October 2002 Archives

Just got back from test #3. Not that bad. Especially considering that my plans to study all weekend were suddenly and unexpectedly foiled - but in a good way. Instead of waking up and cracking the anatomy book on sunday as planned, I woke up and went on a 5 hour scooter ride to the columbia gorge.

How did I find myself on this amazing scooter adventure? Well, it all started when my clutch cable snapped saturday night. This was not a fortunate event in itself, as I was forced to push the trooper 12 blocks uphill, alone because mike ditched me to go to a poker game (in which he lost all his money), and yet not alone because, as it was saturday night, the sidewalks were teeming with folks in their trendy little going-out-to-northwest 23rd outfits. That was nice.

But a good thing came out of it (besides me getting excercise for once). I got to meet Rob, a columbia scooters employee, who out of the goodness of his heart ditched his girlfriend to come replace my brake cable at 9 pm. Not only did he do that, but he found that my shifter cable was also out of whack, so he replaced it with the front break cable off his very own vespa! Such service, such sacrifice, such support for a fellow (although inexperienced) scoot-er in need. In exchange for his awesomeness, i bought him (and jessica who was hanging out) a fancy cocktail at brazen bean. And we had a pretty in-depth conversation on the evils of automobiles and the cost-effectiveness of alternative single-person transportation. Very cool.

And if my clutch cable wouldn't have snapped when it did - a) i might have been seriously injured (or inconvenienced) when it snapped as i was winding my way down the backroad from OHSU, and b) i wouldn't have found out about the big scooter ride on sunday. It was sponsored by Columbia Scooters, and put on by the new Oregon Scooter Club. So i drug mike out of bed on sunday morning, strapped him to the back of the trooper, and rode in a pack of about 30 scooters of all different breeds out to the columbia gorge and Edgefield. It was awesome. The fall colors were incredible, and it felt so good to get out of the city. And I got to meet all sorts of cool scooter kids. True, in the back of my mind this whole time, i was thinking - "Ummmmm... fiona, you have a test tomorrow. You haven't really studied. I guess somebody's staying up late again." But i pushed down the panic, and had a good time. It was really cool. I will post pictures soon - mike documented the experience.

And I did stay up late. And I did try to learn embryology for the first time this morning cause i fell asleep trying last night. And I am VERY VERY VERY tired right now. But it went ok - maybe even well. And I'm very glad I went.

It seems like each day is a little struggle of sacrifices - do well in school? have fun? do well in school? see my friends? do well in school? sleep? It seems like a lot of the time i have to pick - and most of the time school wins. But it doesn't have to be a complete sacrifice. I can do more than one thing.

And now I'm all excited because I want to be the first aid medic for all the scooter rides and rallies! I am thinking about trying to get a basic first aid elective going at OHSU (maybe through the emergency medicine intersest group), and then putting together a comprehensive first aid kit for scooter rides. Someone made a comment to me during the ride that they need somebody like that. I even thought about maybe getting a red cross onto my scooter - JESSICA JUST HAD THE AMAZING IDEA OF GETTING GIANT RED CROSS MAGNETS TO STICK ON IT WHEN I NEED TO BE A SCOOTER MEDIC. HOLY SHIT. Yay! It makes me so excited to think about doing that (and it might help in the game of getting into a good residency, especially if i continue my interest in ER work). I feel like its all comin together.

SCOOTER MEDIC! SCOOTER MEDIC!!
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I feel like so much has happened since the last time that I updated. So many things. I have gone from being entirely overwhelmed, from feeling like i've pretty much figured this med school thing out, to... i don't know... to being completely exhausted and exhilerated at the same time. To be honest, i feel pretty exhausted most of the time, but to the extent that its falling into a pattern. The pattern hinges around the test, which happens once every 2 or 3 weeks (i have another one on monday). The week before the test is usually when i start staying up late during the week in a feeble attempt to spread out the workload sose im not studying literally every waking hour over the weekend. Usually that doesn't work- i still study all weekend - but it does get me tired in the process. Night before the test i usually get about 4 hours of sleep. After the test i get slightly more, but am prevented from a full sleep recovery by the strangely compelling desire to drink lots of PBR. I wonder where that comes from. Then I usually forget to go to class the next morning. Oops.

Then suddenly I find myself at wednesday night, completely worn out and stressed because i have discovered that i am already 2 days behind. They give us NO BREAK. Nothing. We are supposed to study the night after the test to prepare for the next day's dissection. The only day that goes by that i'm not responsible for new knowledge is the day i spend studying frantically for the exam. After i realize that i am already 2 days behind and quite tired, and after i get done whining about the intensity of the curriculum and the fact that i need a frickin vacation, i think about the fact that this is not going to end. Never. Atleast never in the forseeable future. This is my life. Its not like i cram for a test and then go on summer break. I am always cramming for the test. And its just going to get harder. Then i get depressed. Then i go to sleep. Then i go through a period of haughty denial where i convince myself that im cool for just getting into medical school and should just watch movies instead of studying because it will all be ok in the end (i really do have some fun in this period, which last oh 2-3 days). Then i suddenly realize - Shit! I have to study! And then i start staying up late and cramming for the next test. It is an incredible exhausing cycle.

Right now i am at the friday before the test, trying to decide whether or not i should go out, or stay home and study. Its a tough call.

Here are some updates:
- last week i learned how to do pelvic, breast, prostate, and testicular exams! But i only got to practice on undersized rubber models, so i'm not sure that i'm completely proficient yet. Mike REFUSED to let me practice on him. So if anyone wants to help me out.... uh, im kind of serious. Lives could be at stake! You could have prostate cancer and not even know it! Come see Dr. Fiona today!!

