I started to realize how crazy this day was going to be. At one point, Will Parker was directly in front of me and I see his his head dip down under, nothing but his hands holding that running pack out of the water as he trudges along the bottom of the swamp making it back up to slightly higher ground a couple feet later. It was awesome/hilarious. (enjoy the picture of my soaking shoes and socks - believe it or not, those socks were white when the day began).

A couple miles later we forgot one of our pass-codes (we had to keep a log of our codes we "earned" from completing the scenarios). For some unknown reason, I volunteered to run back for it. It ended up being longer away than I thought and thanks to that little mishap I got to tack on an extra mile to my day's total...Luckily we still had our third place safely secured though other teams were in sight.

While the third place was feeling great, all great things will come to an end. Around this time in the race, Andrew's lets were starting to cramp up and the whole teams was showing signs of wear. Then we come up to scenario where we send one person off on a bike. We decided to send Will (Parker) and the rest of our would complete the next task. The only problem was that the next task was orienteering and Will was our designated orienteering expert. Yes, I am an Eagle scout and Yes I should know how to orienteer, but my skills were rusty. to make a long story short, We started to head off in the right direction, but got horrible lost along the way. We started second guessing ourselves and amidst the confusion, the light rain that had been hanging around turned to a nasty down pour. Luckly, Andrew was able to figure some stuff our and we made it to our next destination to meet up with Will. He ended up waiting about 45 minutes and our health 15 minute lead over the rest became a half our deficit.

The rest of the race ended up being straight endurance. At one point we came up on a huge clay pit that we had to make our way down. We had to jump two huge crevasses - definitely not for the faint of heart. Once we made it down to the bottom of the giant clay pit we had to suture up the pig's foot that we had been carrying with us the entire time (apparently it had a large laceration on the skin of the thing that we hadn't even noticed before). It ended up that we could have gotten away with putting compression bandage on the thing, but we honestly got out our suture kit and sewed that bad boy up. When that sucker heals, I honestly don't think that pig will even have a scar (assuming they are able to re-attach the foot to the pit). As we are leaving the clay pit the moderators of the scenario tell us we have about a half hour left...

By half hour, they really meant 3 miles running/walking/trudging through the swamp. I mean we were literally up to our knees (sometimes waist) in mud. I can't believe none of us lost any shoes in that muck. It smelled, didn't have a set trail (what swamp does?), and was still raining down on us (picture is of another team - they didn't get a pic of us). Every time we thought were were gonna leave the swamp, the orange ribbons that had been marking the trail all day (except the orienteering course) would lead us right back down into the thick of things.

Finally, after being soaked to the bone (well, somewhere along the way I had the sense to put on my gore-tex jacket from cabelas - I am now a firm believer in Gore-Tex) we make it back to the final pass code. With the pass code there was a bonus question - it was a snake and we had to guess how many vertebrae it had. We had earlier stumbled upon this bonus at the very beginning of the race and had guessed 60. When we came back on the question at the end, we were tired and didn't really care anymore about getting the bonus but we looked anyway. We went back and forth on our guess of how many vertebrae. I was holding the passbook and finally said that I was just going to add a "1" to the 60 we had put down to make it 160 because there was no way we were going to guess the right number anyway.

We then run into camp with all the energy we have left (which wasn't much after running 17 miles, soaking wet). Although we ended up losing our 3rd place finish during the orienteering part of the race, we felt like rock stars as we entered the finish line, cheered on by the crowd of volunteers, racers, and organizers. We then quickly changed into dry clothes and ate a huge BBQ pork feast. I ate a huge plate of food, including two pork sandwiches, and I think the food was already digested by the time I got up for seconds. My body was hungry.

Unfortunately, at the awards ceremony they only mentioned the top 3 race teams (damn you orienteering!). We are still on hold as to what our final finish time was but are told that they will be posted on the website soon. Hopefully they will also have some pictures from the race up soon. Not all was lost at the awards ceremony, though. It ended up that the aforementioned snake had 158 vertebrae, making us the proud winners of a stuffed snake.

Although the race was grueling, it was one of the coolest things I have done in a long time. How sad is it that I spend a good hour today looking up trail running shoes and hydration packs? MedWAR 2009, here we come!

Part II

2008-03-04T19:59:00.001-08:00

This blog represents part 2 of my 834 part series of "Rob's do it yourself/make junk in your backyard/garden so it looks nicer" series. If you remember back to part 1 of this series, I made an Arbor for under 130 bones. You'll be happy to know that the arbor managed to survive a brutal Augusta winter complete with sub-60 degree temperatures and no fewer than 10 inches of rain. It has been rough, but my handi-manship skills have proved themselves once again.

In this series I will demonstrate how to create a compost pile for less than 2 bucks. Of course you could build a compost pile for free by simply piling up your lawnmower waste or leaf waste and let it sit there for a year. Or, if you want to turn those same materials into black gold in a much shorter amount of time you build a compost box.

First: get some wood. Of course you could go out and buy expensive wood from home depot, or you could do what I did and jack some palates from local businesses/construction sites (I recommend asking first, but to each his own). While you are coasting from construction site to construction site, if they have any of those fence post thingers (I really don't know what they are, but they are long metal things that are really sturdy and I saw them at all the construction sites I went to - you are gonna need 4 of those, preferably 5 feet long each - see picture below) Cost: free.

Next, jack your neighbors leaves that he bagged up so nicely for the trash man. He may give you a strange look when you pull up to his driveway after dark and start throwing all his leaf bags in the back of your truck, so be prepared for that. Next, call around to local stables and ask if you can have their horse crap. Surprisingly, everyone I called got back with me the next day and told me "h3ll, you can have all the horse sh!t you want" (I'm taking artistic license on that one).

Now, take the backs off three of the palates. next, attach the palates in a way to make a three sided box without a top, bottom, or one side (I found nails work well). Next, drive in those long metal things near the two open sides to sturdy the box - see picture above (you're gonna pile a lot of crap and leaves into this and don't want it falling open). Next, drive the two remaining metal things into the open end in such a way as to be able to slide the remaining palate right into place to form the last wall to the box. If none of this makes sense, look at the pictures. I recommend cutting the palate that you are gonna slide in half so you can start filling it up then slide on half the palate, fill up some more and then finally slide on the rest of the palate to keep everything stable.

Now that you have a eyesore that the neighbors will be talking about for years to come, it is time to fill it up. layer a bag of leaves with about 4 or 5 shovels full of horse manure and then repeat the process until you reach the top of the box, being sure to hose things down as you go along (apparently microbes need water to break all that junk down). Also, the reason this thing cost me a couple bucks was because the Internet recommended that I add lime to my pile - so I layered that in. Finally, after it is piled up, wet and limed, cover with some trash bags or a tarp and let it sit for a week or two. After that, you need to turn the pile to allow air in. Of course if you don't want to turn the pile, do what I do: take one of those long, heavy steel things and drive it into the pile in a couple different places to allow air in.

Well, this about wraps it up for part 2 of my 834 part series of "Rob's do it yourself/make junk in your backyard/garden so it looks nicer" series. I hope you have enjoyed these pearls of wisdom. Remember, whenever you are undertaking a project like this to be creative and cheap - your neighbors will appreciate your ingenuity.

Reading In Bed

2008-02-21T19:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a nice pic of Haley reading in bed. Please note the joy she is experiencing as she reads a book about outer space. When you are done being amused at her amusement, please turn your attention to the portrait of our dog, Gob, in the background.

Haley's New Camera

2008-02-19T19:58:00.000-08:00

So, I got Haley a new camera for v-day (valentine's day, not to be confused with Vagina monologues day, also referred to as V-day). Unfortunately, the first one that was scheduled to arrive the day before v-day was stolen from UPS before it ever made it to our doorstep. Then newegg, who is normally incredibly efficient at shipping things out in a timely manner, didn't mail a new one out until Monday (after contacting them 3 times). To make a long story short, we now have the camera and it is cool. We went with the Canon SD1000 which is smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Here is a test shot of Haley cooking tonight.

In other news, did anybody else watch American Idol tonight and get left with the thought "ambiguous gender?" There were no fewer (and maybe more) than 3 dudes who I could have swore were females. Granted they sounded male, but all I could think of was that dude from youtube known for his ambiguity and as a staunch defender of Britney's honor. As intolerant as it may sound, I liked it better when we weren't bombarded by transgender people. Call me old fashioned, but I like it better when men act and look like men and women act and look like women.

Farming

2008-02-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

Now that it's been in the upper 60's for a month and a half I decided a couple weekends ago to get the garden started up again. After hours of "researching" through google I came up with planting outside in raised rows. The past two weekend I (with Haley's help) have been preparing our backyard - including digging out more giant roots - I have the sore back to prove it). Additionally, I have quite the germinating setup going on in our office. If you can tell from the picture, I have two suspended fluorescent lights over a number of small peat pots with everything from tomatoes to peppers to black-eyed susan vines, to any herb you can thing of. The strange thing on the outside is one of those $2 reflective heating emergency blankets that you can buy in the camping section at Walmart. It does a great job at keeping the plants around 80 degrees in spite of the inside temperature of our house (thermostat currently set at 62 - though our house is around 72 due to the warm weather as of late).

I'll try to keep the blog updated with our garden progress. I am expecting big things to come out of the garden this year. Oh, and note the brilliant blossoming of our Peach tree. That thing has been blooming for two weeks now.

Multitasking

2008-02-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

I don't know if any of you out there are like me where you will have a really good idea about something you want to blog about but then you forget it. I blame it on stuffing my head full of medical stuff that everything else slips out the back door. I've been trying to slowly make my way back into my blog here for a while, but life gets busy.

Anyway, even though I wasn't able to figure out what I was going to blog about I'll talk about Haley's computer. I recently upgraded her (yeah, the computer is female) to a total of 6gb of RAM, up from 2gb. That may seem excessive, but I'll tell you, if you do any kind of intense computing it is really nice. Right now I am popping this blog out, listening to music, updating my other website to Dreamweaver, editing photos to put on this blog, and I have a couple other programs open and my computer doesn't lag in the least. I am currently using up 70% of my RAM at 4278mb. I don't know how we ever got along with 2gb.

All this blogging reminded me of my original blog that I was gonna post. Here it is:

NEWEGG.COM: awesome company. I built Haley's entire computer from parts ordered through them (as well as hundreds of dollars of other miscellaneous computer upgrades through the years). They usually having things out the door and in your mailbox in 3 days. Not only is their service great, but they have competitive, if not the lowest, prices around. So, for Valentine's day I decided I was gonna buy Haley a new camera. She is getting more and more into blogging these days (haleystwocents.blogspot.com) and I figured she'd like to have pictures of her own to go on her blog. Also, with our frequent travels, I figure she may like to join in the photo fun (PS, we are heading back to Mexico this summer after the boards).

