Surprise!!

Oh hey guys.  Sure, it's been a bunch of months since I've posted anything, but I think this is worth it:

I love it so much.

White Coat Ceremony

The other day, my classmate, D, and I were lucky enough to give a welcome speech to the incoming MS1s at their White Coat Ceremony.  Here is a copy of our speech (with our notes included in brackets).  Enjoy!

Hi Class of 2016!  I’m D, AMSG Co-President.

And I’m J, 4^th year class Co-president.  On behalf of the class of 2013 and the rest of the student body, we’d like to congratulate you on starting medical school!  This is a huge accomplishment and it is an honor to share this moment with you and your family and friends. 

[pause]

J:  Aaand… That’s all we’ve got for you.  We’ve been kind of busy watching the Olympics, [coughs] learning medicine, and we didn’t get a chance to actually prepare a speech for you.  Sooo… good job guys!

[J&D give a thumbs up with cheesy smiles]

iPad torch

D: But really, the Olympic Fever, commonly found among medical students and diagnosed by the inability to focus on anything but the games of the 30^th Olympiad got us thinking about what a team effort medicine really is.

D: We can think of tonight as the Opening Ceremonies.  Sure, there’s no torch… unless… is there an app for that?  [J: holds up ipad with torch app… F YEAH!!!!] (Aside: Medical education in the digital age!)  But I’m pretty sure you all just paraded in front of us to receive your coats and we’ll have an awesome performance by the medleys to come. 

J: More important than the ceremony is what happened before the ceremony.  Like the Olympians in this year’s games, you have all worked hard to get here.  Years of school, hours of volunteering, and numerous research projects later, here you are.  You’ve made it.  And for that, you should be truly proud of yourselves.

[applause]

D: Don’t get too comfortable, though.  You still have your work cut out for you.  Luckily, the Admissions Office knows how to pick a great team.  Soon, you’ll have study groups formed and next thing you know, you’ll have made some of the closest friends of your life.  Look to your left, look to your right.  By the end of medical school, you will have made out with one of them.

[nailed it!]

J: But seriously, we already have 3 engagements within our class… so, just be careful when you pick your study group.

D: Every team has its uniform and for medicine it is the white coat.  In receiving your white coat today, you have taken your first true step towards becoming a doctor.  With wearing the white coat comes the responsibility to discover, teach, and heal.  And while your white coat’s short length conveys your humble position as a student, your patients may not know the difference and will turn to you for their care, regardless. 

Class of 2016 taking the Oath

J: Over the past three years, D and I have learned that 50% of medicine is looking the part (just kidding, Dean Clayman).  Here are some Do’s and Don’ts to help you avoid making rookie mistakes and so you can look like a pro on the wards, or at least at the Clinical Skills Center:

[for this section, why don’t we model the “DO” examples and get the medleys to come out for the DO NOT]

J: Let’s start with a big one that for some reason, people have a tough time grasping: Cleanliness .  Do: try and keep your coat clean.  Unfortunately this is the cleanest your coat will ever be for the next four years.  Try to wash and press your coat as often as you have time to do laundry.  Use bleach and hot water.  Stain remover is your friend.  

D: DO NOT: Walk around with dirt rings on your sleeves and coffee stains down your front.  Would you trust a doctor who smells like Pig Pen and looks like you’re guaranteed to catch 10 diseases from his coat?  Neither will your patients.  [med student approaches pt looking dirty and pt runs away in disgust]

D: Next up, Writing Utensils.  DO: Carry a couple pens and, perhaps, a hi-lighter.  You’ll look like a star when your resident needs a pen and you magically provide one before she even has a chance to ask.

J: DO NOT: Carry a 24-color crayola marker pack unless you’re using it to color every muscle of the upper extremity.   Not only will this weigh down your coat, you will feel like a fool when you bend down to examine a patient and your pens fall all over him.  [med student with a bunch of pens in coat bends over to examine a patient and dumps out contents of coat and scrambles to pick them up]

J: Definitely stock your pockets with those tools you’ve always wanted to use--your stethoscope, penlight, reflex hammer, surgilube (J&D: because you just never know).

