Yin Yang Weekend

Apparently it's Halloween this weekend. It's a weird mixture: gonna be costumed up in the evenings, all fancily dressed in the mornings. The former involves a Filipino ninja (complete with eskrima sticks) tonight and South Park's Satan (heaven and hell theme event) tomorrow. The latter involves learning some clinical exam skills: today was abdominal exam on each other, tomorrow is female pelvic/breast on standardized patients. Yes, we have clinical skill workshops on the weekend. At least tomorrow's is at 1030. Next week's is at 830. And male genital/rectal. Uncool. We practice most of the physical exam on each other, except for the genital stuff. You couldn't pay me enough to have clueless med students poking, prodding, and groping around aimlessly. Imo, you have to kind of like that stuff. The money's just an extra perk. Either way, I'm glad we have standardized patients for that.

Illini Football

Having Directv, I've been able to watch pretty much all the Illini games. I've gotta say, Juice is looking pretty good this year. It's night and day between this year and his freshman year. As opposed to missing throws by fifteen yards, he's been laying in some pretty nice ones. He's also developed some touch, as opposed to "rocket every throw I can" mode. For the most part, his decision making's improved too: he'll throw the ball away and look to keep passing when flushed out of the pocket. Guess his work with Donovan in the offseason helped. On the runningback front, Dufrene has been a nice surprise. Jason Ford also had a nice breakout game last week and he looked pretty impressive. Granted, it was IU but it's still nice to a freshman back doing that kind of damage. It's nice to have that kind of promise in the underclassmen. For now, he's a nice contrast to Dufrene, he's more of a downhill runner/power back type.

As good as the offense can look at times, they can be inconsistent at times. That's the most frustrating thing, since I know they can be pretty good. On top of that, the team as a whole just makes mistakes at inopportune times: turnovers, missed defensive assignments, special team issues. (Reference Mizzou and Penn State games.) On that note, defense is one our weaker areas. Almost allowing Louisiana Lafayette to come back from a 17-3 deficit doesn't scream staunch D.

I've watched pretty much all the Illini games, and that's my two cents on the team. I actually got the chance to head over to Ann Arbor a few weeks ago. It was a pretty good time, not that I was expecting otherwise. True, the Big House holds ~110,000...but I wouldn't say it's comfortable. The fans were surpisingly subdued, although their trailing for most of the game may have had a say in that. I thoroughly enjoyed the game though, and I actually didn't catch too much flak for that.

The Big Ten network's also had this thing called "Illini Football: The Journey" running for a bit. It's pretty cool seeing what goes on during a week leading up to a game and during the game. It's a nice chance to see what some of the players are like too. No real highlights off the top of my head, but it's cool to get a behind the scenes look at a team, especially when it's yours.

Practicum

Since last Wednesday I've been in practicum. It's basically like doing a mini-rotation with a particular hospital service. This one lasts ten days and has me on the medicine service, while the other two last fourteen and seventeen days. Since we haven't learned physical exam or had much pathology or pathophysiology yet, our skill set is pretty limited. We're pretty much just taking histories. Sounds kinda lame, but it's actually harder than it seems to take a good, complete history. Any and all practice is appreciated, especially when there's a lot of it for an extended period of time. I feel like I'm improving pretty markedly if I do say so myself...plus it's starting to feel less awkward.

On top of getting to work with patients, the hospital itself is great. The facilities are ridiculously nice, on par with Northwestern's hospital. And that's saying something since I'm in a community hospital out in the burbs, not a major academic hospital in the city. That said, the hospital's neighborhood is all sorts of fancy - homes are easily in the seven digit range. The wards and hospital are nice, yes. But even better is the fact that the residents and attendings are insanely nice and helpful - they're legitimately excited to work with us. Random docs and nurses are the same way too.

So yeah, I'm enjoying practicum so far. The work is still interesting , I really like the environment, and it's not that bad of a commute. Plus, I get free nights and weekends. Having class start back up is gonna suck, but then again that always does. One thing I'm definitely *not* looking forward to is a clinical workshop. Of the male genital/rectal variety. Uncool. On top of that, it's at 830 on a Saturday morning. Doubly weak. At least this is one clinical exam workshop where we don't practice on each other. That'd be weird(er).

Speed Demons

The Chicago Marathon was ran here last Sunday. It's passed a few blocks from my place the past two years, and I think that's pretty cool. Quite a few people from my class ran it, and to be honest I was surprised at how many. One of my friends even jumped in randomly since it ran through our neighborhood. He wasn't even training and ran half the marathon. Props. Either way, it's pretty cool seeing people's names and times published on the marathon website. It's even cooler that they ran it in the middle of a block of four exams. You could definitely tell from people's gait who ran yesterday.