Anyway, back to my Newegg story. I order the camera on tuesday from them with a scheduled delivery day of Thursday. Then on Thursday, I get home from school and see a small box on the doorstep of our house. I pick it up and it is much lighter than I expected. I open it to find out they sent the memory card I ordered in a separate box. However, There is no camera or camera box in sight. I then go and check on the tracking number and am presented with the following: 02/14/2008 7:11 A.M. MERCHANDISE IS MISSING. UPS WILL NOTIFY THE SENDER WITH ADDITIONAL DETAILS. / ALL MERCHANDISE MISSING, EMPTY CARTON WAS DISCARDED. UPS WILL NOTIFY THE SENDER WITH DETAILS OF THE DAMAGE. I then contact Newegg (via online chat - their preferred method) and made them aware of the problem. I explain it was for valentines day and that I would appreciate it if they would overnight me another one. The guy on the other end said he would try but no guarantee. He also said he would email me to keep me updated.

Long story short, they didn't do anything else yesterday besides listen to me complain about how this was putting a hurt on my V-day plans. Today I did what I should have done yesterday - called them. After explaining the problem they are overnighting me a new one.

I don't know what the moral of this story is. Maybe it's that if you work for UPS you have access to cheap valentine's day presents for your girlfriend at the expense of another dudes plans to impress his own girlfriend (wife).

Oh, and the picture is one from this last Christmas on the beach in Navarre Fl, where my sister, Maria, lives.

countdown to step 1 of the boards

2008-01-29T14:44:00.001-08:00

Just signed up. Here's the damage.

Countdown To

Coming Home

2008-01-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

My BIL (brother in law) Marc got home from a deployment to Iraq yesterday. Apparently they made the local news.

60th post boo yah!

2007-12-03T19:30:00.000-08:00

I thought I would post my current favorite internet video. If you don't think this is funny the first time, watch it again. then repeat. every time you watch it, it gets funnier. I recommend limiting your views of the video to 10x/day or you may not get anything else done.

Iran So Far Away: A Digital Short.

SNL - Iran So Far
Uploaded by Pfff

How To Build A Freakin Awesome Arbor For Under $130

2007-12-02T18:36:00.001-08:00

Man, who has time to blog these days…seriously? I have so much to write about, but no time to do it. I have been making audio notes on my phone about things I want to write about. Maybe I'll get to them one day. Things like how Jesus passed me on the freeway coming home from Atlanta. Things like Fry-night with the Atlanta gang. Things like six flags and how I have totally forgotten how awkward teenagers are (and horny, for that matter)…Those things will have to wait.

This weekend, I (we) built an arbor in our backyard. We had been talking about making one for a while now. We were considering buying one already made from Lowe's for three hundred bucks. Luckily I was feeling ambitious and decided to build one from scratch.

With some rudimentary plans taken from various websites we set off to Lowes. 2 hours later and $130 poorer we left Lowe's with 2 bags of Quickcrete, a box of nails, a box of screws, a post-hole digger, and some wood: 4-4x4x10, 2-2x6x16, 2-1x6x10, and 2-2x4x10 (all pressure treated). I borrowed a screwdriver and jigsaw from a friend (thanks Will) and with the help of my hammer, table saw, and circular saw I was set.

So, the first hole was kind of a random one and the rest were also kind of eyeballed. It is really hard digging deep holes in this South Carolina clay (my forearms are killing me right now). Somehow in the end, the four poles ended up kind of straight and level and the thing actually looks like we put it in a good place in our back yard. I wouldn't recommend eyeballing it, especially when you are gonna use concrete to permanently put it in the ground, but it did work out for us.

Today, I laid down the top; cross beams and then the other crossbeams to go across the first cross beams (see picture). Then to finish it all off I put in a couple benches on the sides (again, see picture).

Basically, I think we got really lucky in eyeballing it. It kind of makes me want to build something else, but I doubt my next project would end up so good (ask Haley about past projects I have made – she'll never forget the original projector stand I made back in Utah).

Babysitting the kids

2007-11-20T08:43:00.001-08:00

Babysitting the kids
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

Yeah, so Maria may not let me babysit her kids again anytime soon. Actually as I write this, Emma is wandering the house looking for her mom (in a surprisingly calm manner - knock on wood), Abby is watching Elmo, and John is in front of the computer playing a video game. I guess I can't criticize parents any more for letting technology raise their kids. It makes things so much easier.

I guess I have a long way to go before I am ready for kids of my own. Of course just being around Maria and Marc's kids fulfills any desire I may or may not have for hanging around children for the next couple years.

Navarre Sunrise

2007-11-20T08:22:00.000-08:00

To start of my thanksgiving break, I decided to skip class and head down to Florida to spend some time with my sister and her kids while her husband, Marc, is over in Iraq. We are gonna head back up to Atlanta tomorrow to meet up with Haley and spend time with her family.

I was looking forward to doing a little fishing, but apparently there is a "red tide" right now down here in the gulf so I wasn't able to throw a line out. However, I was able to head out early this morning and snap off a couple pictures as the sun came up. Nothing like waking up at 5:00am while on vacation.

Workin It

2007-10-29T19:50:00.001-07:00

fall colors
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

You ever feel like you study your life away? Neither do I. Though you'd probably think that I'd feel that way. Really, though, I probably don't study as much as I would work if I were working full time. It does suck when I have to study on weekends before a test, but for the most part med school isn't that bad. Pictured here are a handful of the books I would like to know inside and out before I take the boards this next summer.

In other news, today in class someone asked what the difference is between a "string sign" on barium enema of Crohn's disease and an Omphalocele. I fully realized that nobody who reads this blog will get why that is funny, but trust me, it is. Really funny. It was asked by the guy who always asks random, non-relevant questions. I'm pretty sure that today's question topped them all, though.

Another guy asked how it was possible to see through cancer with an X-ray. I was the only person around me who thought it was funny, which surprised me because isn't the answer obvious? Cancer isn't lead. It is like other bodily tissues. X-rays pass through all kinds of body tissues, why not cancer? You can see through cancer on X-ray the same way you can see through skin, muscle, organs. I mean, isn't that the point of x-rays? to see through things to get at what is underneath? Of course you can look through cancer.

I am by no means smarter than your average med school student. But sometimes when I listen to other people's questions in class my ego gets boosted ever so slightly.

Gob with the sneak attack

2007-10-18T20:35:00.001-07:00

DSC_0621
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

Gob's new favorite way to try and eat our food. he is quite the crackhead. (PS, haley didn't give in).

Really?

2007-10-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

Wow. This story is amazing. What is wrong with us? We want to hear about people's little domestic spats? This is the most mundane story in the world about a dad who is mad at a mom because he doesn't think she disciplines the children very well. Why would that make national news? Why does anyone care about this story?

I can't believe this is a story worth writing up and I can't believe that I have now blogged about it.

Gob vs. Snake

2007-10-16T20:32:00.001-07:00

snake - ai
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

After rocking my test on monday (see previous entry) I took Gob out hiking in Modoc, SC. After we had been hiking for just under an hour, job was slightly ahead of me wandering back and forth along the trail. All of the sudden, I see little Gobby fly about 6 feet into the air, apparently scared to death. Apparently, this little guy had taken a lunge at him (pretty sure it bit him). I then took a half dozen pictures of him while Gob barked and barked and barked. The snake was less than intimidated. As we walked back to the car, I kept a tight eye on Gob, looking for signs of poison (I am far from proficient in identifying snakes). He seemed fine, if not a little shooken up from having the crap scared out of him. I later found out it was the "black rat snake," quite harmless. Sure made the hike interesting though.

Whoop whoop (cop siren)

2007-10-16T20:24:00.001-07:00

MCG Buildings-6ai
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

Haley asked me to take some pictures for the cover of the MCG telephone directory (yeah, the major one that gets sent out to thousands of people). Excited to get my photography out there, I jumped on opportunity. I wanted to get a really good shot of some of the buildings on campus and decided to go out early to get either a night shot or early morning sunrise shot. So, picture me standing out on the corner of the "busiest" intersection on campus: Where Laney Walker Blvd. meets 13th street. It is 6:00am and I have my tripod pointed at the MCG cancer center (pictured here) and begin taking pictures. Not three shots later, a black and white came screetching across 4 lanes of traffic (well, more like 4 lanes, no traffic - it is really early), flying onto the curb in front of me. Of course I smell some harassment coming on, but continue to take pictures. The cop gets out of his car, I explain what I am doing, he asks for some ID (which of course I didn't need because it is lawful for anybody, let alone a student of the institution to take a picture). I show him my ID and it should be over, right? Well, he then proceeds to call it in, then call every other cop on duty, then the local chief on duty, and then the head chief that wasn't on duty. I then point out to him that anybody can take a picture of anything in public at any time and that he was, in my mind, harassing me. He then said something about security and a post-9/11 world. I let him know that I understood, but by showing him my ID, I should be good (even without an ID, I should be good). He then proceeded to ask me questions for a half hour. Yes, a half hour. Interspersed in this half hour, they guy repeatedly made phone calls asking people what he should do with "this kid." I was very tempted to just walk away at this time, knowing full well that I had every right to do so. Better yet, I should have continued to take pictures and ignore him - but I didn't want to provoke him. Oh, and officer Barbara (yeah, real name, and yeah, it was a dude) wasn't the brightest star out that morning. He had to repeatedly ask me what group I was taking the picture for, even when he had it written down in front of him. He had previously asked me the same question 3 times. I ended up having to make a couple phone calls on my own in order to get a name of some faculty on campus who would back me up. This guy was an idiot. When he was finally satisfied, he left me with a parting message "hey, buddy, at the end of the day I got a job to do just like you." Thanks, officer Barbara, for that deep thought. You still harassed me for a half hour over nothing.

I really think it may have had something to do with my slightly darker skin. I wanted to tell him that I descended from the same Northern European ancestry that he did, but I didn't want to push my luck.

p.s. this isn't the picture we are using, but it is my favorite.

perspective

2007-10-16T19:31:00.001-07:00

stars
Originally uploaded by Rob Egbert

haley and I went to look at stars the other night. sometimes, after you've been studying for about 10 or 11 days straight, it is nice to pull your head out of your dark tunnel and look up. At the end of the day, studying and test taking don't really matter. Oh, and by the way, I rocked that test in to the middle of next week.

Flickr

2007-10-16T19:29:00.001-07:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

JibJab

2007-10-05T12:41:00.001-07:00

Man vs. High Tide

2007-10-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 30, 2007
10:41 PM

Friday afternoon. Big test. Done at 11:00. The plan? Go fishing in the ocean to celebrate. Drag the wives down to Savannah for a day of fun in the sun. Get to Savannah around 1800. Dinner at local fish house followed by stop at Basspro shops.

2 sinkers
1 large bopper
5-pack assortment of swimbaits
1 pack of BPS supershad III fake minnows
3-way swivel

2 hours later I am sleeping, dreaming of the next day's events.

