Residency Application Time

Yes, it's that time. Application time. The most dreaded of all times. Thus readeth the scriptures:

"And lo, the time soon cometh when he who is required to borrow and spend shall be yet again servitude to the Church of the Online Application, and yea, it doth verily cost much money. And yea, it doth require much time and effort. And yea, it doth even break the will of the soul to continue living, and it forceth he who is required to borrow and spend to declare himself quasi-suicidal, yea, even ready to terminate all his doings in the State of the Frozen Corn, and open the Temple of the Taco in the Land of Pineapples & Hula Skirts." 2nd Cheeler, 65: 190.

The worst part of any application, imo, is the "personal statement" portion. I HATED doing this for med school. It was the biggest piece of smoke-blowing garbage ever written by man. My residency statement may not be too much further from that. Here's what I've got so far:

"Internal medicine is awesome. Or, at least it doesn’t suck as much as other fields do. Especially surgery -- man, that was just plain horrible. Really, I just want to play World of Warcraft all day and night. But, I guess this will do. Vote for me, and all of your wildest dreams will come true."

Thoughts? I think it's a winner. UCSD, here I come.

RIP, LeRoi.

I want to get back into blogging more regularly. I've been inspired by some of the ridiculous and witty posts my siblings have made. Anyway, tonight I was kind of thinking about what I could write, and since I'm running a bit out of time, I decided to just a lil' "music video of the week," as I've done in the past.

Sidenote:

When I was on my general surgery rotation a couple of weeks ago (see also: six weeks of hell) I had a pretty cool cardiothoracic surgeon on my team. He was a quiet guy from Bangladesh. Despite appearances, he was a really nice dude. He still made me do scutmonkey work and stand for hours on end holding retractors or cameras like a slave, but he was a good dude. I bring this up because he was also the most music saavy doctor I've met to date. Two things were a must before this guy entered the operating room: 1) the patient needed to be sedated and a urinary catheter placed (my job), and 2) his iPod plugged in with his personalized playlist running (also my job). I didn't really mind either task. One of the things I greatly enjoyed was hearing the Dave Matthews Band come on his playlist while we were operating. I used to love the DMB. Every day, every hour I could, I was listening to them. I had all of their albums -- including the repetitive and drawn-out live ones -- and eagerly tried to play all the songs on guitar like Dave could. It was quite the musical obsession if you will, and I enjoyed this eclectic reminder of my youth while entrenched in the "guts and glory" of trying to pursue a career in medicine.

PS: What have a gotten myself into?!?!?!

Anyway . . . reflecting on this experience, I decided to put up a music video from the DMB on my blog this evening. While browsing the all-powerful internet, I came upon a news story from August of this year, reporting that the saxophonist from the band, Leroi Moore, had past away from complications of a motor vehicle accident. Very sad, he was only 46.

Is it strange that I feel sad that a tiny part of my adolescence is officially over now that the Dave Matthews Band will never be the same that I once knew?

Rest in peace, LeRoi. Your music with live on in the operating rooms of the University of Iowa. And my iPod.

Here's one of my favorite songs by the DMB (Leroi not included).

Is it Safe?

Sorry it's been awhile since I've made a post.

There's only 3 weeks left of this, my second year of medical school. Question: is it safe to dance?

Krazy

It's 1AM and I'm working on this write-up on a patient I saw over a week ago. As soon as I started talking to the guy I realized he was totally crazy. I have to appear professional and clinical in my note though . . .

What I have to write:
"Mental Status: Oriented to person, place, and time with respect to day and month – but believes the year is 2004. Maintains eye contact, except for short periods of time where he seems to close his eyes to maintain concentration when responding to an open-ended question. Changes in consciousness are noted, including waxing and waning and some confusion. Throughout the H&P the patient shows poor insight into his current condition. He shares his history lethargically yet cooperatively. At times he is dysarthritic or incoherent, with occasional bouts of blocked thought with subsequent perseverant explanations. Mood is euthymic and full affect is noted. Appropriate thought content, no suicidal ideation."

What I WISH I COULD write:
"Mental Status: The old dude is totally effing crazy. He asked me 47 times if I new his name in the first two minutes. When I'd ask him a yes/no question about a random disease he may have had, he'd answer "yes" no matter what.

Cheeler: How about any childhood illness . . . ever have rheumatic fever?
Krazy Dude: Yes

Cheeler: How about the mumps?
Krazy Dude: Yes

Cheeler: Tuberculosis?
Krazy Dude: Yes

Cheeler: Leprosy?
Krazy Dude: Yes

So totally nuts, but otherwise a nice old guy. Oh yeah, and he CRAPPED all over me when I sat him up to listen to his lungs."

Ahhh yes, medical school. I should have stayed in business school. I hear they have nice mixers.

A Day in the Life

Sometimes I may write things that are a little "medical-ish" on this blog. Turns out, it's a big part of my life.

When I sit down and think about the random things I do each day, it boggles my mind a little bit. Here's a list of some of the random things I did today:

1) Held a piece of 4 foot colon in my hands that had been resected from an autopsy performed yesterday. Spot the adenocarcinoma!


2) Listen to a girl drone on and on and on about her stupid "puppy". No one cares that you like to pretend you're a mommy with your stupid pet and your stupid boyfriend. And no, I don't want to see pictures of your overgrown rat (dog) on your cell phone 20 minutes after you start telling me about it. I'm a busy dude. Got things to do (video games to play).

3) Looked at microscopic sections of a lung from a 15 year old girl who just died of overwhelming infection (stemming from other serious medical problems). Discovered hyphae -- diagnosis Aspergillus.

4) Listened to several lectures on potassium in your urine. BORRRING (except that it's not. I, sadly enough, really get excited by these things).

5) Discussed the central tenets of Mormonism with a Catholic friend and discussed how people tend to vilify beliefs by making them sound crazy. Using Catholic beliefs as examples really came in handy. Thanks to my Old Man for being Catholic in a former life.

6) Spent probably well over two hours trying to get my email to work right again on my smartphone after Ian ripped the thing from my computer while it was synchronizing. You should have seen the smile on his face.

7) Beat down some unfortunate 12 year olds with my brother in World of Warcraft. I never get tired of that.

Alright. I realize this was kind of a boring post, but I felt the need to write.