Break from studying

I'm so sick of studying the head & neck! I know way more about the vessels and nerves in your head than I ever wanted to know. (Exam tomorrow - hopefully I pass! See how I've lowered my standards?!?! Darn you med school!)

So my break has been working on my photography site. I don't think anyone has ever visited it, so here's a screencap of the home page:

I loooove that tiger picture from China. And the colors in that church picture reflect the name of the site (FocusedColours... yes it's British - it looked cooler). I don't know if I'll keep the last shot there... I was trying to have a picture representing my 3 aesthetics: animals, bold colors, and geometry. 

So check it out if you're interested! 

http://www.focusedcolours.shutterfly.com

Chopper!

One of the things I was excited about for 3rd/4th year was getting to ride in the helicopter with the paramedics! But I've been reading a lot of EMS news articles, and it seems that a disproportionately large amount of line-of-duty deaths are from helicopter crashes. hmm. Reconsidering my level of excitement...

Am I allowed to talk about this??

So I'm pretty obsessed with emergency medicine. I thought it would be a good idea to do some research to "get ahead in the field", etc.... but I also think it will be really fun! So I contacted the doctor at school who I know does research in EMS, which is my particular interest, being an EMT and all. So I met with him today and immediately following the obligatory, "tell me about yourself", he told me about the study he'd like to involve me in. And it's perfect!!

[This is the part I'm not sure it's ok to talk about so shhh:]

In the past, people have concluded that driving the ambulance lights and sirens to the hospital decreases door-to-door time. BUT they didn't look at patient outcomes. So we're going to see whether driving lights and sirens improves patient outcomes. And I get to ride around in the EMS Physician vehicle! I am so ridiculously excited about this, I can't even tell you! Well, I guess I just did, haha. 

As much as I liked the intellectual stimulation of researching genes, working with people [and flashy lights!] sounds so much more fun!

Fun Times with the Plastic Surgeon

For my "Patient-Centered Medicine" class, I have to do some physician shadowing. We had to rank our preferences.

Choices:

1. ER

2. Primary Care

3. Specialty

4. Clinic

So CLEARLY I ranked ER #1. I guess that would have been cheating, so karma bit me and gave me my #2: Specialty... and I was assigned to a plastic surgeon. What??? Yeah. 

So I thought: ok, maybe he's the nice kind who does reconstructions on kids with cleft-lips and burn victims! Nope. He's the cosmetic kind. He's very nice and a great doctor - I just don't particularly like the field. 

Anywho, my first day I saw a Botox injection on someone who was also post-op for breast augmentation. The "after" pictures were taken... which I really did not need to see, haha. The next patient was a guy who wanted a nose job and said he'd only get it done by this doctor because he listens to his radio show all the time (yeah, he has a radio show, 2 books, a line of skin creams, and is appearing on Oprah). Consults have been really cool because he takes pictures of the people and then manipulates them on the computer to show you what you'd look like after the operation. I like photo-editing, so this is the only part of his practice that is up my alley. 

My second visit was not so pleasant. There was another post-op breast patient getting stitches removed. ...So I have this problem when I see stitches:

- nausea

- sweating

- turn pale

- see spots

- feel faint.

This has gone on since summer 2006 when I did my ER internship. And I work in an ER, and it still happens. But I thought watching them come out would be fine... I was wrong. I tried to tough it out, but I thought better of it and excused myself to go lay down. I explained my on-going problem and the doctor suggested I see a psychiatrist/hypnotist to get over it since repeated exposure hasn't been working. 

On my third visit, the nurse greeted me with, "Kim the fainter is here!", which I did not appreciate at all. 1. I did not faint. 2. That's just inconsiderate. The doctor was much nicer about it - he even called a shrink he knows to ask about what I can do. So I got a name... she's a PhD on staff at my school, as it turns out... but he recommended going to the Student Wellness/Mental Health office first. This feels so weird - there's definitely a stigma attached to going there, but I need it. 

I'm not scheduled to visit this office again until January, so hopefully I'll fix this problem by then...

This post is completely related to med school...

I went to Boston to see the Yankees play the Red Sox! haha

As soon as class was over Friday, I hopped in the car and traveled to Madison where I had coffee with my former Drew advisor in the new coffee stand that was the Class of '08 senior gift! 

From there, I drove down the road a piece to John's house, packed up the car, and headed to La Rosa for lunch before heading out. 

After an insanely long ride, having a lot to do with Connecticut and its terrible traffic, we made it to Ruth's apartment in Salem, MA where we watched the 1st yanks-sox game, won by the Yankees (by a wide margin! sorry Kellie :P). 

Our tickets were for Saturday's game so we went into Boston, rain notwithstanding. We sat in the stadium until they called the game and rescheduled for Sunday night (kind of terrible timing since we had to be back home for school/work Monday morning). But we managed to get our picture taken by a photographer while sitting in the rain:

(Greg, Kellie, Ruth, John, Kim - 4 Madison EMTs past/present... and Kellie)

Sunday was a double-header - the first game of which being Mike Mussina's 20th win, likely securing him a Hall of Fame spot. Our game was unfortunately won by the wrong team, but that can surely be attributed to the fact that none of the Yankee starters were playing. But after a couple overpriced beers, who even cared anymore? 

It was definitely a good time and a good break from school :)