We had been planning on going down to Savannah for some time. Recently, my study mates and I have taken up fishing. Every Saturday morning for the past two months or so, we have spent down on the river trying to catch largemouth bass or large stripers. Though we have technically caught largemouth (I even caught a random member of the Pike family, the Chain Pickerel), We have been disappointed by the smallness of the fish and by the amount of time it takes us to pull in 2 or maybe 3 fish.

Discouraged by our bad luck/inadequacies as fishermen, we decided it was time to try something else. Garrett lives down in Savannah and we heard there are some good inlets down there you can take your canoe/kayak to and catch some serious ocean fish. And so we headed down.

5:30am rolled around pretty early, having gone to bed around 1:00 the night before (as well as every night for the past week or so--we did have a test on Friday). We stopped at a bait shop to pick up a casting net and a minnow bucket, which eventually saved the day…

We put in at the fishing dock at the inlet to the "Back River" between Tybee and Little Tybee islands. We had heard from numerous people that the fishing is awesome there and canoes/kayaks are more than sufficient to get your way around. We had also heard from both the Basspros and the bait shop owner that it was really windy out and that Saturday was to have the largest tide of the year (9+ feet). Not to be discouraged, we testosteroned our way out into the sea.

At first the waves were a little choppy, but appeared innocent enough that we lulled ourselves into a false sense of security. About halfway across the 1000 yard+ channel the wind really started to pick up as did the incoming tide. The current got real strong and the waves got really choppy. The only thing more amazing than the fact that we didn't capsize is the fact that there was hardly any water in the boat after we finally did make it to the other side. We gradually made our way around the island, looking for a cut to go in between the different waterways. All around us was tall grass that seems to thrive in the brackish water of the incoming and outgoing tide. As we navigated our way through the grasses, we quickly realized that we would need some calmer water if we were going to be able to get a cast out, let alone catch any fish. Unfortunately, we spent the better part of the next 5 hours navigating our way through rough water, fast wind, and few fish (which means we saw a few fish and caught none).

After rowing for a couple hours, we made our way around the island and somehow made it back to the main channel separating the two islands. The water looked even worse than before, with increased wind and this time the water was going out, the tide having peaked and switched about an hour previous. Tying down all our equipment and taking a well-earned rest, we chilled in the tall grasses on the edge of the channel. Luckily the ride to the other side was much better than we built it up to be.

Once on the other side, we hugged the shore and I decided to get out of the boats and try my new toy out. As I awkwardly cast the monofilament/nylon/lead net out into the water, I felt weak and defeated. Then, to my astonishment, I managed to catch a tiny minnow. I repeated the throwing of the net only to catch a shrimp. Encouraged, I continued to cast that net out into the water until I had about a dozen shrimp. Justin and Garrett also got in on the action and within about a half hour we filled our little minnow bucket up with shrimp.

We then headed back to the pier to meet up with our ladies for lunch. As we enjoyed our footlongs from Subway, we mulled over strategies to hunt our elusive water-prey. Luckily the ladies didn't mind us going back out and we decided we would meet up with them later for dinner. Now encouraged with our live shrimp for bait, we once again set out. Though the shrimp rigs proved heavy for our small rods and reels, we managed to get a couple good casts out there. I even had fish on my line on 3 different occasions, but unfortunately I have been fishing for bass too long and tried to set the hook before the fish managed to ingest my entire bait. You can imagine how excited I finally was to actually feel a fish tub on the end of my line and you can probably also imagine my letdown when I didn't pull them in. Such is life.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention all the dolphins while we were out there. At one point, we were fishing in between some docks when a dolphin came within about 5 feet of our canoe. It scared the living crap out of us and this giant fishlike thing rose and then lowered back into the water. It was the last thing we were expecting and seriously, it gave me quite the startling. We continued to have dolphins swim all around us for a good part of the day as we went in and out of the channels.

So, yeah, we still suck at fishing. However, we did manage to get back with a bucket full of the freshest shrimp any of us had ever had. We fried it up plain in a little butter and it was good. Very good. Than, after paddling sunup to sundown (quite literally) I got a really good night's rest. It was awesome.

Test Post

2007-09-27T11:05:00.001-07:00

Studying really sucks! I support healthy wrists.

Children of Abraham

2007-08-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

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...

2007-08-16T03:15:00.000-07:00

Mnemonics and the Universe

2007-08-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-06T20:49:00.001-07:00

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

2007-08-04T21:02:00.000-07:00

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.

New Favorite Thing To Do

2007-07-30T06:30:00.001-07:00

Sunday, July 29, 2007
10:39 PM

• Get to a far off beach via canoe
• Play Bocce ball on said beach once arrived
• Canoe back to car after fun day in the sun

This past week we went up to Jacksonville, NC to visit my brother John, his family, and my mom. It was really good to be around my family and I wish we all lived closer by so we could get together more often. My brother is a Marine and is stationed right there on the NC coast. On Thursday, we headed to the beach on the Marine base and body surfed/boogie boarded the waves for a good 3 hours. It was awesome. I couldn't believe how big the waves were, especially for the east coast. I get the feeling that the waves aren't always like that because later when I told a local about our trip to the beach (we were buying shrimp from the guy) he laughed when I mentioned that the waves were pretty decent. I kind of got the feeling that the military might have "claimed" the best beach in the area for themselves.

Friday morning, Haley and I set out to find a local seafood market. Down in Snead's Ferry, NC, there is a place out in the boonies (yeah, most of NC is probably out in the boonies, but this was really out in the boonies) that has 4-5 local seafood markets. After driving though back roads to finally get to the water, we pulled into the last seafood place we found, Everett's Seafood. The things that surprised me most about the little place:

• Shrimp that cost $3/lb for the smaller ones and $5/lb for the jumbo ones
• The extraordinary niceness of the guys running the place

Later that night, we cooked up a bunch of the shrimp. We ate more shrimp than we should have, but even non-shrimp lovers, Haley and John, were loving it. We looked up a coconut shrimp recipe, and then my mom had requested a Pina Colada dipping sauce from Red Lobster that we were also able to find. We also skewered a ton of shrimp and added some Zataran's Creole Seasoning before putting them on the grill. It was awesome food. The fact that the shrimp had been caught the same day made it taste all the better.

On Saturday, our last day there, we took a couple canoes (including our new one) to Hammock's beach state park. Somehow we were able to fit both canoes on/in our truck to haul down to the ocean. Once there, Haley and I went together in a canoe with Gob and John, Ashley, Mom, and their 7-month old baby Jack were in the other. We had a couple lifejackets and in retrospect Jack probably should have had one of them on. We got some funny looks from other people on the 2.5 mile trail to the beach who were donning lifejackets. Oh well, we all made it. Jack and Ashley ended up riding the ferry back. The last half mile or so of the canoe trail was really shallow water, so we all got out and hiked the canoes in. Gob really liked this part because we let him run free for the most part. He enjoyed terrorizing the millions of small crabs that covered the shore and didn't quite know what to do when they pinched him. After finally docking our canoes, we hiked a short distance over some dunes to reach the open ocean. It was nice because the place where we ended up was pretty much deserted. We ate a quick lunch, got in the water for a while and then played some wicked Bocce Ball right there on the beach. I wasn't sure if it was going to be worth it to carry the Bocce set along the 2.5 mile canoe trek, but once we started playing there in the sand I knew it was. After a couple hours at the beach, we headed back. By this time we were all really tired, including Gob who slept most of the way back.

I don't know if this last day ended up being so enjoyable for me because of the canoeing/beach or because I did it all with family that I love. It was probably the most fun I have had all summer, Pacuare river included.

After getting home, we had to make the trek home because Haley had an engagement she had to be at the next morning. We ended up not leaving town until 8:00pm and with a 5-hour drive ahead of us, I decided to start consuming vast amounts of caffeine early on. Between the 3 cokes, Exedrine (both for caffeine and to tame my sunburn), and energy drink (my first foray into the world of energy drinks) I was pretty hopped up on caffeine. All in all, I think I had about 400+ mg of brain electrifying awakeness going on. After the day at the beach, I needed all the help I could to stay awake. My plan worked and combined with listening to the final Harry Potter on audio book we made it home safely (and wide awake--it took me an hour to get to sleep).

Things I learned In Church

2007-07-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 26, 2007
10:32 AM

This past Sunday, this kid gets up to give a talk in front of the entire congregation. During his little speech, he talked about how grateful he is for all the things he had at scout camp that pioneers didn't have a hundred and fifty years ago: Things like "rope and pocketknives." All they had were "sticks and stones." I think he was a little confused. I think Adam and Eve probably had knives and rope. I could tell by the look on the bishop's face that he too was confused at this comment.

Later, in Sunday school this guy was teaching about faith. He tried to compare faith to electricity and explained something to the following effect: "we know when we flip a switch that the electricity will cause the lights to come on. Nobody knows how electricity works. It is all just theory. When we flip the switch, we have faith that this magical thing called electricity will work to turn on the lights." I was actually pretty sure that I learned in high school and then college how electricity works. True, there are some things that we don't get, but I'm not sure I would refer to electricity as a "theory." We have sure gotten quite far in the information era with computers and electronics based solely on theory.

Eaze Lock

2007-07-17T21:09:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, July 17, 2007
11:55 PM

I like working out. Well…I don't necessarily like the working out part of working out, but rather the lifestyle benefits that come with working out (ie, not being fat, not getting winded when climbing a flight of stairs, and I think I am happier when I get my stress out by moving my legs up and down on a machine that simulates walking up stairs). Haley on the other hand doesn't like the working out part of working out or the other parts. Well, maybe she likes the other parts, but the working out part of working out usually wins and she doesn't want to go work out with me. I understand this and so when she does agree to go work out with me, so I'm not all by my lonesome, I am happy.

Today was one of those days. I asked her yesterday if she would join me and she said yes. So, this morning we head off to the Riverview park activities center for a half hour work out before our day begins. Things go well until we go back out to the car only to realize that the key I had taken off my keychain before leaving the car was actually my truck key. Yup, I locked us out of the car. I felt really bad about this both because Haley was on a schedule to get some school stuff done today and the fact that this would probably not encourage her to come with me to work out again for a while.

Luckily we have the world's best insurance company, USAA. They had someone ("Eaze Lock") out there in 15 minutes and we were on our way. Not sure yet what the ramifications of this incidence will be on our future workouts together, but I'm hoping for the best.

We had dinner tonight with some medical school friends. We had a chance to catch up on school gossip. Apparently some Biochemistry professor was caught in one of the stairwells this past week pleasuring himself and was subsequently fired. Seriously, though. There was probably a bathroom stall within 50 feet of wherever he was or at least his office couldn't have been that far away. What prompts a dude to go to town in a stairwell? Don't really understand that one.

