solo sushi

The usual culprits for pre-test sushi date are enjoying the John Mayer concert, so tonight I flew solo. But it's okay, I had protein synthesis to keep me company! Just 17 more hours until I'm done...

The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!

Last night I went to Elf the Musical. It was absolutely wonderful! I'm not usually a Christmas person before we actually celebrate Thanksgiving, but I'll admit that it did put me in the Christmas-y mood. If you have the chance to go, don't be a cotton-headed ninny-muggins and miss it because it has great choreography and excellent music!

"I just like to smile; smiling's my favorite."
The show really did put a smile on my face throughout!

Exam Saturday. Thus ends the long and crazy 7 weeks of fall! HOORAY! I really am just hoping to survive until then! Carbo-load tonight with pasta hopefully and then sushi tomorrow night. Plenty of Thanksgiving celebrations coming up in the next week...so much to be thankful for! And I think I'm even in charge of a putting up a few Christmas trees and decorations. 'Tis the season already!

AMA Research Symposium

Hello all! Writing to you from a very cloudy and drizzly Maryland. Yesterday was my poster presentation. Based on how late my sleepy head slept in, I guess it exhausted me just a little! Well here are some photos of my trip! I'm SO thankful for Dr. E and my dear Uncle Dale for hanging out with me and keeping me calm when I got really nervous! I did eat a whole lot of food and I'm not sorry about it at all! Anyway, enough of me talking...pictures!  

This is the sign that my Uncle was holding when he picked us up!
The HFL is the fantasy football league that my dad (and friends) have been in since before I was born!

Singapore Rice Noodles. 

Sushi!
Spicy crunchy scallop and spicy tuna (they were serious about the spicy). 

I was gifted a sushi-making kit! 

National Harbor

National Harbor

PEEPS! 

"The Awakening" sculpture.
Yes, this is an awkward angle to take the photo, sorry about it!

"The Awakening"

Close up. "The Awakening"

It's blurry, but it's blue crab and corn chowder.
Yum!

This is about 1/8th the size it originally was, but crab cakes!

Fish tacos. 

3 berry cobbler.
It was SO big! And SO delicious!

Upside-down apple pecan pie. 

Oh here is me at my poster. It's beautiful!

This is me presenting my poster to a resident. It's a little blurry, but you get the gist!

Night two. Sushi again.
I'm not sorry about it. Judge if you want.
Eel avocado, lump meat crab, fatty tuna. 

Chocolate Fondant.
Soooooo good! Sorry about it dad (oh wait, no I'm not!)

There are still some photos floating around of all of the Nebraska AMA people and then also of Dr. E and I in front of my poster, but the is the bulk of the photos from the weekend. I'm off to Charlotte, NC in a bit and then finally on to Nebraska later tonight! What a quick and exhausting trip! I'm now going to listen to the lectures I missed while I wait for my plane. Adios for now!

Stress baking.

Apparently, I've been stressed lately. The best cure for that is clearly baking. So...

banana bread! 

It's delicious. My first ever banana bread loaf. I don't know what's taken me so long to jump on the banana bread train, but I'm definitely riding it now! Heading to DC tomorrow afternoon....! 

Welcome to the Tundra

This is a song about how the biochemistry core is going so far. Yes, I spent a significant amount of time working on this. And yes, I do believe it was a productive use of my time.

Welcome to the tundra, we got coats 'n' mittens.

Just to keep your sanity, you'll have to McGoogan pics of kittens. 

We'll be the people that you'll find when you're feeling ill. 

If you've got the money, honey, we'll fix your disease. 

(and your illness if we understand the psychosocial aspects of disease that you experience)

In the tundra, welcome to the tundra.

We learn only from the docs with the expertise 

Their lectures put us to sleep. 

Welcome to the tundra, we take it day by day.

To survive you'll surrender your social life, but it's the price you pay

Have you heard the Glu6Val sub, causes sickle cell anemia?

Oh and increased HgbF and HgbA2 suggests β-thalassemia? 

In the tundra, welcome to UNMC's tundra.

Feel my, my, my shivering knees.

(In case you didn't get the gist, it's VERY cold in the lecture hall. I cuddle under a blanket with my good friend Emily e'reday, just to survive lecture!) In other news, we were getting a lecture on amino acids the other day and the lecturer was talking about how glycine is small and flexible. Emily looked over at me and said "Just like you!". We both laughed. It was a funny amino acid joke...clearly we are losing it.

Oh AND (I'm about to have a major nerd moment)!!!! I got to see the COOLEST thing in clinic today! I wasn't even supposed to be in clinic. I was waiting to have a meeting with the sponsor of the neurology interest group and he snagged me to come in on this patient. There's a disorder called Orthostatic Tremor. It's super, super rare (like 345 people in the world have it) and often goes misdiagnosed for years.

OT is a neurological movement disorder, characterized by high frequency tremors, predominantly in the legs when in a standing position, and an immediate sense of instability. Patients often complain of symptoms of a sudden, unique, disabling event that happens to our legs when we attempt to do anything that requires us to remain in a standing position, rather than tremor. The muscles in the legs become hard, ankles feel weak and toes curl under as legs fail to support. There is a feeling of panic to find a place to sit, or if possible, walk to gain some relief of our symptoms. Other areas of the body, such as trunk and arms may also be effected.

