School's Out

for some more Alice, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHr6GbWPBVQ
(thanks to Malu for the clip)

I find myself in quite a memorable stretch of time right now -- I have officially made it through my didactic year of PA school! I get a small break before starting the next phase of my education, the clinical rotations. I am still in amazement at how fast the time went by -- I'm not sure a year in my life has ever passed so quickly, like a thief in the night. I stand here looking at bulging folders and endless stacks of written 4x6 notecards and can scarcely believe that I somehow covered all of that material. It just doesn't seem possible. It took a few days before I could even really relax and celebrate -- I find that lately I have almost forgotten how to relax and unwind. However, despite my humble leanings, I have to say that I have never been more proud of myself and what I was able to accomplish. There were ups and downs during this last year, to be sure. Countless hours of study, many nervous afternoons waiting for test scores to be posted, many draining finals weeks and the dreaded "hell weeks" that sporadically fell in between finals, early morning lectures that required every ounce of effort to remain attentive and conscious when every fiber of my being wanted to just sleeeeeeep. It wasn't easy, by any stretch of the imagination, but boy was it fun.

I've toyed with the idea of starting a new blog to chronicle my year of clinical rotations -- any opinions from my faithful readers? (that means you, Aaron & Nala) More than likely, I'll just continue with this blog, but maybe change it up a little to signify the next step in my quest for world domination.

And since I got some positive comments from the last installment, here is another Medical Term of the Day: Epistaxis
(this clip demonstrates the most common etiology for epistaxis, as well as a brief illustration of the anterior packing treatment at the very end)

I Can't Quit You, Baby

the great Chicago bluesman Otis Rush

Led Zep

Wow, it's been quite some time since my last post. As you can plainly see, the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

So what has happened in the last month? Well, I have taken a few more tests, including one of the hardest ever, the big Pharmacology test on antibiotics. I didn't ace this one, but still did rather well. As a matter of fact, the only tests left in my didactic year of PA school are my finals next week. That still hardly seems possible -- I'm not sure a year has ever flown by so fast.

Last week we were finally given our Clinical Rotation schedules, which as you can imagine was a HUGE deal. It basically outlines what and where we will be for our upcoming clincial year. Next post I will outline this in more detail - I just wanted to mention it now and then fill in some more of the holes since my last post.

In Clin Med, we finished up the GI section and have moved on to Neuro. Topics include Myasthenia Gravis, Multiple Sclerosis, Cerebrovascular Disease aka Strokes, Seizure Disorders, Peripheral Neuropathies, Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis aka ALS aka Lou Gehrig's disease, and other disorders of the brain...


We wrapped up our ACLS class and I now have my updated certification for BLS (Basic Life Support) & ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support). The testing for that was a blast -- we had simulated codes with a mannequin, which included intubation (trickier than it looks at first) and a chance to use the defibrillator paddles.

CLEAR!!!

In other news, I plan to move very soon, back to the East end of town where I have spent most of my time. I have to say it was a wise decision to move close to school for the didactic year -- not having a long commute was sooo nice. More time to study, more time to sleep in, etc. I've decided to move in with my old friend James, a kindred spirit who I've lived with in various locales all over the Phoenix valley. As a matter of fact, I was just thinking this over and tallying it all up, and this will be the *6th* different residence we have co-habitated. All I can say is that it's nice to live someone who can deal with your idiosyncracies and quirks and I think the reason we get together so well is mutual respect. And it will be nice to be back in a house again. I can't say I ever had any major issues at my current apartment complex, but there have been countless frustrations that are things that I suppose just go with living so close to so many different people. Some of the more memorable ones:

• the drunk neighbor on the corner who rides his bike to his night-shift job at Circle K, and then proceeds to get rip-roaring drunk at least every other night, complete with stumbling all over the complex, all the while spouting obscenities and vulgar jibberish at the top of his lungs
• the teenagers who jump the fence of the pool overlooking my patio in the middle of the night and then proceed to "hang out" at the pool with boombox blaring
• the paranoid neighbor below me who thinks I keyed his pick-up truck for some reason, even though we've barely spoken
• the time the management company running my complex went belly-up and closed up shop without so much as a peep, leaving many of the residents like me who didn't leave the complex like rats from a sinking ship wondering if our water would be shut off as we watched the weeds grow and the garbage bins overflow since the workers had even stopped getting paychecks
• the near-nightly cavalcade of police cars. I live right next to a hospital, so I expect to hear sirens from ambulances. What I didn't expect was the steady stream of police cars, lights flashing, on such a regular basis. On the one hand, it's good to know that the police were keeping an eye on things. However, the fact that most nights you'd come home at night and see a cop car in the complex with it's lights flashing means there was a lot of "shenanigans" going on that required the police intervention in the 1st place
  
• the typical parade of poolgoers who ruined me ever getting any use of the pool by their tacky behaviors. My biggest pet peeve -- if you must insist on smoking at the pool area, AT LEAST HAVE THE DECENCY TO GET OUT OF THE POOL TO DO SO! It was a normal scene to see someone puffing away at the edge of the pool, ashing into a freshly emptied can of Bud Light. There are plenty of tables there with umbrellas there, but these people don't even muster up the energy to get out of the pool before huffing down their smokes. I just don't get it -- whatever happened to manners, decency, consideration for your fellow man? And lest you think I'm exaggerating, here is a sign the management company put on the pool door (along with a padlock) overlooking my patio as a result of this weekend's dual debauchery of the slovenly daytime denizens and the defiant delinquent teenagers hopping the fence at night:

• Another thing that gored my ox was my neighbor's friends who would come over, smoke a cigarette on the patio, and then casually chuck it down to the sidewalk. Apparently the world is their ashtray.
• And then there was the parking debacle....

This situation necessitates me leaving the bulleted mode so I can present the entire situation in it's own rant, paragraph-form. Each resident at my complex was granted the usual covered and numbered parking spots. Apparently, the fact that some spots had numbers and were covered didn't seem to phase a lot of the guests at my complex, as at least once a week I'd come home from school to find a random car in my spot. Of course, there were always PLENTY of empty uncovered spots no more than 3 or so spots over, but why should a visitor have to put up with having their car bake in the open sun when they were just visiting a friend for a while, right? Well, one week about 10 months into my lease, I started to notice a PT Cruiser in my spot on a frequent basis. One morning on my way to school, I came to car to find a note on the windshield, with the following message: "Stop parking in my spot or I will have your car towed." I went down to the office to try to make some sense of this, and it turns out some lady in the back of row of apartments didn't want to have to drive to the back, where her apartment was, and asked the apartment manager to give her a different spot. Why they would mess around with the pre-assigned spots is beyond me, but the manager gave her my spot by mistake. Now, if you had requested to move to a different spot, and found a car parking there, I would think you would doublecheck with the office 1st before leaving notes threatening to tow someone. I just found it incredulous that someone was going to tow me from taking their spot when I had been parking there for 10 months. At any rate, I told the office workers that I was tired of dealing with the whole mess and that I would just park up front in guest spots from now on (I am moving out soon anyways and I have bigger things to worry about to be honest). So now I am missing a few of the nasty speed bumps on the way to my old spot, but occasionally in the afternoon, I have to wear gloves to drive to prevent my hands from melting to the blazing-hot steering wheel. Ah well, lose some, lose some I guess. I probably should have just put this in my spot IMMEDIATELY:



Ah, I haven't had a good rant like that in a while. I feel much better now.

And now for a new likely recurring feature -- the Medical Term of the Day:

Emesis (thanks to my Uncle Ralph for the audio clip below)