As I try to start thinking about school, I received one of my pathology textbooks in the mail today. Amazing how the previous version of a book can save you about 80 bucks off the current version's price. I don't think that much has changed about staff infections or acne over the past 6 years. I love the internet.

Marking territory

2007-07-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, June 12, 2007
12:52 AM

So my dog, bless his heart, went to mark a little territory and instead of yellow pee falling upon the small plant, it received a nice deuce. Yup, my dog lifts his leg to coil a steamer exactly as he does to mark his territory. It is really a sight to behold and luckily it wasn't a one time affair.

In other news, I have been away for quite a while. I have had many good intentions to start back up my blog and now that summer is well underway, it's never too late. I have had so many good stories that will most likely never make it to the blogosphere. For example, my phone went off in church and lets just say that I don't have a "standard" ringtone and that the one I have on it is not exactly "church appropriate." Luckily it was at my parents ward in Spokane, WA--on the other side of the country.

But really, summer is awesome. We are loving life as our summer travel season is well underway. After Spokane, Haley and I (and Gob) headed up to the GSMNP (great smokey mountain national park) for a little Thorpe family camping trip. We nearly burned the place down with what is probably the biggest fire that campfire ring has ever seen (oh, and by "campfire ring" I really mean a giant 12' diameter in the ground pit. The fire was awesome. I'll have to post some pictures.

Speaking of pictures, that is one of my big goals this summer, go through my zillions of pictures. I may take a good one every now and then, but I also take lots and lots of really crappy ones that I need to go through and delete. Up until now I have been too lazy to get it done, but now that we are looking into decorating our house with my photography, I am starting to go through them looking for some of the goodies.

Speaking of printing things out, I just ordered this $800 color laser printer for a mere $140 after a giant $350 mail-in rebate. This thing is supposed to print our fairly good pictures, though still not quite as good as a photo lab. Should be a lot of fun to use, though.

This is such a mumble jumble of thoughts… I really shouldn't blog after being out in the sun all day. But Alas it is 1:00am and I had a crystal light energy drink which contained 120mg of caffeine (same as a cup of coffee) as well as a coke zero and diet coke within the last couple hours. My cAMP levels are all maxed out. Yes, cAMP is a medical term that only describes how technical my life now is as I make my journey through the wonderful world of medicine.

Speaking of medicine, school and the pursuit of a medical degree is about the farthest thing from my mind right now. I mean, I have pretty much totally forgot that I am studying medicine right now as I plan our panama trip, not to mention all the other trips to we are thinking of going on. We'll be in Destin, FL until Thursday. Then this weekend we are headed to Savannah to shoot a wedding reception, then we are heading up to Atl so haley can teach a class on computers. We will probably stay up there for a week before heading down to Costa Rica. After getting back from central america, who knows what we will be up to. Maybe we'll get a little sleep.

go to the travelblog

2007-07-12T22:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't been as slack as it appears. I've just been frequenting my other blog: http://egberttravels.blogspot.com

it's been a while

2007-04-22T20:13:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I've been slacking. But that's why I'm writing now: To make up for that.

This weekend, my dad drove all the way down from new jersey to be with us for the weekend. I can't believe he found a way to fit that in his schedule, seeing as he drove down friday afternoon and left sunday afternoon without missing any of his TDY (militaryspeak for temporary duty assignment). My brother, his wife and their son are also in town. It was nice to have some of the family together for the weekend. We had a full day saturday going out to the lake on a picnic and then geocaching at a nearby trail.

As a sidenote, geocaching is our new hobby (yeah, this brings my hobby list to about 478 different hobbies). People go out into the woods and hide stuff in little containers and note the GPS coordinates on an online site. Then other people can go on the site, look up the coordinates and go hunt for the "cache." This is a game for those of us who never outgrew the hide and seek thing as a child. Yes it sounds kind of nerdy. Yes it IS kind of nerdy. Yes, Haley and I are nerds. I think we got my dad and brother's family interested in it so at least we wont be the only nerds in the world.

Haley and I are already planning on finding some caches in central america this summer.

Enough of the side note. Dad left today after eating our delicious Carrabas leftovers from last night. It was really good to see him. Our family really needs to get this whole east-coast/west-coast thing worked out so we can live close together...maybe someday.

Another quick side note: These pictures were not taken with my Nikon D200, but rather with my new phone, the W810i. With this awesome new phone (which is also an .mp3 player, 2mp camera, video camera, FM tuner, Voice recording--shall I go on?), comes new numbers. If you want them, email me.

The Sky Is Falling

2007-02-18T17:58:00.000-08:00

You ever get the idea that scientists are out to get us? Or is Hollywood just really on top of things? Check out this story of impending disaster involving the UN, Space flights, nuclear weapons, and impending doom. Apparently we are all gonna die in 2036. Luckily, by that time I will have finally graduated medical school, made a dollar or two, and hopefully will have had a little fun along the way. Of course I don't know if we'll make it to 2036 at our current rate of worldwide political shambles. To think Before 9/11, I thought we lived in such a happy tolerating world.

Brekky, V-Day Style

2007-02-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

Yeah, here is a picture of our buttermilk chocolate chip pancakes I made for breakfast (who says I'm not romantic?). I've also included a picture of Gob, after I let him lick some of the strawberry junk I made to put on top of the pancakes.

So, funny stories...A couple days ago, I mentioned to Andrew and Garrett that I wished they would post everybody's grade next to their name so we all knew how everybody else was doing. At the time I knew it was wishful thinking. Then yesterday, the DAY after I made the wish, one of our professors accidentally forwarded an email to our entire class that contained an excel spreadsheet with everybody's name and grade from this past test. Wow, I'm good. Oh, and there was an accompanying email, about an your later, asking everybody not to read the previous one. Of course by this time ;-), I had already opened and performed an extensive analysis on my classmates grades. It was good to see that I am in about the top 25% of my class, though I have to admit that I want to get that up a little. Nothing like a reality check on where you stand to give you a little oomph to step it up a notch. Of course, everybody in the class got the same "oomph," so we'll see how the next test goes. With the quick turnaround on this wish, I think I'm gonna ask for some rich uncle to leave me a couple mil so I can drop out of med school and travel the world. I'll keep you posted on this one.

On a side note, my truck was having starter problems the other day. I would turn the key and nothing would happen. I knew the battery wasn't dead, because it would start eventually without any problems. So, I figured it was the starter. I went and bought a new one and a book to figure out how to replace it. I figure if I am gonna fix things like brains and bones some day, I might as well be able to fix my car as well. Luckily, I am smart enough to call my dad on all things car related. He is kind of like me in refusing to allow anyone else to work on his car. I guess that's where I get it from. He put the thought into my mind that it probably isn't the starter. By this point, after talking to the guys at the auto store and researching on the internet, i was pretty sure that it was the starter. Not wanting to make an expensive mistake, however, I decided to crawl under the truck and wiggle the cables. Well, that actually worked. I haven't had any problems since.

Glycolysis Lecture

2007-02-08T20:14:00.000-08:00

I thought I would post my notes from one of my lectures today. I guess I am posting in order to vent about the amount of information we are dished out in a span of two hours (oh, and I had two other hours worth of information on Kidney acid/base balance as well today). Oh, and I will be tested on this on Monday (along with about two hundred pages of other information, ranging from genetics to signaling cascades, to membrane transport. It is like every other week I am studying for finals. I don't know what I am gonna do when I am trying to bring all this together next year for the boards.

Glycolysis - Biochemistry

all cells can undergo glycolysis
occurs in the cytoplasm
RBC's can only undergo glycolysis for energy
glucose - phosphate - lactate

Glucose - 2 pyruvate

can go to CO2 + H2O in presence of mitochondria and oxygen
if no mitochondria or O2, converted into lactate instead (add two H, through reduction)

anaerobic glycolysis - no oxygen

if converted into CO2 + H2O - Aerobic Glycolysis

RBC's

no mitochondria present
high O2 levels, but in absence of mitochondria, cannot undergo aerobic glycolysis
glucose converted into lactate only
cancer cells also convert gluc to lactic acid

still have mitochondria, but grow under hypoxic conditions
cells proliferate in the cancer tissue faster than vasculogenesis

can't make vasculature fast enough

however, even in presence of oxygen in the laboratory, still undergo anaerobic glycolysis

during change from normal to cancer, metabolic phenotype changes
theory behind is that when tumor cells use mitochondria for energy, can make a lot of ATP, but it comes with a price:

also produces reactive O2 species - converted into toxic metabolites
tumors don't want the toxic metabolites

glucose - lactic acid - only produces two net molecules of ATP

if converted to CO2 and H2O, will make 32 ATP

glucose to pyruvate -

1 NAD into NADH2 + H (NAD used up)

if you cannot regenerate the NAD, glycolysis will stop

when pyruvate into lactic acid, regenerate the NAD

this only happens in aerobic respiration (using mitochondria)
keeps the glycolysis going
purvate can now enter mitochondria to go to H2O and CO2

tumor cells are able to convert to lactic acid, thereby regenerating NAD without mitochondria

LA causes the surrounding area to become acidic (pH around 6)

tumor can't do anything with the LA, so dumps it into the surrounding
will not acidify under aerobic conditions because mitochondria takes care of pyruvic acid

normal conc of 1.4mM LA in body (RBC also dumps LA)

Glycolysis - don't need to know the sturcture of the intermediates

glucose converted to G6P (uses ATP, enzyme by GK) - irreversible
G6P reversibly converts to F6P (uses PGI - phospho-gluco isomerase)

rearranges 2nd carbon to a keto group

F1,6BP (fructose 1,6 bisphosphate) - uses ATP as source for phosphate group (mediated by PFK-1 - phosphofructokinase 1) - phosphorylates at C1

irreversible

F1,6BP broken directly down the middle using ALDOLASE

breaks at the 3C
makes DHAP (dihydroxyacetonephosphate) and GAP (glycerol...phosphate)
reversible reaction by PTI (phosphotrioseisomerase)
DHAP can convert to GAP

so, use Glucose and 2 ATP to covert to two molecules of GAP
GAP converted into 1,3BPG by GAPDH (GAP dehydrogenase)

1,3BPG has two phosphates
use Pi as the phosphate donor (this is why not a kinase, does not use ATP)
catalyzes an oxygenation-reduction reaction - removes 2 H

converts NAD to NADH + H
readily reversible reaction

1,3BPG is a high energy compound

means it gives off more E than ATP

C1 has the acid anhydride - high E bond
when hydrolyzed, can use the E from bond to convert ADP to ATP (is converted to 3PG)

uses PGK - phosphoglycerate kinase (ADP to ATP conversion, so a kinase)
this is a freely reversible reaction under normal conditions in the cell

irreversible in the laboratory

3PG converted to 2PG by PGM (phosphoglycerate mutase)

changes the location of the phosphate group from the 3 to the 2
freely reversible reaction

