Argh...starting to get stressed out...we need more hours in a day...or else I need a photographic memory.

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"

I've finally managed to get some pictures up on this blog. Albeit, it's still a little sketchy, I need to learn how to post multiple pictures in one blog and how to incorporate some text but in the mean time, I'm just happy that there are pictures.

Being perfectly honest, I didn't do much =) I let them store the pumpkin in my locker and I may have peeled off a bit of pumpkin rind, but I was lucky to have a couple of future surgeons in my group and our pumpkin won the award for our class =) Yay! And our prize is dinner with the Dean... which sounds a bit lavish for having carved a pumpkin, but I'm not complaining =) Haha, the last picture is a really nasty pumpkin some of the 2nd years made =) Not surprisingly, they're in the middle of Repro block right now which explains a lot...

Oh, and for those who don't know. 'Necrotizing fasciitis' is the fancy term for flesh-eating disease. WE'RE NERDS!!! WHAT DID YOU EXPECT???

Necrotizing Fasciitis in all its glory =) 

Our group hard at work =)  

Haha...eew...where do ppl get the idea that doctors are hard-working, serious people? 

Yay Tru!!!

I'm so happy for you hun!!!

Driving with my sister is not conducive to a peaceful state of mind.

I'm one week behind in class and we're only in our second week of Triple III (Infection, Inflammation, Immunology). Bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs!!! After this section I will never drink water in Asia, always wash my hands after the bathroom and before I put in my contacts (not that I didn't before...), not eat sushi (worms!), not eat beef (tapeworms!), never shake hands with anyone (germs, germs, germs!!!), always sit in the back row in class because respiratory droplets from the ppl behind you can travel a metre and rain death down upon you, immunize my children with every vaccine known to man and most of all... NEVER HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX WITH MULTIPLE PARTNERS(I wasn't planning on it anyways).

I cannot emphasize this last point enough ppl! If you'd seen the pictures I've seen....ugh!!! I've seen genital warts so bad it looks like cauliflower! Girls can become sterile, babies can be infected on their way through the birth canal and come out bearing a slightly resemblance to myself at the height of my acne problems...red oozing spots EVERYWHERE!!! Ugh, I'm going to have OCD by the time this block is done...

So, my clinical career is off to a slightly less than terrific start. Today we were practicing phlebotomy (drawing blood) and since it isn't ethically right for us to practice on live patients, we had to practice on each other. My partner was great! No pain and the whole thing went relatively smoothly. I, on the other hand, was so chicken that I didn't put the needle in far enough and when I popped the collection tube onto the back of the needle, the needle slid out of her arm and the blood started to ooze. Thankfully she's still willing to be friends with me. Aiya...

The snow started coming down at about 9 last night and it hasn't let up yet! Was considering going out tonight but have now definitely decided against it. Clubbing clothes in this kinda weather? Not bloody likely =) But in Alberta, winter can last until May so we'll see if I cave in later on in the year...

Yay! On a whim last month I decided to apply for a leadership position in the International Health(IH) Club and just yesterday I found out that I'll be co-chairing World AIDS Day, World TB Day and the anti-malaria campaign! I hadn't exactly planned on taking on this large of a role and I'm not sure exactly how much of my time this will take up but I'm definitely looking foward to it =) In other IH news, this Saturday is the intro to IH electives and something I'm very excited about. Africa? Eastern Europe? South Asia? Oh the possibilities...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Well, the Canadians anyways =)

As for me, I spent my Thanksgiving in Calgary for the first time in 3 years. Mmm...sushi, Viet, turkey and Chinese all in one weekend! Plus I brought the spoils back to Edmonton in a huge cooler so there'll be little cooking for the next week or so =)

Am I ungrateful? After taking a quick read through my blog entries over the last few months I realized that I often come across as so. But I am slowly learning to see the blessings in disguise. If I had the same cushy Queens schedule, I would not learn as much as I have in the last month. If I were still surrounded by KCCFers, I would not be pushed into the uncomfortable world of unbelievers. If I still had my own comfy room at 78 Wellington, I would learn neither patience nor tolerance. If we were still in the same city, seeing each other every day, we would never have realized that we do have what it takes to last, despite the distance =)

Sniff...remember the good old days of Napster? You could hear a song you really liked on the radio, hop online and poof! 100 other people would already have the song and in 30 seconds it'd be playing from your speakers.

I recently got my computer shipped to me from Kingston and found to my dismay that my Kazaa Lite is now illegal =( Napster is long gone, iTunes isn't available in Canada and I'm itching to update my playlist. Does anyone else know of any other software I could use instead? I'd prefer it if were legal and free =) But I'll settle for free =)

I got to shadow for the first time today! The extent of the excitement I felt over this was borderline pathetic =) I think I literally flew out of bed this morning at the prospect of actually seeing a patient. Overall, it was a really great experience. There was a large variety of stuff: lots of depression and anxiety disorders, one case of crystal-meth related depression, diabetes, hypertension, chronic pain, pregnancy checkup, and one teeny little baby had her 6-week checkup =) Not really the typical cough/cold stuff I had expected to see in a family doctor's practice.

The most impressive part about this experience was the way in which the doctor cared for her patients. She remembered details about jobs, their personal life, their family members, everything. And every one of her patients seemed to genuinely like her, and this is on top of the added stress of there being some very green med students in the room =) All in all, I have to say that my opinion of family medicine is definitely changing for the better =)

Yesterday was Aboriginal Health Day. Despite being dragged out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6 AM in order to catch the bus to the reserve, freezing our butts off sitting in unheated tents when it was below zero, and a lack of coffee - it was a really neat experience.

After only a day, you start to get a sense of how complicated healthcare can be in native communities. They have their own healing traditions, much like the Chinese, and many natives don't trust Western medicine. And while the world walks around with stereotypes of natives, they themselves have their own stereotypes about "white" people and doctors. The doctors can't understand why the patients are so uncompliant with medications and the natives can't understand why doctors only seem to be capable of prescribing pills and incapable of listening to them. It goes on and on...then on the way home I was having a conversation with a friend about the racial segregation that seems to be going on in my class.

I don't know why Asian people tend to group together. It's more comfortable, true, to be with people who have a similar background as you. But today I happened to look up at lunch and noticed that 90% of the Asian people in my class were sitting within about 10 feet of me, and we had set ourselves apart from the rest of the group. No one was discriminating against us, we had done this ourselves. I started out this year vowing to try and make friends with people of all cultures, but I still find myself surrounded by a yellow sea =) Why is that?