D: But DO NOT go overboard.  You’ll find that the weight of all of these tools quickly adds up and we’ve heard of many med students acquiring back problems from lugging a 20+ pound coat around all day.  Plus, is that speculum really necessary on your psychiatry rotation? [med student walks out completely burdened with stuff… coat stuffed and awkwardly weighed down… hold’s up the speculum sheepishly]

D: It’s always helpful to carry a snack with you.  Granola bars are great because you can quickly gobble them on the run between seeing patients or going to meetings.

J: DO NOT: Make your coat a lunch buffet.  It’s just… gross. [maybe get in ‘n out boxes or something to put in the coat, med student sipping from a straw]

J: Finally, there’s flare.  Just like a gold medal, there’s nothing I love more than a good accessory.  Today, you received your first few items of flare: pins that represent your team – UCI SOM and our mission to “discover, teach, heal” and to include Humanism in medicine. 

D: DO NOT: get too over the top.  This is not Chili's and you are not Michael Phelps.  Plus, what is that boa?  [med students come out with various pieces of bling, medal, boa]

And with these tips, combined with the camaraderie and support of your classmates and faculty and staff here at UCI, you’ll be sure to find yourself atop the podium in just 4 years (or 7 if you’re an MD/PhD).   We are excited to welcome you to our team.

UCI chant?!

And now, we’d like to introduce the Medleys, UCI SOM’s talented singing group.  See.  We told you it was like the opening ceremonies ;)

Arts & Crafts

Killing it at Medieval Times

I'm on break, you guys!  FINALLY!  I haven't had a real vacation since May, so this is pretty exciting.  I'm about a week in and so far, I'm pretty much killing it at being on vacation.  So much relaxing happening here.  So much.

Ugh.  Who am I kidding? I'm super bored.  Within 48 hours of break, I had read a book, caught up on all my DVR'd shows, cleaned my house, went to the gym and 2 yoga classes, threw a birthday party, and hung out with my cats for kind of a weird amount of time. This week, I've helped my sister pick out a wedding dress, gotten a bikini wax, hitch-hiked to In-N-Out, gone to the Aquarium of Pacific, the dentist, AND Medieval Times.  Today, I was so bored that I literally ordered Showtime because regular TV couldn't even entertain me.

What is wrong with me?  Is it possible that I'm no longer capable of relaxing?  I knew things were getting bad when I started thinking about arts and crafts projects that I could do while on break.  You see, I'm pretty terrible at arts and crafts, mostly because I never finish the projects.  Here are a few of my top arts and crafts projects and how they turned out:

• Seasonal greeting cards. Earlier this week, I thought, "I should make hand-made Christmas

  

  Possible Xmas card

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Cards!" And then I felt exhausted and quit before the project even began. I haven't even motivated to send out regular Christmas Cards. That I bought last year. In my defense, I had an awesome 2-year run of homemade valentines back in the "Good Old Days" before med school, so this Christmas card idea isn't that ridiculous.
• Knitting. Technically, I've been "knitting" the same scarf and hat since 2000.  They made it through college with me (unfinished) and now sit in a brown paper bag in my closet at my parents' house.
• Quilting.  Speaking of things chilling in my closet at my parents' house. Years ago, I decided I was going to sew a quilt.  I even bought the pattern and fabric - it was going to be a glorious pink and green quilt - and then I placed them in a bag in my closet and haven't looked back.
• Friendship bracelets. You guys, I kind of destroyed at making friendship bracelets back in the day.  In fact, this might be one arts and crafts project that I actually consistently managed to complete (these were in high demand - as a camp counselor at Farm Camp, I had a lot of friends).*

OMG, you guys.  This whole never finishing art projects may be contagious... I can barely finish this post. But seriously, time for me to get back to relaxing.  Even writing this was exhausting.

*Recently, this skill has come in handy, since it turns out friendship bracelet knots are the same as surgical knots.  So yeah. Thanks to my extensive arts and crafts skills, I was pretty good at knot tying during my surgery clerkship.