2PG converted to PEP by enolase (removal of a water molecule)

dehydration of 2PG - double bond to CH2
still linked by an ester linkage, but is an enol because of double bond
very high energy bond, even though is an ester linkage (usually low E)
when hydrolyzed convert 14.8KCal E
can now provide the energy to make ATP

PEP - Pyruvate (uses PK - pyruvate kinase)

irreversible reaction

know which ones are irreversible steps (GK/HK, PFK1, PK)

converted to lactate under certain conditions

converts nadh + h to nad using LDH (lactate dehydrogenase)

stuff to know: GAPDH

GAP to 1,3BPG using up a Pi
arsenate substitutes for Pi in this reaction

structurally very similar
arsenic toxicity recpaces the substrate
instead of phosphate, arsenate as the substrate

instead of 1,3BPG, you get 1-arseno3-P-glycerate

gives rise to 3PG + arsenate
highly toxic to the cell
GAPDH still active, just now catalyzes a different reaction

normally GAP to 3PG, energy source for ATP

in presence of arsenate, converted to the 1-arseno-3-p-glycerate
converted to 3PG, however, here you do not make that 1 molecule of ATP

so, look at ATP synthesis in cell with and without arsenic poisoning

normally -2ATP and +4ATP

net production of +2ATP

Arsenic poisoning: -2ATP, +ATP

net production of 0 ATP

Arsenic poisoning: RBC's lyse

this is not what kills you
arsenic can react with any protein in the body with a thiol group
ATP production is shut down all over the body because will substitute for the Pi normally used in ATP production

shuts down ATP production all over the body

substrate level phosphorylation - ATP made in absence of mitochondria and O2

2 steps in normal glycolysis
in presence of arsenic, one of the steps is bypassed by arsenate

shuts off ATP production
toxic to all cells
hemolytic anemia

Need to remember the enolate step:

inhibited by fluoride
used in laboratory to block glycolysis to do an accurate sugar count
gycolysis shut off by RBC

Need to remember 1,3BPG into 3PG producing 1 ATP using PGK

also can be converted to 2,3BPG and then to 3PG thereby sidestepping the direct route

No ATP production in this case
can happen in all cells, but especially in RBC's
2,3BPG important for O2 binding in RBC's
sigmoid O2 binding curve for RBC's - positive cooperativity

add 2,3BPG, decreases the O2 affinity, shifts the O2 binding curve to the right
does not change PO2 in lung because is maxed out
makes big difference in the tissues because of low PO2
Hb now releases O2 for the tissues to use

so, if you have a patient with a dissociation curve shifted to the right

patient has a higher than normal concentration of 2,3BPG in the cell as compared to normal

Reactions involved in Fructose and Galactose

Fructose: monosaccharide present in sucrose, fruit juices, honey

normal constituent in our diet
first converted into F1P (FK fructo-kinase)

broken down by F1P-aldolase into DHAP and glyceraldehyde

when defective, causes genetic disorder

DHAP can enter the glycolytic pathway
glyceraldehyde can be converted to GAP

Galactose: breast milk (lactose)

Galactose to Galactose1P by GK (galactose kinase)
converted to G1P by UDP glucose to UDP galactose

uses Galactose1P-uridil transferase

converted to G6P
UDP galactose to UDPgluc by another enzyme

Regulation of Glycolysis:

regulated at the irreversible reactions

HK/GK
PFK-1
PK

HK - all cells - high affinity to glucose

Km=0.1mM
G6P inhibits this enzyme

GK catalyzes the same reaction

only expressed in the liver and pancreas (organs responsible for blood gluc regulation)
glycogen storage in these places
low affinity enzyme, Km around 10mM
under low Gluc levels, does not operate (low Km)
regulated by inhibitors in liver and panc

inhibitory protein that can bind to GK - activity goes down
glucokinase-inhibitor complex
regulated by F6P (inhibits GK)

one of the intermediates in glycolysis

reverse reaction facilitated by F1P (activator of GK)

GK enzyme induced by insulin

insulin is a hypoglycemic hormone - will reduce blood gluc levels
insulin thereby gets the liver to undergo increased glycolysis
more insulin, lower the blood glucose levels

hormones that increase the gluc levels (ie, glucagon), linear relationship (when high, high gluc)

PFK-1 - most important regulatory enzyme of glycolysis

F6P to F1,6BP
inhibited and stimulated by certain compounds
inhibited by ATP and citrate

when they have a lot of ATP, will shut off pathways that stim ATP in cells
citrate is the starting point for the TCA cycle

stimulated by AMP, Pi, F2,6BP

when cells are E deficient, want to rev up glycolysis
Pi stimulates by providing substrate
F2,6BP activator of F1,6BP

not an intermediate in glycolysis

Liver:

glucagon is a hyperglycemic hormone

inhibits glycolysis by raising glucose levels in body

increases cAMP, increases PKA

PKA phosphorylates target proteins
regulates the levels of F2,6BP
F6P to F2,6BP by PFK-2 (differs from PFK-1)
reverse reaction mediated by F2,6BPase
regulates liver, on the same protein - PFK-2/F2,6BP-ase protein - target of PKA
so, gluc activates cAMP which activates PKA which activates PFK-2/F2,6BPase protein
PFK-2/F2,6BPase protein activation depends on whether or not is phosphorylated
so, glu - cAMP - PKA activated - PFK-2 inactive, F2,6BP-ase activated (breaks down F2,6BP)

F2,6BP level goes down
so, all this is controlled by phosphorylation of PFK-2/F2,6BP-ase

bottom like, glucose levels go up, cAMP up, decrease in F2,6BP

cAMP levels and F2,6BP have an inverse relationship

So, F2,6BP goes down which normally activates PFK-1

PFK-1 inactivated (which is the most important regulatory mechanism of glycolysis)

glycolysis goes down or shuts off

cAMP shuts off glycolysis in the liver (only in the liver)
cAMP normally turns on glycolysis:

Heart muscle - cAMP leads to an increase in glycolysis

this is what happens in a panic attach
adrenal medulla produces Epi
Epi to the heart tissue, increases cAMP in the cell

leads to an increase in F2,6BPlevels
direct relationship
PFK-2/F2,6BPase protein - uses a different gene for the same enzyme

has the opposite effect

Epi - increases cAMP - increased PKA - increase in PFK-2 activity - increase in F2,6BP, increases PFK-1, increases glycolysis
know difference between liver and heart in terms of cAMP

clinical conditions:

diabetes type I - no insulin
type II - insulin, but not active (resistance)

insulin activity goes down in both types
causes the glucagon activity to go up (glucagon and insulin are reciprocal)
glucagon/insulin ratio is higher than normal
causes cAMP to go up in liver - leads to F2,6BP decrease, PFK-2 down, Glycolysis decrease

leads to hyperglycemia

pyruvate kinase deficiency (PK)

gluc normally to PEP to Pyr through PK
if complete absence of PK, no survival
genetic muation leads to about 20% decrease of activity

hemolytic anemia due to RBC insufficiency (ATP depleted, lysis of RBC's)
leads to jaundice (Hb metabolism - bilirubin)
backup of all intermediates (buildup)

includes 2,3BPG (1,3BPG converts to 2,3BPG)
shifts O2 dissociation curve to the right
PK patients have increased 2,3BPG

Hereditary Fructo intolerance - (HFI)

F1-P-aldolase deficient

normally takes F1P to DHAP + glyceraldehyde
F1P builds up, leads to increased GK
beta cells of pancreas ramp up GK activity
follow effects of gluc, GK on the pancreas beta cells - leading to insulin secretion into the blood
GK stimulates insulin secretion
gluc - GK (ramped up)- ATP - Shuts K channels - depolar., increases Ca levels - insulin release

hyperinsulinemia
hypoglycemia
assoc with hyperuricemia (gout)
must avoid fructose in the diet

breast feeding okay

symptoms are vomiting, liver disease (F1P accumulation), jaundice - more bilirubin (dysfunctional liver)
be able to tell disease from the symptoms

Galactosemia - two types

galacto kinase defect (GK defect)

mild form - presence of cataracts are the only presenting symptom - easily treatable

G1P-uridil-transferase defect - more sever form of disease, assoc with cataract, and other problems

mental retardation
liver disease, jaundice

tx by avoiding galactose in the diet - no breastfeeding

incentives

2007-02-07T20:12:00.000-08:00

Today I realized how much I am like Haley's kids. I need incentives, I need a lot of them and I need them often. It gets hard when you study all the time to get excited about studying. It gets old and after putting in 6 hours in a given day it is easy to give up and say that is enough (and really, it probably should be). However, if I'm gonna get an A in biochemistry and physiology, I need to study a little more. You would think that getting an A is incentive enough, but that A doesn't come until the end of the semester, and my current standing isn't posted anywhere online where I can easily access it. So, the A incentive does not meet my criteria for incentives. Luckily, there are other little incentives that float in front of me every now and then that keep me focused. For example, I study with Andrew. He is really smart and I really want to be smarter than him (which will not happen any time soon, by the way). But, I study hard so that I can know the material better than him. Another incentive I have is the competitive residency interest group meetings that I go to. Today I attended the cardiology IG and the radiology IG. Both are very competitive fields that require good grades. At these meetings, they remind you how good your lifestyle can be and how good the money will be if you study hard now. Again, good incentive for me to put in those extra few hours at the end of the day.

Okay, my other incentive for going to study after I am done with this entry: I just discovered this new drink called "Vault" which drinks like a soft drink but kicks like an energy drink (or something like that). Anyway, it has like 4x the caffeine as my normal coke and I just finished polishing off a 20oz like a half hour ago and I am wired. Bring on the intracellular signal transduction cascades! I'm ready to make you mine.

a couple thoughts on doctoring

2007-02-01T19:27:00.000-08:00

Learning about genetics is a real eye opener. We barely finished sequencing the human genome within the past couple years and already there are new treatments flying out all over the place as a direct result of that project. We are just beginning to knock on the door of human disease as it relates to our human blueprint. As we decipher the raw data we are made of, we are learning at an accelerated rate what makes us tick, and what messes up our clockwork. We are finding mutations every day that cause normal Mendelian diseases (remember the green and yellow peas?) like sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis, not to mention the multifactorial diseases that involve a vast array of genes interacting with each other. As we find the root defect in these diseases, we are also finding ways to correct the problems.

Since being in medicine, I am convinced that gene therapy is the way of the future. I don't know what this will mean for mankind, but at the strides we are making in everyday diseases, I fully believe that in my lifetime I will see gene therapy moving to the front of the disease treatment line. It is a good time to be in the medical field, to be a part of the vast improvements in medical care that we will see. Of course when America adopts socialized medicine and we get rid of "evil profits," I imagine that the current rate of discovery and innovation will slow down, but that is another topic altogether.

