Most of the stuff I write about on my blog is funny and, to be honest, relatively inconsequential happenings from my life. I do that partly for you (because I think that's what people want to read about) and partly for me (because I need a comedic outlet to deal with the stresses of medical school).
Today, though, is Easter, and my thoughts are on things that are not inconsequential. Although faith is important to me every day of the year, Easter brings a special and specific reminder of why I believe the things I believe and why I live the way I live.
As a med student, I study non-stop about the presence of physical health, the absence of it during sickness, and how the medical community attempts to restore it. Trillions and trillions of dollars and millions and millions of lives have been devoted to the restoration of physical health to the sick.
Even so, physical health is of secondary importance to spiritual health. Why? Physical health, good or bad, is ultimately temporary. Spiritual health, though, is everlasting. Our physical existence is but a small dot on the endless timeline of our spiritual existence. For me, that really puts things in perspective.
One of my favorite scriptures is Mark 2:17 (also found in Luke and in the Book of Mormon). It reads,
"When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
And there you have it! Jesus Christ is the great physician. In fact, He is the GREATEST physician. His mission was to provide us with a path, and He did. With the helping hand of our Savior's Atonement, the prognosis for our spiritual being is eternal happiness. This Easter, I am grateful for Him and to Him. For all that He did and all that He is. He is my rock. He is my physician, and He knows exactly what I need when I need it how I need it. The tomb IS empty, and that means everything to me.
HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!
Here are a few relevant extras.
This picture (Painted by Greene):
This video (by LDS Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland. What is an Apostle? See Definition of an Apostle.):
From the video above,
"May we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus
Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times
but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is
lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear. This Easter week and
always, may we stand by Jesus Christ “at all times and in all things,
and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death,” for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone."
For the past few months, I've been trying to lock down my plans for this upcoming summer. The summer between the first and second year of medical school is often referred to by med students, residents, and attendings as "the last summer," due to it being the last ever scheduled summer break. Lots of med students do research (for the experience and as CV padding), some do humanitarian work, some study for the Step 1 boards exam (taken after second year), and a handful just relax or go on a vacation.
After weighing all my options, I decided that I wanted to do a little bit of everything. Classic me. I have a hard time choosing between good options. Nothing new about that. So what will I be doing? I'm proud to announce that this summer I will be... drum roll please [click on the video]...
Working on a research project in Kigali, Rwanda!!! How exciting is that?? I'll get to travel, do some research, relax, and possibly study a little for boards. Ok, let's be real. I'm probably not going to study for boards. But all of the other stuff is definitely going to happen!
As for the research stuff, I'm still narrowing the focus of my project, but it'll be something along the lines of medical professionals' perceptions of domestic abuse in a developing country. I'll have to come up with a catchier title, but you get the idea. Until then, I'm in full Rwanda mode. We had an orientation dinner on Tuesday, where we talked about our research, Rwandan history, travel tips, etc. I leave at the beginning of June. Pretty sure I'm going to listen to this song every day till I leave....
Play this song before you start reading. Trust me. One of the most underrated intros in rock history. Plus, the name of the song is the same as today's blog topic. Ladies and gentlemen, "Snow" by the RHCP:
We had a snowstorm this week. Having lived in Russia for two years on my mission and in Utah for four years while I went to BYU, I've seen my fair share of snow. That being said, I still get super excited every time there is snow in the forecast. Having been raised in a part of the country (Tennessee) where snow = no school, I can't help it (see, Pavlov's dogs). Leading up to Tuesday night, I'd heard there was some serious snow in the forecast. 6-10" was the word on the weather.com street.
But even though snow seemed very likely at that point, I was skeptical. Weather people are wrong a lot of the time, and, between you and me, I don't think they even care. Case in point: The other day it said that the high/low for the day was 47/32 and that the current temperature was 28. Anyone else see a problem with that? I certainly did. The math did not add up. Aaaaaaaanyways, long story short. I do not trust weather people. Never have, never will. Which explains my surprise when I looked out side and saw that it had begun to snow.
And then this happened....
And then this....
And then a little bit of this....
And then some of this business....
Next thing you know, we have more than a foot of snow and my FIRST OFFICIAL UVA MED SNOW DAY!!! Happy winter, everyone.
Sometimes, the more you study, the dumber you get.
Although it seems counter intuitive at first, it's completely true. I'll give you a quick little example. Earlier this week, after a late night studying, I slept through my alarm. Blast. Upon realizing I was late, I jumped out of bed (literally), threw a hoodie on (And pants. And shoes. And all the rest of the stuff.), put on my glasses, and ran out the door. While I was riding the bus, I noticed that my vision seemed a little....off. For some reason, my left eye seemed like it couldn't focus correctly. Being a medical student, this scared me to death.