USMLE: Qbank

OMG, we've been done with Kaplan for 3 days! I miss you all SO MUCH.

Okay... maybe not that much. BUT, I am starting to get a little lonely in my studying solitude. Luckily, I'm able to FaceTime and video/gchat with people and that keeps me connected. Still, my human interaction is pretty limited. I'm pretty sure I've officially become the "weird stressed out med student" neighbor. And I've also been wearing the same outfit (more or less) for the past 3 days (so, if anything, the Kaplan course kept me groomed. Good thing that's over).

Other than my gross hygiene habits, I don't have much to report. Oh! I know! I studied at my counter today, instead of at my desk! Just to keep things sassy. (Oh. My. God. My life is pathetic).

One thing that's kinda funny: I've noticed that I get a little too into the Qbank vignettes as I'm reading them. Like, I verbally react to stories as they progress. For example, most vignettes start out with the presenting symptom or a description of the patient. If the patient is an alcoholic (and there are a lot of alcoholics on the USMLE), I say, outloud, "Here we go." As the stories progress, so do my reactions. The patient has ptosis? "Uh oh." He was bit by a tick? "Oh god." If the patient dies, then I lose it (Okay, no I don't. But I'll usually gasp with "oh no!").

You guys, I'm like really invested in these vignettes! Don't worry, it's not really wasting time or distracting me too much... it's more like this kind of ridiculous/hilarious thing I find myself doing as I'm going through the questions. Am I the only one? I think I might have to tone it down for exam day.

I also have become obsessed with highlighted stuff on the computer. Not so much while I'm doing the actual practice questions, but as I'm reading the explanations. Now, I find myself highlighting interesting/important facts on other websites with my mouse... and then I'm disappointed when the text doesn't turn yellow. That's weird, right?

I Can Do Anything Good

So I know I should be studying for the big combined exam we have on Monday, but I just came across the MOST AMAZING THING I'VE EVER SEEN (possible overstatement).

After watching this video (twice in the last 5 minutes), I truly feel that I can do anything good... like pass my exam(s) on Monday.

Thanks to S for posting this!

YouTube

Have any of you guys ever heard of a www.YouTube.com? It's this website where people can upload, share, and view videos. And it's AWESOME.

Okay, yeah. I know. YouTube was invented a while ago (actually, according to wikipedia:YouTube, it was created in Spring of 2005, which is also when I graduated from college. This is totally depressing because I can't imagine a world before YouTube, yet I'm unwilling to fully come to terms with the fact that I've been out of college for so long).

Anyway, lately, I've become completely obsessed with it. As in, I can't get enough of it. Like, the first thing I do when I get home is check it for new videos... or, let's be honest, watch the same Oldies but Goodies over and over and over again. Throughout the day, I walk around thinking of my favorite clips, sometimes singing outloud and/or acting them out... in public. Really, YouTube might be the only thing that makes me happy in my sad, pathetic, med school-filled life.

Here are some additional signs that I might have a YouTube problem:

• Instead of actually talking to people I haven't seen in a while (relatives, old friends, etc.), we just get out a computer and spend hours watching different videos.
• Sis-T has made the Bed Intruder Song the ringtone for when I call her:

• I'm going to dress up as 4 year-old in pj's for Halloween, because I just love Jessica's "Daily Affirmation" video so much (sure, this costume is random and will be completely unrecognizable/not funny to like 97% of the people I run into, but I still love it so much):

• I've convinced my friends to also dress up as YouTube characters for Halloween... and they're GOING TO DO IT*.

I guess things could be worse. Right now, most of these activities still involve social interaction. I mean, it's not my fault Sis-T also happens to love the Bed Intruder Song. Or that my friends were lacking costume ideas. Or that other people also seem to love watching and talking about their favorite videos... for hours at a time.

Oh, and just so you know, this is the video that finally sent me over the edge and convinced me to blog about my love for YouTube:

Are you kidding me?! It's a BIRD! Dancing to a ridiculous song written by a 9 year-old!!! OMG I love it.

*In case you were wondering: they're going to be Keyboard Cat and Zombie Turtle Kid.