Other thoughts on doctoring: Today, after visiting with a patient in the hospital (I'll call him Harry) I realized that I have no desire for general practice medicine. I don't think I am cut out for living my life in a constant struggle to fix people's lives. One of the problems with western medicine is a tendency to treat symptoms instead of disease, but when the vast majority of disease are not curable, what else can you do? I want to go into a specialty where I can fix things. Many people have things that are broken and I want to help them live better lives by taking care of that which I have control over. This is why I think I would like opthalmology, orthopedics, or some other type of surgery.

I don't see myself working with people on a day to day basis trying to bring about behavior change. I can't see myself working with diabetics, for example, trying constantly to bring their blood sugar under control in order to tame their heart disease, blood clots, and kidney failure. I'd rather fix broken bones, reconstruct noses, or fix eyes that aren't working.

C-Sections and a Political Rant

2007-01-31T20:37:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so here's a photo of my peach tree. I post it to show you both how nice it looked a couple days ago and to lament the loss of such marvelous buds as the last couple freezing nights have taken the flowers away. I am sure that by tomorrow, they will be little more than shriveled blobs on a bare tree.

In other news, today I got to see a c-section on the labor and delivery ward. I am taking an elective in anesthesiology where we get to go around and observe different anesthesiologists in action. My turn in the OB started with a meeting in the break room where we all huddled around the white board where all the patients were listed. The Dr. that was heading our group (let's call her Dr. LaGrange) gave us a brief overview on the current OB situation. You'd think that it would be pretty boring; it was anything but. One of the patients apparently belongs to a religion that believes in the refusal of all medical treatment. Well, this wouldn't normally be a problem, except that this lady was "severely preeclamptic" at 38 weeks of pregnancy. While I am not sure of all the symptoms, her heart rate was over 200/130 (yeah, that's a 130 diastolic pressure--not good). If that baby doesn't come within the next couple hours, she will probably die. She has signed an order to forgo any medical treatment to resuscitate her and ordered the same for the baby. If you are like me, you are probably wondering why this lady ever checked herself into the hospital in the first place. If you are going to refuse all medical treatment, then just have the baby at home with a midwife or something. But then as we talked more about the case and how unfair it all seemed to the child, Dr. LaGrange brought up the fact that it was Georgia law to protect the life of the child, even if the mother desires otherwise. I think this lady came in because she knows she is in pretty bad shape. She knows that she can deny herself medical treatment, but can't do so for her unborn child. This way, in the back of her mind, she has a way out of the guilt associated with killing her child. "Well, I told them not to, but they went ahead and saved my child's life, which is what I wanted anyway." I sincerely hope that some kind of a miracle happened and she already had that baby. And then there is the question of what to do in those states who don't have laws regarding the child in this case. I think I would throw the parents wishes aside and save the baby. So sue me.

I just realized that this will be a long blog entry. Sorry. The c-section was cool. You wouldn't believe how white the fat is when you cut into the belly. It was glistening and pearly, bleached white. I was also surprised how little blood there is with that initial incision. Of course when you get deeper down and start cutting the abdominal muscles there is quite a bit more blood, but still, most c-sections are done without a blood transfusion. This impressed me after I learned that the heart sends about a fifth of your blood to the uterus in a minute--meaning they have to work fast. While we "helping" to set up for the procedure, Dr. LaGrange was working with one of her residents. He seemed nice enough, but Dr. LaGrange was treating him like crap. I felt bad for the dude, as it seemed he could do nothing right. Every little thing he did seemed to annoy Dr. LaGrange and she let him know it. I couldn't believe the way she was talking down to him, as though he was a 7-year old child. Dr. LaGrange was really nice to all of us in the class, but it kind of scared me that maybe that is how all attendings treat residents. I really hope that is not the case, but I'll be sure to let you all know in a couple years.

So, back to the c-section. It was really cool to see the baby pop out of the uterus. It was so bizarre to see something so human come out of a large gaping hole in a woman's abdomen. Seeing it in real life was quite the experience and I was glad to be a small part of it (albeit a very small part--I injected some drug into the lady that was supposedly 80x more potent than morphine). Oh, and one of my classmates totally passed out during the procedure. We were standing on these little footstools against the wall observing, when all of the sudden she crashed to the ground, bumping her head as she landed. To her credit, it wasn't because of anything she couldn't handle (it was towards the end when she passed out, during a rather boring part), but rather that she had locked her legs for a good while and blood wasn't reaching her head.

Oh, and Before I end this one, I wanted to make a small political rant. I don't believe so much in democracy in this country. Well, I believe in democracy, just that I don't think what we do is democracy. Politicians pick who they are gonna have run for president in the primaries. They pick from amongst themselves. In the end, when we head to the polls to pick a president, we are picking from two different people, who were picked out by politicians. Sure, we have a choice, but I don't feel my vote counts because the people who I want to vote for, who have the same ideals as myself, aren't one of those two running for president. Yeah, I voted for Bush in the last election, but I really don't know why. Yeah, he was the lesser of two evils, but is that what democracy is supposed to be? I thought it was voting for that which makes sense to me. Voting for what I want, not voting for the person who has offers the least bad stuff. I'd much rather vote for someone who has the most good stuff. In the next election when I have to chose between Hilary and Gulianni, I won't really want either of them.

Amateur Sketch, as promised

2007-01-29T20:07:00.000-08:00

Yup, here I am in all my glory shooting that AK-47. Even though I was kind of bummed when I forgot my camera, I feel I made up for it through this personal rendition of the event. If you were to follow that bullet all the way out to the target, you would see that it hit the center of the bull's eye (no bigger than a dime) from 25-30 yards out. But seriously, I forgot to mention that in my previous post. I was the only one to hit the bull's eye all day, and I did it with an AK-47 (without a scope). I was proud of myself.

Oh, and the other part of the story that I forgot to mention. Later that night, Haley and I attended a wine and cheese party with some of our med school buddies. I hope to post some pictures of that event as the pictures become available (I didn't take my camera, and am waiting on people to email me). But I was talking to some second year med students and they wanted to know who I went shooting with. Though I had no intentions of telling them who in the area had a small arsenal that Charlton Heston would be proud of, they pushed me when I told them it was someone they all knew. I gave in and revealed the professor's name. I am hoping that one doesn't haunt me later on when this person asks why I am spreading rumors about his armageddon bunker.

Guns and Such

2007-01-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

I have a new favorite gun. Now, I'm not in any way a gun person, but I challenge any of you to go shoot an AK-47 for the first time and not get a rush out of it. The event was organized by my church (who says LDS people don't have any fun?), and it just happens that one of my medical school professors also goes to my church and also happens to be ex-special forces. Yeah, he had a LOT of nice guns. I learned a lot about my personal tastes for guns. For example, a .38 caliber handgun is quite manageable. On the other hand, a 44-magnum is too much gun for me (though my professor's 12-year old son seemed to really like it--it nearly hit him in the head from the recoil after every shot). the .22 rifle seemed a bit weak. Oh, and then there was the fully automatic machine gun. I'm not sure if those are legal, so I'll leave names out of this entry. The machine gun took 36 bullet cartridges and you could whiz through those in a couple seconds if you wanted to. Of course, by the time you were getting to the end of the magazine, you would be shooting somewhere behind you from the recoil. That was a fun one. I gotta tell you, though, I really liked that AK. They say if you are ever gonna learn how to shoot a gun, it might as well be an AK-47, seeing as it is by far the most popular rifle in the world. Really, though, it is pretty sexy. Maybe I've been watching too much 24, but shooting guns is cool. I was pretty upset with myself when I realized that I forgot my camera, and for this reason, I am planning on putting together an amateur sketch of myself with the AK and posting it sometime in the next couple days.

In other news, Gob enjoys helping us with the dishes.

Quiet Voice

2007-01-22T08:49:00.000-08:00

So, you know that guy from undergrad who didn't have a quiet voice. You know, that dude in the library that would ask you a question at full street volume? That guy, who when you see him coming over, causes you to hide your face in your copy of "Harper's Illustrated Biochemistry for Medical Students" in hopes that he will ask someone else. Well, that guy happens to study in the same corner as the library as me. He has only one volume, and it is LOUD. I actually told him to shush the other day, not on purpose but rather as a natural reaction to an abnormally loud volume.

Oh, and here's my other funny story. I'm not really into the social networking sites as much as many of my peers are. I only recently created a myspace and facebook account years after most people. I have been lazy at keeping up with my myspace account because I don't have that many friends that use myspace. Then the other day, out of the blue, I receive an email telling me that someone made a comment on myspace. So I check the site to find the following message "Hey, you are a freak." The message came from an old high school friend that I haven't talked to in years. I thought it was kind of a strange comment to make, so I went over to his myspace site to see what was going on. When the page loads, I don't immediately notice anything unusual. Then I scroll down to find rather strange pictures posted on his "wall" (the comments section). One of photos was of two cats sitting next to each other, one with his arm around the other and the caption read "lets be friends." There was another with a picture of a smiling, pointing Jesus with the caption "Y'all going straight to hell!" Well, I thought those were kind of strange. Then I noticed something even stranger: My username and picture were next to the pictures, saying that I had put them there. Thoroughly perplexed, I shared this with my buddy, Andrew, who I was studying with at the time. Andrew just happens to be another myspace contact and told me that I had been posting really strange things on his wall also. He had been meaning to talk to me about it, but it had apparently slipped his mind. So, I go to his site and see more pictures, this time even more crude in nature. One was of a baby looking at a pornographic magazine with the caption "mmmmm, milk," once again with my picture and name by it. This was starting to concern me at this point, and I checked other contacts on my list. It turns out that I had sent one to an old friend from high school that had a scantily clad girl sitting in bed with the caption "call me when you hit Lotto."

I later called my brother, who is very big into myspace, facebook, and all things related to internet social networking. He told me that I had also posted strange things to his site including to check out a link to the "best butts on myspace 2007 awards." He also told me that it means someone hacked into my account and was using my username to post on other people's webpages. OOps. I ended up changing my password, which I hope will solve the problem. Otherwise, I guess I'll delete the account in order to stop scaring off old friends.

Gotta Love My Scrubs

2007-01-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

A bad case of ADWS

2007-01-04T19:17:00.001-08:00

From Odds and Ends

All the symptoms are there. I am experiencing sadness, cravings, emptiness, and instability. I don't know how I am going to get through the next couple days, let alone the coming months/years. I knew when I was getting involved, that the resource was limited and that I should partake in steady amounts. If I got too involved too quickly, I would go through the very thing that now plagues me. But once things got started, I couldn’t help it. I was high on good times, laughing constantly. Unfortunately, like many out there, I got involved too late. By the time I found myself addicted, I knew there would come an end. My supply was going to be cut off. I knew it would not be pretty, yet I needed the instant gratification and sense of well-being the emanated from partaking of this indulgence.