All the buzz about the marathon got me to read up on and somewhat follow the marathon. Apparently it's one of five major marathons, the others being Boston, NYC, Berlin, and London. I figured Boston would be that level of marathon, I had no idea about the other four though. Apparently this year's field was 45,000 strong. That's a lot of people, imo. A lot. The winning time was 2:06. Over 26.2 miles. By my count, that averages out to 12.5 mph and sub 5 minute mile pacing....for two hours. Damn, I don't think I could 1.) sprint that fast 2.) keep that pace for more than a few minutes. And even better, I average about 10 mph on my bike rides. Sure that includes some stoppage and traffic time, but still - my moving average is probably only about 14 mph. Weak.

The past two years the marathon weather's been unseasonably warm - around 80°. Since we were studying in the middle of the Illinois Medical District Sunday and not too far from the marathon route we were one of the first places ambulances came to. And come they did. Until the early afternoon, there was a legitimate average of one ambulance every ten minutes roaring through. Yikes. Last year, one person actually died en route to the hospital. Sad, yes. Sadder is that said ambulance couldn't find the hospital...amid three major ones (Cook County, UIC, Rush). One of my classmates actually had to taken away on account of her hyperthermia and dehydration. Eesh.

And now I'm off to try and grab some sleep. Infection/immunity kept our study group up for awhile on account of the ridiculousness of the exam material. At least the other exams for this block have been semi-reasonable in their detail orientedness. Today's exam: not so much. Either way, I'm in the hospital for ten days after this. Yay! Sure, working hours suck, but at least I'll get my nights and weekends back totally. Double yay!

Happenings and Such

So, nothing too interesting has been happening the past few weeks. I haven't been in a straight up routine, but nothing worth writing a post about has happened. That said, here I am.

Classes are going well enough. Pathology and clinical pathophysiology have been interesting all around, regardless of lecturer or topic. These are the classes that make me feel like I'm actually in med school and not in some mascochistic science school. Infection and immunity can be kinda cool, but there are a shitton of bugs out there...don't get sick. Parasites are interesting enough, but they're disgusting in how they go about their business. Pharmacology is brute memorization at this point especially since we're only learning about pharmacokinetics, antibiotics, antifungals, antineoplastics, antiprotozoans...you get the point. It's shitty at this point because there's no physiological tie-ins yet, there are so many drugs, and each has a constellation of things to memorize. No me gusta brute memorization. Maybe things will get better once outside of anti-living thing drugs.

Clinically, we had a history taking workshop. While I still felt awkward and like it was a manufactured interview, I got positive feedback from the "patient." I might even have figured out what she had. They also videotaped the interview for us to watch later. I hate watching myself, but I figured I should see how it went. And I have to say, it actually didn't sound nearly as awkward as it did in my mind. It even sounded like I knew what I was doing...which is scary, because there's not a whole lotta knowledge up top yet.

Outside of class, I've been dabbling in emergency medicine stuff. I've hung out for a few shifts at UIC's ER. It's not Cook County, so there aren't stabbings and shootings rolling in all the time. But, I've gotten to see a lot of things with a diversity of cases and have been learning quite a bit. More importantly, I'm starting to think that EM is what I'm wanting to do. I've also hit up a few EM workshops, mainly suturing and intubation. The suturing did not go so hot for me at this point, but I'm hoping that'll come with time. Intubation went a lot better and was actually pretty cool. So yeah, all that jazz is what's drawing me to EM: case variety, drawing on different aspects of medicine, getting to do some procedures, and shift work (i.e.: not being on call).

Outside of UIC, there's this place called Chicago. Gotten to try more fare. I can only think of two places off the top of my head: Heaven on Seven and Uncommon Ground. The former's a Cajun place while the latter's an American place. Heaven on Seven's got quite the selection of Creole fare and an even bigger selection of hot sauces to go with them. One of the walls is actually a huge spice rack of every hot sauce they have...I wasn't adventurous enough to ask for any of them. The pound of shrimp and tots were amazing though. Uncommon Ground's a classy date place without pretension - good ambiance, nice decor, and quiet (unless they've got live music going). They draw ingredients from local family farms and change their menu (food/drink) every few weeks. As for the music, there was an African band playing for a biodiesel cause of some sort. More importantly, the food was pretty good - the tilapia was pistachio encrusted yet still ridiculously moist. It gives La Sardine's salmon a run for it's money, imo.

As for biking, that's died down a bit on account of timing issues and shorter days. I average only about one ride a week :( This week it was in the 50s and that's kinda chilly on a bike, especially while riding upwind. My ears already get cold kinda easily, biking even more so. I'd still like to keep riding up until snow starts falling though. Another thing I've picked up is capture the flag. Been playing once a week for about a month now and it's actually pretty fun. Faceplanting into rose and thorn bushes: not so much fun. And they leave marks. But yeah, CTF's always a winner - get to run around for a few hours and be all ninja like at the same time. About the latter, campus security doesn't say anything to someone in all black sneaking around and hiding in bushes. Hell breaks loose if you dart across side streets though.