Things I learned from an adolescent patient

I should avoid conversation until I've finished washing my hands, and can turn and make eye contact with my patient.

If I need to take any notes, be clear whether or not my patient is supposed to see what I am writing. In general, try to refer less to notes.

Memorize the HEEADSSS adolescent screening outline to make sure that I don't miss any key areas.
- Home
- Education/Employment
- Eating/ Exercise
- Activities + Relationships
- Drugs, Cigarettes, Alcohol
- Sexuality
- Suicide
- Safety (+spirituality?)

Address confidentiality before asking about relationships and drugs. Then make those conversations as concise as possible, with many open ended questions, allowing my patient to take them as far as she wants.

Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert

A bit of a lighter book. Very clear tone and well articulated. Got me to think a lot about the place of mindfulness in western culture. How much of life should be spend pursuing comfort and pleasure and how much needs to be focused on developing wisdom? I tend to agree that I learn most from situations in life that are often least comfortable. Also finished this book a few months ago, but just now getting to the blog post. 

Over the weekend, paced a friend to a PR in the Rochester City Half Marathon. Made me want to get in shape to actually race one. This morning I'm up early to study Spanish. Haven't managed to get through this introductory textbook yet, but I really want to keep chugging until the day I leave (27 days from now!).

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

I'm writing this book up over three months after I finished reading it.
It did not stick with me the way that many other books that I've read have, and therefore I think I may have missed some of the beauty or art inherent in the author's creation. For some reason it simply did not resonate with me.

It also may have been the setting in which I read the book, often while falling asleep. I used it to separate myself from the pressures of my day and allow my mind to settle before sleep each night.

The incest that occurs near the end of the book surprised me, and left me thinking more about how so many cultures have developed taboos against incest. The actual level of inbreeding necessary to perpetuate genetic abnormalities is pretty high, needing to "self-cross" multiple generations sequentially. How did we develop such an aversion?

A day in the life

Well I'll just tell you about today (while I sit in a rather dry lecture about how health prevention guidelines are made)

0645 wake up and get some breakfast
0730 meeting with 3 other classmates about the 5k race that we're organizing. Race on April 14th so getting down to crunch time.
0800 lecture on immunology and how our body defends itself from bacteria with flagellum.
0900, another lecture, which I've forgotten at the moment.
1000 out for a run in the beautiful sun along the Genessee river.
1100 library for studying
1200 honor board teaching session where I proposed bringing the honor code back into the hands of the students. It's so much easier to prevent change than make change.
1300 lecture on breast cancer
1400 lecture on colon cancer
1500 lecture on preventative services (that i'm sitting in now)
hope to be out by 1630
then I'll play violin with E (we're working on Prokofiev)
1830 will call Bolivia to arrange my host family for the first half of the summer
1900 will go volunteer with a dr. and two other students to provide health screenings at a local homeless clinic.
2100 home and eat dinner.
Then study a bit of spanish, do a little cleanup and go to bed.

Not sure if it's a typical day, but certainly not boring

RETHINKING SUBCULTURAL RESISTANCE Core Values of the Straight Edge Movement by ROSS HAENFLER University of Colorado–Boulder

What does it mean to resist?

I thought this was fascinating.
So many of my heroes achieved great things through civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance to the status quo.
How many times can you turn this around?
Is it bad to resist certain things simply to protest?
Is resisting desire (for instant gratification) the root of all success?

Just finished biochemistry/genetics for the year.
Was a very humbling final exam that made me aware of the limits of my memory.

No to tackle a very long to-do list before I head SE for some biking.
Springtime is here!

babies and differentiation

Neonatology.

The study of neonates.

Neonates = very small babies, newly born.

Four of us visited the acute care unit

and had the privilege of being taught how to examine a very small baby

his femur was the same length as my index finger

magical life

how do cells do that?

that's my job to describe actually

on genetics/biochemistry final this friday...

Where did winter go?

I have been horrible at keeping this blog up to date. It's not because there's not enough to write about, but rather because it has not become part of my routine and the demands on my time tend to eliminate anything that is not part of a routine.

Today I'm attempting to get my bike back in working order after perhaps waiting too long to replace the chain. Put a new chain on last week, and now it's skipping when I try to go up hills. Luckily we have a wonderful community bike shop in town staffed by volunteers. Just find the parts and they'll help you keep your transportation in working order. And that's just what they've done! The bike is ready to go. Now will go spend the rest of the day in the library before heading out to see an Amerks game this evening.