Yes, I am talking about the show Arrested Development. How I will miss Tobias' homosexual innuendos. I will miss George Michael's forays into the forbidden fruit of cousin love. Buster, I hope you get that hot nurse that was only in love with you only because you were comatose. Michael, may you find happiness in whatever you do next. Lindsay, I hope you are finally able to have that affair on your husband that you have been craving for so long. Maybe, be strong and good luck with the family signing the rights over to make a movie. Lucille, good luck in jail with the new SEC investigation. George, be strong and enjoy your retirement down in Cabo. And last, but not least of all, Gob. I hope the alliance finally lets you back in, you deserve it and so does Franklin.

And now, I bid you adieu as I go through the shakes and cold sweats associated with Arrested Development Withdrawal Syndrome.

From Odds and Ends

PS, Haley is going through an addiction of her own, CBA (Computer Boggle Addiction). Mainly this stems from the false belief that she was invincible at Boggle, until one night we played with Garrett and Hannah, who wiped the floor with our trash (or asses, as a bishop I once lived with put it). She is now determined to win back her title and is practicing every free minute she has.

George Oscar Bluth III Franklin Egbert

2006-12-31T23:27:00.000-08:00

From Odds and Ends

The current position in which Haley and I find ourselves is that we are not ready for children. We feel we are not ready for that level of responsibility (plus, some say I am a tad on the immature side - but seriously, DO fart jokes ever get old?). So, we decided to give it a practice run with a dog.

It is perhaps a miracle that little Gob has joined our family because this was the one issue that Haley and I have never agreed on. Adamantly against dog ownership, stemming from an attack from a "large, black dog" at a young age, Haley had laid down the law early on. We were not going to be a dog family. Haley and I often argued over this point, and as is the case with all Thorpe women, the man always loses. You see, losing is not an option for a Thorpe woman.

This summer brought many changes to the Rob and Haley Egbert family, as we moved to North Augusta, SC, bought a house, and I started medical school. This series of events led to me (Rob) being away for longer periods of time as I studied. Haley was stuck at home and found herself watching "Days of Our Lives" alone (not that I ever watched it with her :-). This led to a tinge of loneliness. Luckily I had been pressuring the idea dog ownership for some time now, slowly sowing the seeds of change. Then one day it happened: Haley remarked "I think I want a dog." I had been waiting for those words for years.

From Odds and Ends

And so the search began. Haley was instantly drawn to the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. It turned out that those dogs are as expensive as they sound. Luckily, we later found out that I was allergic to spaniels, with their high shedding and dander (this came after looking into some Springer Spaniels which gave me an asthma attack). So the search now focused hypoallergenic dogs that would allow me to breathe in my own house. After numerous google image searches, we decided that we may like the "Cockerpoo," which is a mix between a Cocker Spaniel and a Poodle. Yeah, It sounds like a wussy dog, but I assure you that after you do a google image search of your own, you will see that these dogs look better than their name suggests.

We finally found a breeder down in the sprawling metropolis of Millen, Georgia. We were able to choose between a couple different siblings and ended up choosing Gob. The name comes from our current infatuation with the largely unnoticed yet wildly entertaining "Arrested Development." If you have not had a chance to get into that show, we highly recommend it.

From Odds and Ends

Gob supposedly comes from a Cocker mother and a Poodle father (yeah, I know, the cocker should be on the boy and all poodles seem female…we hope Gob won't grow up too confused). However, we think Gob is part bear and part Chewbacca, though he is far too big of a whiner to play either role. He is a good dog, however being the puppy that he is, anything and everything is a toy. He has a very small attention span and enjoys making grunt sculptures and leaving them in random places in the kitchen when we least expect it. In fact, he went drilling for mud bunnies tonight when we went over to Garret and Hanna's house for New Year's. We were quite embarrassed as he coiled a steamer in the corner of their dining room, behind the table. The funny thing was that we were watching him constantly and he hadn't been out of our site for more than three seconds. Those barbarians must have been knocking at the gate for him to have gone so quickly.

Another favorite pastime of Gob's is to violate his stuffed elephant. Sure, he likes to pretend that he is merely chewing on it, but then out of the corner of our eye, we see him getting fresh with the little grey Dumbo. Yes, he has a long way to go, but we are excited to welcome into our lives. In efforts to share with you a little piece of the life of Gob, I put together the following video. I hope you enjoy it.

First Medical Advice

2006-12-30T14:27:00.000-08:00

During finals, I went to a neurology interest group meeting to grab a bite of pizza. I actually enjoyed this one, as I learned a little bit about headaches. Incidentally, I also learned ten reasons to never had sex (but that will have to wait for another entry).

So, it turns out that all headaches are migraines. Well, not all of them, but pretty much every headache both I and you have ever had were migraines. That is, unless you have had a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage, a coital headaches (one of the reasons to not have sex), or a brain tumor (there may have been others). It turns out that basically all headaches from mild to severe are migraines. They come on by the same means and have the same symptoms, though some are more severe.

When you have a headache your stomach shuts down and digestions stops. This includes the pumps that make stomach acid, which is what digests the medicine that you take for migraines. So, if it seems as though your medicine does not work, or works slowly, it is because the medicine is not getting into your system. One way to get it in their faster is to crush the medicine and drink it with carbonated soda. Apparently that will get it into your system faster.

The other day, I had a headache. I tried the above advice that I am now giving and it seemed to get rid of my headache faster than normal.

Sylva

2006-12-25T17:40:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, some fellow first-years invited us up a cabin in North Carolina. Just outside the small town of Sylva, it offered beautiful mountain scenery while relaxing on a huge porch. It was so nice to do nothing after a long semester of studying and taking tests. It was also a nice break for Haley, who has been stressed out with raising 20 or so dysfunctional children in fourth grade (I say "raise" because what Haley does is the closest thing to child rearing those children will ever see--most of them only have one parent, and usually it is a grandparent or uncle, who don't discipline the children). So, yeah, it was a nice break for her too.

The cabin was great. It is owned by Bob and Danielle Hosker's family and they were great hosts. We just sat around and talked for two days straight, with a little hiking, tree-climbing, game-playing, and movie watching (A River Runs Through It) in between. I wouldn't have minded spending a week up there, but other things were calling our name (like getting a dog). We are already talking about going back up there, maybe for a white-water rafting trip in the spring.

...it depends on who payed for my pizza this week

2006-11-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

This is an old entry that I hadn't posted, so here it is now:

Today I attended an ophthalmology interest group. I didn't attend because I was interested in the specialty, but rather because I woke up late and was not able to make a lunch. They served pizza. Having said that, I found myself really interested in the field. Apparently it is easy to make half a million a year and if you wanna work as much as 70 hours a week, it is pretty easy to make over a million. And then as an ophthalmologist you restore people's sight. The field is not very demanding in terms of getting a residency or workload.

Then as I walked away from the meeting, I realized what is happening to me. All these interest groups talk up their professions, and my weekly specialty aspirations are directly related to the weekly interest group I attend. So, yeah, my medical ambition is directly tied to who pays for my pizza on any given week.

Connections

2006-11-09T07:53:00.000-08:00

From Fall Colors a...

Yeah, I should totally by studying right now, but I have been neglecting my blog lately, so I thought I would punch out a little entry. Things have been good lately. Granted, I have been studying like mad, but I have been doing it during the day so I can relax with Haley when I get home in the evenings (which is usually around 6:00). On non-test weeks, medical school seems fairly doable. Of course when test weeks roll around, I quickly remember why med school gets such a bad rap for being difficult.

There are lots of different styles and people in medical school...Those that don't go to class and don't study until the week before the test. Some do quite well and others suffer. Then there are those students who go to class in the morning, then go home, take a nap, run errands and study in the evening and on weekends. There are those who don't go to class, use the "notetakers" service and do all independent study and do phenomenally well. I'm rather jealous of them, not because they are more intelligent than I am (which they probably are) but because they seem to put in less work and get more done...it is almost like cheating.

Before these past two weeks, class seemed to be rather useless. I would follow the lectures on my handout and highlight anything that looked as though it could be important. I didn't learn much and when I later would study the handouts, it was as though I was looking at it for the first time. I have now changed gears and try to take extensive notes on my laptop. Not only is lecture now useful, but I am learning the information much faster (and maybe even better).

Anyway, I wasn't going to write so much about school in this entry as I was going to talk about making connections. A military brat, I have moved all my life. I don't usually keep up with my friends as I move from place to place, but I am finding that the internet is making it much easier to do. I recently discovered something that every other college-aged person in America already knows about: www.facebook.com. It is a cool website that allows you to keep up with friends from school. I have found a couple high school friends (who I haven't talked to in over 10 years, partly because my high school no longer exists). Recently, a college friend found me and it randomly turns out that she ended up marrying one of my wife's really good friends growing up. And then it turn out they they are really good friends (again, randomly) with one of my good friends growing up. Yeah, it's a strange and sometimes very small world we live in.

From Fall Colors a...

As long as the title of this entry is "connections" I thought I would complain about how I am going to have to start making connections as I think about why type of medicine I would like to practice. I am trying to focus on getting good grades right now, but I also need to be thinking about meeting people in different fields that interest me so I can figure out how to land a competitive residency spot. It is kind of scary when I think of how little I know about getting into a residency, let along which residency I want to get into. It's kind of frustrating, but hopefully I can learn a thing or two next semester.

The above picture is one of Haley and I this past Sunday.

So I asked myself, "self...

2006-10-25T19:54:00.001-07:00

From Volcan Maderas

There I was driving home when I saw this person next to me driving while doing a number of things. We all get a little peeved when some idiot is driving while talking on the cell phone. Yeah yeah, we've all seen that. Well, this person was not only talking on the phone, he was also working his iPod. Yeah, that's right, while talking on the phone. But what more, you ask? He was also fidgeting around with what looked like a GPS unit. The funny thing about this story is that it was me that was doing all those things. While this was going on, I asked myself "self, is this the best idea?" I figured it wasn't, but then again I did want to chart my way home so I could determine my average speed, change in elevation, and total trip time. And then, of course, I had to make sure that the iPod wasn't just playing any old Jack Johnson songs, but rather ones that I had previously labeled with four or five stars. And finally, I had to call my baby to let her know I was on my way home. It was a good thing I told her I loved her because that could have very well been the last time I spoke to her, with the way I was driving and all. Retrospectively, I don't think I'll do that again. Gadgets will probably be my downfall.

PS, the picture has nothing to do with my blog entry, I just like this one of Haley.

Headless Horseman

2006-10-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

From Pumpkin carvi...

Yeah, lots to say. First off, yesterday I had a huge, boring, long test day. It started by me waking up at 5:30am to study a little more before my test at 8:00. That test lasted until 10:00 or so. Then I go to my histology lab practical which lasts another two hours. Then I get screwed and have to go in the last out of four groups to take our anatomy lab practical just after 4:00pm. So, I study the remainder of the afternoon in the library. I was tired, probably in a bad mood, and sick of school by the time that anatomy test started. We had planned to go visit Garrett and Hannah to carve some pumpkins, but around 3:00 or so, that was the last thing I wanted to do. I just wanted to go home and crash. The only reason I share this long and relatively uneventful story is to share the feelings of joyous elation I felt as I left the anatomy lab after that test. I was in the best mood for the rest of the evening and ended up making the coolest pumpkin of all time (see picture above).