It's the only condition that you can hear the leg muscles pulsing with your stethoscope, called the helicopter sign. Well anyway, it's very interesting. But also very debilitating. Because it's so rare, there aren't a whole lot of things in the way of treatment. BUT UNMC is apparently the leading institution in the world for OT research, so that's seriously awesome! What a lucky happenstance!

One week closer to break...!

I have survived the week. I honestly wasn't sure that I would at some points, but I'm writing to tell you that I have. It's been crazy, but really awesome and fun! (As an aside, there is no way I could have survived the week with social media and my phone distracting me at every turn, so thank you to everyone I ever text or talk to for being patient with me for the few hours that I actually do use my phone!)

Quick run down:

• Clinical skills exam (OSCE) Wednesday: I think it went alright. All of my standardized patients seemed quite nice, so that was wonderful!
• Conference: Today we presented at the International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement for the jail project I work with. It went amazingly and we had several people asking really great questions and interested in starting their own programs at their respective colleges/universities. The conference had people representing 12 countries, so it's pretty amazing that it was conveniently located here in Omaha! One of the other organizations from UNMC, Bridge to Care, also presented. They serve the refugee populations of Omaha (there are an estimated 20,000 refugees from several countries living in Omaha currently...and that estimate is probably teeny tiny compared to the actual number of refugees we have within our great city!). They did a wonderful job presenting and also do an incredible service to the community!

Some of my fellow presenters! Two of us had already headed back to
jobs/clinic rotations by the time we got around to taking the photo,
but this is us in front of the room where we presented!

• Anatomy grades: I passed! Woohoo! 10 weeks officially done with school! Well actually today marks the end of the 11th week, but 10 weeks officially done and graded. 
• This really awesome video: Ash Beckham talks at TedxBoulder. I highly recommend you watch it! It's about coming out of the closet. But not necessarily "coming out" at GLBT. "Coming out" in the sense that sometimes we have secrets or bad news to tell and that's hard. I think she does a good job of normalizing the telling of difficult news. It's something to look into from a healthcare perspective because often we have to tell our patients news that isn't awesome. Although it stinks, it's our stinky reality. Well anyway, watch it!

Okay, I think that was my week in a nutshell. Tonight I have a really hot date with acid/base titration problems. And perhaps some DNA transcription, if I'm lucky! 

Excuse me, my nerd is showing.

Here's another really awesome science video! DNA replication!

And don't worry, I survived my OSCE (clinical skills exam) this afternoon just fine.  I even stopped by Jones Bros for pumpkin cheesecake as a reward. Yummy!

I think I need to learn how to make this. It was honestly so much
more delicious than normal cheesecake or regular pumpkin pie...it's the best of both worlds!

Cells are cool.

This is one of the many things I'm currently studying. Look at the pretty colors! If you don't understand everything...don't feel badly. I don't either. And I've had cell bio more than 5 times by now! Our bodies are seriously incredible!

Endings and Beginnings

I am forever finished with taking anatomy in medical school (I have this really odd feeling that somehow, someday I will regret saying that, but for now it's true!). It really is a wonderful feeling! I adore our professors; they are so much fun and are very knowledgable, but I can't handle smelling like formaldehyde any longer!

Just some anatomy/pop culture humor. I wish our anatomy was as easy at this! 

We are now beginning Cellular Processes (aka biochem). It's the bane of most med school students' existence. We shall see how it goes...

And now some biochem/psychology humor! Complex carbohydrates...baha how punny!

And now for other life updates...

• We've been having several long meetings about do juSTIce (the project I'm president of that works with the incarcerated population on STI education as well as chlamydia and gonorrhea screening) and planning for the future of the program. I'm SUPER JAZZED about the direction we're heading! There are great things happening in the realm of STI education and prevention in Douglas County--which is good because our rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea transmission are unreal! I have the most wonderful board working with me and incredible community partners to make these things happen for us! We've also had some really great feedback and questions from the inmates hearing the presentation, so we can use that information in future planning for the program. 
• Speaking of do juSTIce...some of the gang is presenting at an international conference this Friday about our program. Go us! The program really has made a huge impact since its inception in 2008. We are struggling to get all of our awesomeness into a short 20 minute presentation. 
• My poster was delivered for my other conference (the one I'm presenting at about Mild Cognitive Impairment in DC). It's B-E-A-UTIFUL!! I'm getting pumped/nervous for that presentation as well. I suppose I'll quit stressing quite a much about that one and get through this week...
• This week we also have our OSCE (Objectively Structured Clinical Examination). Basically it checks our understanding of the clinical skills practices. This is week 4 of 7 for tests/conferences. As soon as I finish the OSCE, I will have survived 1/2 of the crazy fall testing/presenting schedule! Thanksgiving break is coming up very quickly and I'm quite grateful! 
• I've been going to my preceptor regularly. I get to see all sorts of things this year and do more physical exams and patient interviews than I was able to last year. It's really great fun! I'm sure everyone that knows me is utterly surprised that I prefer being around people to being around books and studying...not! 
• Challenges: I finished last month's stretching for 15 minutes/day challenge. It was hard towards the end of the month to carve out that time because I was busy and tired, but I know that I always felt refreshed when I did. This month's challenge is a technology and social media fast. It's been sort of hard (sort of like going through withdrawal!) so far, but I am also plenty busy this month, so I imagine that I'll survive just fine. The silence of not having technology around you is actually quite deafening, if that makes any sense. More on that later though... 

Just a quick and dirty update of the things going on in my world. I'll keep y'all updated on how the conferences and the technology fast are going as the weeks progress!