So...I need to make a comment here. For the record, I do not have a monopoly on thinking I am going to die from a rare medical condition. Generally speaking, most medical students are hypochondriacs. But hey, when you study diseases all day every day, it's impossible to not think you have some of them. Plus, just about every disease includes symptoms of fatigue, headache, blurry vision, diarrhea, fever, rashes in weird places etc. And I can tell you from experience that most med students have a lot of those symptoms pretty regularly. haha. So, it's only natural to think we are dying.
Ok, back to my story. We haven't studied optic or neurological stuff much, so I just used my medical school imagination to diagnose myself right there on the bus. I decided I had a tumor on my my optic tract. I mean what else could it be? After that, my mind jumped to other questions. Had it metastasized? What stage was the tumor? I looked at the guy on my left. Could he give my eulogy? Uh, no, definitely not. Guy on my right? He looked pretty respectable.
Right as I'm about to ask a complete stranger to give my eulogy, I noticed something. Even though my left eye seemed out of focus, it seemed clearer at the same time. I took off my glasses and looked at them. In my hurry to get out the door, I had knocked the left lens out of my glasses, and somehow (really not sure how), I didn't realize it. So.....the good news is that I don't have an optic tumor. The bad news is that I wore my glasses without one of the lenses for an hour and didn't realize it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how, studying a lot can make your brain dumb. Like I said earlier, it's counter intuitive, but it's totally true.
Quick hitters
#1. I ain't got no money, honey. As a college student (when you have zero dollars in the
bank), and even moreso as a medical student (when you have negative
dollars in the bank), you keep an eye out for good deals. I can still
remember the day I found three avacados for a dollar. One of the best
moments of my time here in medical school. This happened several times
that week:
Anyways, my friend Sarah told me about an all you can eat gelato deal that only happens on Wednesdays in February. Being a gelato lover, I had to check it out. When the smoke in the air cleared, I'd eaten $32 worth of gelato, which was definitely worth the $7 price of admission. Here are the flavors I tried: salted caramel, blood orange, mint chocolate chip, coconut, chocolate, raspberry, nutmeg, pistachio, and a bunch of italian flavors that I can't recall at the moment. It was delizioso, as they say in Italia. Here's a picture of Sarah and me, post gelato gorge. Apparently, one of the side effects of eating that much gelato is that your eyes turn into deer-in-headlights eyes:
#2. GI is going to kill me. So, I studied fooooorrrreeevvver for my GI quiz this weekend. We've only been in the GI system for 2 weeks, but it feels like we've been in it for three months. Guess this means I'm not going to be a gastroenterologist. Anyways, I thought I did a good job preparing for my quiz. I definitely put in a lot of time. As soon as I opened the quiz, though, this is basically what happened:
Apparently, GI is a little tougher than I thought it would be. That being said, in the beautiful words of Gloria Gaynor, I will survive!
#3. Partypartypartyparty. On Friday, I took a lil' time out of my study schedule to go to the EBSP. What is the EBSP you say? Well, officially it is the End of Basic Science Party, a black tie event celebrating the second year students' completion of classes and Step 1 boards. Unofficially, it's an open bar, loud music, "we haven't been outside our apartments for weeks because we've been studying for boards and now we are trying to get un-awkward before rotations" type of party. Since the second years were gracious enough to invite all the students in the med school, I decided to swing by for a few minutes. Even though Mormons don't drink alcohol, I had a ton of fun hanging out with all my classmates. Unfortunatly, I'm the worst at taking pictures, so all I have is a grainy shot from a nearby security camera with an overzealous flash. But yeah, this is me on the way to EBSP:
#4. Study Song of the Week:
"Bleeding Out" by Imagine Dragons
If you couldn't tell, I love Imagine Dragons. I listened to it on repeat the whole time I was studying about upper and lower GI bleeds. Seemed appropriate. haha Here it is:
#5. Medical word of the day:
Esophagogastroduodenoscopy
Try saying that five times fast. I certainly can't. We normally just say EGD.
#6. March Madness. I've always loved college basketball. It's probably my favorite sport to
watch in person (Sorry, college football, as much as I love you, your
five hour games in mid-November are borderline unethical). This week I attended the Duke-UVa basketball game. I got there 15 minutes early, but ALL of the student seats were taken. We ended up all the way up in the back. If our seats had been any higher up, I think I would've gotten altitude sickness. But UVa won! The students, of course, had to rush the court. Sports have definitely been one of the highlights of coming to UVa med. Students get in to every sporting event for free. Soccer, football, lacrosse, badminton, wateraerobics, chess, world of warcraft. You name it. All free. It's a dreamcome true. Here are some pictures from the game. Five points to Gryffindor if you can spot Mike Krzyzewski.
