One week down, 8 years 51 weeks to go (give or take a year or two)...but what a week it was! I never thought that I would be so busy during my first week of medical school, but I also didn’t think I would be having so much fun. We’ve had a lot of science classes each morning, and I almost wish I had taken a couple more science classes during undergrad so I wouldn’t feel so intimidated when “the-student-who-did-a-master’s-degree-in-most-complicated-science-at-world-renouned-university-overseas” starts correcting the teacher on the first day about the subtle differences between different enzymes I’ve never heard of in the liver. I think to myself, “Hmm, I can barely follow this lecture. I sure hope I’m not the only one who doesn’t have a clue as to what they are talking about. I don’t even know enough to be able to ask a question. If I raised my hand, all I would be able to say is, ‘Time-out! We need a re-do. I don’t get it. One more time from the top!’” Needless to say, I’ve been studying to try and drink from the proverbial “firehose” of information that the professor has eluded to many times this week. After spending a few hours preparing my talk for Sunday, I spent the rest of my Saturday catching up. I’m sure I’ll eventually “get” all that I need to, I’m just still trying to find my groove.
On Tuesday afternoon, we had a basic first responder’s course. Apparently, once you are in medical school, people think you know stuff. They asked people to raise their hands if anyone has had a relative call them up in the last week, asking for medical advice of some sort, and about half the class raised their hands. At any rate, I now know enough that if something were to happen to a stranger while I was riding the subway, my best bet is to pray that there is someone else on the train that has more medical experience than me, because I don’t think I could be of much help to them!
(WARNING FOR THE WEAK STOMACHS: MEDICAL DESCRIPTIONS AHEAD) On Thursday, I met my “first patient,” my cadaver. She is probably around age 40-60, extremely well-preserved (relatively speaking), somewhat short, not-too-skinny-and-not-too-large, and quite beautiful (in a non-disturbing kind of way, mind you). I have a lot of respect for the people who donated their bodies for us to study. I was able to see someone perform a procedure to put in a chest tube on our cadaver (used if someone has a collapsed lung). I was able to feel the hole made in between the ribs, all the way to the lungs. I’ve never touched a human lung before, but now I have. We started dissecting the chest and the arms, and the first step was to take the skin off those areas. Strangely enough, it was relatively easy for everyone in my group, myself included, to jump right into things. There was a definite learning curve associated with using the scalpel to remove the skin, but I eventually got the hang of it. I think I look pretty good with a knife in my hand, if I don’t say so myself. J This was by far an amazing experience, but I know there is a lot of work ahead.
The week before last, we were able to take a boat ride on the Hudson river around most of Manhattan at night, and we cruised right past the Statue of Liberty as it was all lit up. What a cool sight! It made me realize that we really are in New York (well, I guess the subways, the buildings, and all the masses of crazy people kind of gave it away earlier, but you know what I mean!).
On Tuesday afternoon, we had a basic first responder’s course. Apparently, once you are in medical school, people think you know stuff. They asked people to raise their hands if anyone has had a relative call them up in the last week, asking for medical advice of some sort, and about half the class raised their hands. At any rate, I now know enough that if something were to happen to a stranger while I was riding the subway, my best bet is to pray that there is someone else on the train that has more medical experience than me, because I don’t think I could be of much help to them!
(WARNING FOR THE WEAK STOMACHS: MEDICAL DESCRIPTIONS AHEAD) On Thursday, I met my “first patient,” my cadaver. She is probably around age 40-60, extremely well-preserved (relatively speaking), somewhat short, not-too-skinny-and-not-too-large, and quite beautiful (in a non-disturbing kind of way, mind you). I have a lot of respect for the people who donated their bodies for us to study. I was able to see someone perform a procedure to put in a chest tube on our cadaver (used if someone has a collapsed lung). I was able to feel the hole made in between the ribs, all the way to the lungs. I’ve never touched a human lung before, but now I have. We started dissecting the chest and the arms, and the first step was to take the skin off those areas. Strangely enough, it was relatively easy for everyone in my group, myself included, to jump right into things. There was a definite learning curve associated with using the scalpel to remove the skin, but I eventually got the hang of it. I think I look pretty good with a knife in my hand, if I don’t say so myself. J This was by far an amazing experience, but I know there is a lot of work ahead.
The week before last, we were able to take a boat ride on the Hudson river around most of Manhattan at night, and we cruised right past the Statue of Liberty as it was all lit up. What a cool sight! It made me realize that we really are in New York (well, I guess the subways, the buildings, and all the masses of crazy people kind of gave it away earlier, but you know what I mean!).
Our boat ride view at night.
Sorry about the blurry picture, we were on a moving boat...
Ashley had two job interviews this past week, and one of them was for a position here on the medical campus at Columbia. These are the first interviews she’s had while looking for a job, so we were very happy and excited about them, knowing that many prayers are being answered. We now hope that an interview will turn into a job offer, and hopefully it will be one that is near us.
Scott
Scott
Scott in the processional
Scott putting his coat on (sorry so blurry)
Scott and his white coat
Congratulations pictures
Us and Scott's parents
Kitchen
Today I decided to tackle my next adventure...Laundry! I had to go outside and go to another building to buy a laundry card. Instead of using quarters you buy a card for 5 dollars and load money onto it at a machine. This was my first time going somewhere by myself. I walked down the street to the other building, got my card and went back to our apartment. I felt so accomplished on my first little outing. The laundry room is a floor up from us so I have to go up and down. I went to put the laundry in and there is only one washer and one dryer which is kind of annoying but we'll have to deal with that. Since I could only do one load at a time it took a while to do the laundry. The laundry is all done so I survived my first laundry adventure! Now back to cleaning, and job hunting...
He left to pick up all of his registration stuff and found out he didn't have to do anything else until 2:30 so we decided to go to Target.
We attempted to go to Target today to get some more groceries and just to check it out. We began our journey by trying to get onto the Subway. When we got to the subway we found out that a few of the stops along the way were closed. We found out that part of the ceiling had collapsed down by the subway. We had to take a shuttle bus along those stops. After we got to the working subway stop there was only one stop along the way at the very end. When we got to the end of the line we had to get onto another train to backtrack to Target. It took a very long time! We finally made it to Target and it was something familiar! Just looked like a regular Target and the prices were really good. Some things were better priced than the grocery store we went to. We didn't get a ton of stuff because we would have to carry it all back through the nightmare in the transit system today. It's kind of annoying having to depend on Public Transportation and nice at other times when it works. 
1 year later:
Me and Scott eating our cake! I just had one bite, it was okay, but not too appetizing to me eating 1 year old cake. Scott ate the remaining of our piece of cake.