- last week we disected the external genitalia. I made it my mission to find the body of the clitoris (which is actually quite long, but very very deep). I failed. 2 hours was not long enough. I keep meaning to go back to dig that puppy out, but i don't know. maybe i need to reevaluate my priorities. See quote from 10/15.

- went to an OHSU lecture on tinnitus - learned some things- i figure if im going to get it someday, i might as well know a lot about it (mike thinks im very paranoid)

- i have totally developed a crush on the young Bill Cosby, who was AMAZING in the 1964 show I Spy which was recently remade as a major motion picture (or so i hear). He was so hot! Weird. Ceck it out.

- i met Steph, the sister of one of my college friends, who is currently an internal medicine resident. I am going to go hang out with her on the wards next friday - yay! Build the connex. I think i might want to be an internist.

- I think i also might want to go into emergency medicine. This is a fairly new development. It all started yesterday, when i attended a panel lunch on ER docs. When i was like 11 i thought i wanted to work in an emergency medicine, but i also thought i wanted to live on a horse farm with my sister and join the navy, so who knows what i was thinking. I had kind of swept the ER plan under the rug of consciousness, but it resurfaced all of a sudden yesterday. I realized that when i picture myself as a doctor, it is not in a clinic discussing asthma medication, it is finding someone unconcious on the side of the road and knowing what to do, it is knowing what to do when someone has a heart attack or gets hit by a car or has a seizure. Having that knowledge. Knowing. Saving someone. Fixing that immediate need. Being one of those doctors who dropped everything and flew to New York after the attacks, because they were needed. In that most essential and human of ways. It gives me chills when i think about that. I used to be all about primary care: having relationships with patients, continuity of care, preventative health, all that. But now, i don't know... something within me is excited about the idea of emergency medicine. We shall see.

I am worried about my indeciveness, though. I am not known as one to make fast decisions under pressure:).
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Quote from Dr. Karmen Schmidt, the anatomy professor, refering to the clitoris, which anatomists and doctors have traditionally referred to as a "diminuitive penis": "It is exactly what nature intended it to be. It is not a diminuitive anything. It is a clitoris."

Hell yeah.
For an illustration of the full extent of the clitoral tissue, click here. Its hard to tell cause its black and white, but the legs of the clitoris are shown as thin bands descending diagonally on either side from its shaft, hugging the pubic part of the pelvic bone. In a male, the structure is quite similar, exept the legs are joined and the shaft is longer. Check it out. It is not just a little nubbin.

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mike just said the sweetest thing. He said, "If I weren't dating you I would be way more depressed." Isn't that just the cutest thing ever?

But seriously, mike is awesome. He bought me flowers after the test. He cooks food for me and stuff.
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I spent an hour today picking chunks of fat out of a dead lady's "anal triangle".

Apparently there are some important vessels in this clinically-significant region. I did not find them. But I did spend an hour - an hour that I could have spent listening to a lecture on the medical effects of war put on by the OHSU chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility - looking for them.

I repeat: Anal triangle.
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mike passed the test :)

The other test, the medical one, went ok. I definitely felt better about this one than the last one, but i don't know if that really matters. Im heading out now to meet up with the classmates at Shanghai tunnel. I like the tradition of everyone going out together after exams. It means that noone will know what's going on in class tomorrow (because we do have an extensive reading assignment, of course), but i think the comraderie is more important.
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Tomorrow is our second exam. We will be tested on basically everything that is not head, arms, or legs. That is much stuff. I have found this section more interesting than the last, because we are dealing a little more with the function and innervation of organs, instead of just learning the attachments of the 32 muscles of the arm and hand. Say, did you know that there are 20 separate, individual muscles in the forearm alone? And they all attach to sliiiiiightly different points on the same bones, and do sliiiightly different things, but some of the same things, and it is VERY VERY important in the grand scheme of things to know which is which. Very important. (I think im kidding, but im not sure).

But now i have to know things like Where is the stomach? and What are lungs? and Where are the post-synaptic ganglia of parasympathetic pelvic nerves located? and Why are there gray rami communicantes but no white rami communicantes below the level of L2? See! Much more fun.

I think Im ready for this test, but I still have a LOT more last minute memorization to do. Its funny, because cramming for a test in college took like 2 hours. Cramming for a test in medical school takes like 5 days.

And I've made it a priority this weekend to actually do things, whereas I did little more than study the weekend before the last test. On Friday I went out with some med school peeps that I haven't hung out with before and it was really fun. Last night I went to the last night of NWEAMO's electro-acoustical music festival (which jill helped organize), where I listened to some really innovative instruments and sounds, as well as some incredibly offensive high pitched static that went on for 20 minutes. At one point I thought "Ooooohhh... so this is what its like to have tinnitus." Now I can better relate to my dad, who is a victim of that very affliction. And this morning I went out for crepes with jill and callie (who I haven't seen for over a month, and who are both more important than studying). So I'm doing well. But I will be up until atleast 2 am tonight. Its cool though. I have mate. (and cheezy poofs from trader joes!)

Right now mike is running lose with my debit card. His mission is to purchase a variety of important household items from target and fry's electronics. My studies prevented me from accompanying him on this mission, so im kind of scared about whats going to happen. And i think he forgot his cell phone, so he can't consult me! This will be the ultimate test of our relationship. If he goes over $150, we are breaking up.
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