Oh, and this story does have a good ending: I got a nice grade on the test.

My Brother's Wedding Video

2006-10-18T12:50:00.001-07:00

Brought to you by Haley (I did the pictures and she put the video together).

No, I'm not going to get you caught up

2006-10-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

Jon and Shana

Way too much has been going on to update the world on me. Instead, I'll give the low down on the current events in my life. Med school is awesome, though very time consuming. When I mention to my preceptors that they are keeping me busy, they only respond by telling me that I have no idea. I don't know what that means, but I imagine it refers to my third and fourth year, not to mention residency and then, of course, my career as a physician. I'm hanging in there and even enjoying myself a little along the way.

Our good friends Jon and Shana came into town this weekend and we went up to Atlanta to see them. We had fun visiting with each other, visiting Amicolola Falls, Burt's pumpkin patch, and then the N. Georgia Premium outlets (Haley and I had a first in that we didn't spend a dime--of course that's easy to do when you don't have any money).

Click on the Picture to see more.

Barry and Levonne 240 dollars worth of puddin

2006-10-08T10:08:00.000-07:00


From MTV's the State. One of my favorite clips of all time. Thanks to my old IT buddy, barry for originally showing this to me.

So, apparently I am famous

2006-10-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

White coats confer trust, responsibility on students

by Kim Miller

Family and friends of first-year medical students at the Medical College of Georgia learned at the 2006 Family Day that a physician’s white coat is more than a garment.

“The purpose of this is symbolism,” said MCG President Daniel W. Rahn at the 11th annual White Coat Ceremony held Sept. 9 at Warren Baptist Church.

“I would suggest that once I put on a white coat and stand in front of you, it’s difficult to view me in the same way, that there really is symbolic significance that is associated with our professional dress,” he said as he left the podium to exchange his suit coat for his white one.

The White Coat Ceremony was initiated in 1993 by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation at Columbia University. It serves as a rite of passage for medical students who, under close faculty supervision, will begin interacting with patients as part of their coursework.

“The white coat symbolizes the trust and the respect our society places in us as physicians,” explained Dr. Ruth-Marie E. Fincher, MCG vice dean for academic affairs. “It symbolizes the relationship between physicians and their patients, that the physician cares and has the right and the responsibility to cross social norms and invade the personal life of the patient through probing questions and probing hands.”

The coat symbolizes a great responsibility and if not worn correctly can impede communication and suggest entitlement or superiority, she added.

“My hope for all of you today is that you will receive and wear proudly your white coat bearing two things in mind,” Dr. Fincher said. “First, please keep your coat clean. It will wash well and I do not want to see you in a white coat with a ring around the collar or dirt around the cuffs… and secondly, wear your white coat as a symbol of your heartfelt compassion and professional commitment in all you do.”

Andy Nagar, a fourth-year medical student and president of his class, gave several examples of how the white coat invited him into the lives of his patients. He was particularly touched by a 24-year-old patient with AIDS.

“After spending several days with her and earning her trust, she shared with me the story of three unplanned pregnancies beginning at the age of 12,” he said. “In the last days of her stay, she shared her memories of a difficult life, in part because I took the time and in part because she identified my white coat as a sign I was there to care for her rather than to judge her.”

School of Medicine Dean D. Douglas Miller gave a brief history of the white coat before introducing the ceremony’s keynote speaker, Dr. Walter Moore, dean of graduate medical education and recipient of the class of 2006’s Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award provided by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.

“Professionalism is the basis of medicine’s contract with society,” Dr. Moore said in his address to the class of 2010. “It demands placing the interest of patients above those of the physician, setting and maintaining standards of competence and integrity, and providing expert advice to society in matters of health.”

Along with the values of partnership and excellence, Dr. Moore encouraged students to embrace the opportunities afforded to them for personal and professional growth.

“There are many individuals who miss opportunities in life,” he said. “Thomas Edison, the most prolific American inventor in our history with over 1,000 patents, opined as to why so many people missed opportunities. I quote, ‘Opportunity is missed by most people because it’s dressed in overalls and it looks like work.’

“I guarantee you have work to do,” said Dr. Moore with a smile.

White Coat Ceremony

2006-09-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, no laughing. But you can laugh at the very funny looking dude directly behind me to the right of the photo. He is my class president. Yes, he looks really funny here. That is Dr. Ruth Marie Fincher helping me with my jacket. She ran a marathon last year.
Medical school is going well, keeping me busy. My second test rocked (especially when compared to the first one). I was kind of sad that I could only do average after what I felt was a good deal of work and studying on that first test. On the second one, I did just as much, if not slightly less studying and happened to score a full 10 percentage points over the average (don't worry, Dr. H., there is hope for me yet). I was very happy of hear of the difference in my grade vs. the average, but was confused as to why I did so well on this one versus the last test. Then I remembered that I am an econ major, graduated two years ago, and the first test was on cell biology. Seeing as everybody else in my class was a bio major, they had distinct advantage over me. Sorry if that sounds a little cocky, as it is, but after not getting in to med school until the third try you start to doubt yourself a little. Rocking that test gave me some welcomed vindication.

So, maybe I don't have to become a plumber…

2006-08-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

So, no new entries in a while. I simply don't have the time. Yesterday I finally told Haley about a hilarious thing that happened to me a week ago. I couldn't believe that I hadn't already told her, and then I realized how much time I have been spending with my notes and textbooks.

So, here's the hilarious story that I had forgotten to share with Haley. In class, they give us practice at becoming doctors (this is only a small part of the course load, and to be honest, it only seems to take precious anatomy study time away from me). Anyway, I am practicing with a fellow MALE classmate in front of two observers, one another classmate and the other my preceptor. As the patient, I was given the role of flirtatious. Yeah, I had to act that one out with a male classmate. It was rather odd.

I have been studying non-stop for the past week and a half. Literally, after class until about 12:30 every night (at least the last couple nights). I'm not crazy, its just that today was our first test. It composed of 83 questions, first thing in the morning. Straight after class, We had another two hour lecture, that I have consequentially been studying all day (we have a test on that stuff next Friday). Given how much I studied for that test, you would have thought that I couldn't have possibly missed any questions. Well, it was a tough test that covered a TON of material. I got the average grade, which I will not divulge, which I am really happy with. Considering that I am in a class of geniuses and overachievers, who studied just as hard as I did, I am happy with my average grade. As long as there were geniuses and overachievers who did worse than me, I am happy.

That whole competing against only yourself stuff is such bull. We are all competing for residency positions, for patients, and for money the rest of our lives. Having said that, MCG is great because everyone is out to help each other out. I have met some great people to study with and we all help each other out. Sure we are competing, but at least we are cordial about it. Luckily I didn't get the high grade in the class, otherwise I would have nowhere to move in the class. At least in the middle, I have options.

I'm all for feminism

2006-08-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is a little side note. One of my teachers (a staunch feminist) showed us this slide in lecture. She introduced it saying that these things called caspases act as the executioner in the cell, killing everything inside. So, she goes on to explain, she searched for a picture of a hatchet on the internet to portray these executioner caspases. She came across this picture and said the following when she showed it to the class "here we see the woman doing (as in real life) all the work. There you see the man telling the woman what to do, and whether told to or not, we see the woman doing all the work." At this point the class was all laughing riotously. Trying to make a feminist joke, she turned the tables. This picture, of course, shows George Washington's father disapproval of his son's chopping down of his cherry tree. It has nothing to do with a man telling a woman what to do.

That is what the elves call the justice of the unicorns.

...dude

2006-08-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

When they say that medical school is like being fed information through a fire hose, they weren't kidding. I have learned more this week than the past two years combined (not counting practical information learned at derm and vein). From embryonic development to muscles of the neck to mitochondria and the electron transport chain to critiquing doctor-patient interactions, the first week of school has been intense. I think my pattern is going to be lecture from 8-12 in the morning, followed by some intense studying from 12:30-6:00pm. That way I can save my evenings to spend with Haley and hopefully limit my study time on the weekends.

I was going to do more studying this weekend than what I ended up doing. What can I say? The garage needed organizing, the cars needed their oil to be changed, and the lawn needed a good mowing. I didn't even crack a book on Saturday and put off all the studying until today. And then Haley and I, in an effort to be social, had people over to the house on Saturday and Sunday. Luckily, I did get in a couple hours of study today.

Back to school. It is a lot of fun, as I am getting to meet tons of new people. I don't know if being married forces you to lose any inhibitions and shyness I had as a single person, but my ability to make new friends has really grown in recent years. I think it is because Haley is the only person I care about impressing any more these days, so I just go all out. I even went a played soccer on Friday with a bunch of MSI's and MSII's (referring to medical school year I and II, respectively). Us MSI's, whooped up on the second years, the final score being 7 to 0. I am sure we hurt their egos. That isn't to say that I did anything of note during the hour and a half of play. In fact, I felt like I was going to die just trying to keep up with the rest of the team. I had the incredible foresight to bring a black shirt to play in the 99 degree weather. Being horribly out of shape didn't help things too much either.

I better shut this one down, seeing as how week two of MSI starts in a meager 6.5 hours. Good night and good luck. May your week involve less thinking than mine will.

Day 1

2006-08-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

First day of medical school went off with a bang. I got stuck on the 13th street bridge going into Augusta for about 15 minutes, which made me late for class, and then when I finally got to school, I couldn't find an access road to get into the parking lot, so I parked in the center lot, which I am not supposed to do. So I walk into class 10 minutes after lecture started. Luckily there was a seat on the front row and I could hide in a corner. Then after anatomy lab, I realized I had forgotten my lunch at home. Luckily I didn't get a ticket, I didn't miss anything important at the beginning of class, and there was some cheap pizza in the cafeteria I could eat.

I am definitely starting medical school on the right foot. Actually, today was a really good day, apart from the preceding paragraph. We started off first thing in the morning dissecting our cadavers. It was incredible. I can't believe how much ground we covered in the first few hours of medical school. We observed all the major muscles of the back, many of the nerves, and then we dissected through the vertebrae to reach the spinal cord. From the looks of the cadaver, I don't know if I am cut out for surgery. Oh, and I don't eat red meat any more. I honestly think I am giving up pot roast. From here on out, it is chicken and fish for this sailor.

I am getting to meet a lot of cool people in school. Everybody seems really glad to be there and eager to get to know each other and help one another out. Tonight, Haley and I went bowling with the class. In fact, they have an activity planned for every night of this week. I don't think we will make it out to the rest of them, though. Medical school is going to be tough, but I think I am going to love it.