Mmmwhatchasayyy

Me:  To run or not to run, that is the question.
Neil:  Not run, is the answer. Unless you're running to Sweet Frog(s?) and then running to Christiansburg, VA with a vanilla cup topped with brownies and sour patch kids. Thanks.

Sunny:  Okay I'm going to make my way to bed.  Don't worry, it's directly behind me, I just have to shut off my best friend, my computer.

Nosheen:  Did you submit this to PostSecret?

No, Nosheen, I didn't.  I'm not saying it's not true, I'm just saying I didn't do it.

Too Much of a Good Thing

I never thought I'd say this, but I've had too many freericious nomz this weekend.  Well, it's not so much the quantity as it is the concentration.  We had a free student lunch at church today, but then Dean DeKosky hosted a pool party for the medical school and had free lunch there as well.  I guess I really can't complain about it, but couldn't they have talked to each other and spaced the events out a little bit more?  I mean, come on, work with me here!

While I'm on the subject of food, I'd like to make a plug for Sweet Frog.  It's a new frozen yogurt store on the Downtown Mall that's a branch of the original stores in Short Pump and Midlothian.  Don't hurt me, but I think that I might like it more than Arch's.  It's got ten flavors to choose from instead of just two, it has fresh fruit toppings, and it's a lot cheaper.  Win, win, win!

Inception

For some reason, I've been a popular subject in my friends' dreams this week.

Caroline:  I dreamed last night that you were stuck in an evil Harry Potter alternate universe and I was the only one who could save you.  Are you okay?

I am indeed okay; in fact, I am even better than okay!  I took a quick trip home this evening, which was the perfect excuse to pick up some extra mom nomz while I was there.  I literally now have enough food to last me for the next two weeks.  Huzzah!

Nightmares and Daydreams

Richie:  I had a bad dream.  I walked all night and into the morning to get to White Spot and there were no Gus Burgers.  And then you laughed at me.

Meanwhile, I walked into the clinic this morning, and all the nurses were chattering about how today was Picnic Day.  "Yeah, I guess it is sunny and warm today!" I replied, assuming that "picnic day" was some kind of weird Waynesboro-ism that just meant that it was really nice outside.  Then I saw all of the food in the break room and realized that everyone had brought in food for an actual picnic at lunchtime!  Pork BBQ, deviled eggs, potato salad, homemade ice cream... need I say more?  The freericious nomz surely have a way of finding me, no matter where I am.

Happy Birthday, Roomie!

It's Timmy's birthday today!  Tonight's celebrations will consist of reading Internal Medicine textbooks punctuated by breaks to play Words with Friends.  Alas, that is the curse of having to wake up at 6am to go to work.

Speaking of Timmy, allow me to introduce you to my new roommates.  We'll start with the birthday boy himself.

Timmy: Graduated from UVA in '08.  Apparently has a ton of the same friends as I did in undergrad, but I didn't meet him until Sunny suggested that he live with me this year.  Back in C-ville for grad school in the Curry School of Education.  Perhaps loves Titan more than I do.

Bassem: Roommate from last year who moved from one of the upstairs bedrooms to the one next to mine.  Now a second year in med school.  Wakes up early to go running before class every morning, which means he's way more committed than I am.

Celeste: First year med student from Northern Virginia.  Continues Kristen's tradition of being the only girl in the house and living in the basement.  Likes decorating the house and keeping it clean even more than I do, which is nice for me!

David: Another first year med student.  Converted to the Light Side after attending Virginia Tech for undergrad.  Gets extra points for enjoying taking photos.  But then again, I wouldn't consider him a real Asian if he didn't.

Robert: Fifth year undergrad.  That's all I know about him so far, because I've spoken a total of two sentences to him since he moved in last weekend.  Awk.

Welp, now you know who my roommates are, so you'll know who I'm talking about when I refer to them.  Here's to my brand new famiry!

You Win Some, You Lose Some

In celebration of Christin's birthday, we went to Mellow Mushroom for their weekly Trivia Night.  Despite a strong start in the first half, our team's progress slowed to a near halt by the end of the game.  I'm not going to point any fingers, but I think it's safe to say that putting "GORT" as our answer and wagering six points (you don't even want to know the question) was when our team jumped the shark.

What we lost in trivia points, we gained in free food.  Andrew and I had been eying the Hawaiian pizza sitting on the table next to us for the better part of an hour when the patrons finally moved the leftovers to the bar to be taken away.  Of course, I immediately pounced on the newly abandoned pizza slices, which Andrew and I split.  Oh, teh freericious nomz!

I don't know whether to count this as a win or a loss, but I saw my first vaginal yeast infection in clinic today.  I think Lee put it best with the following analogy: "Vaginas are like Luke Skywalker.  So much potential for greatness; so much potential for terrible, terrible nastiness."  Truer words have never been spoken.

Over the Mountain

I ventured over the mountain into the valley kingdom of Waynesboro for my first day of AIM today.  I'm working at Waynesboro Primary Care this upcoming month, which means I have to commute half an hour each way every day.  It's worth it, though, to work with the hilarious people at the office.

Nurse: "Carrie just called to tell me that her Blackberry exploded again.  Well, maybe it wouldn't if she stopped blowing it up with lies!"

Plus, we had a really overbooked and long morning, so pizza was ordered for everyone.  Thank God, because my stomach had started a northward migration, eating my esophagus as it ascended my GI tract.

All in all, a pretty fun day.  But tomorrow I have to start dictating clinic notes.  LOLWUT!?

Emergency Medicine Recap

Tomorrow, I start Ambulatory Internal Medicine in Waynesboro, so I guess that means it's time to sum up my experience in the Emergency Department.

Pros:
- A different day every day.  So much excitement and unpredictability!  I like that.
- A lot of instant gratification, especially with traumas.  Not having to manage diabetes and hypertension medications?  I certainly can't protest.
- Shift work!  Which means a great lifestyle and never having to round again.  ZOMG, is this the best or what??

Cons:
- A lot of the really cool traumas get referred to the specialists.  But I want them for myself!
- Not a lot of respect from the other doctors in the hospital, who have the benefit of hindsight.
- No continuity of care with patients, except for the "frequent fliers" that you probably don't want continuity with anyway.

So far, this has been the first rotation that I've done where I felt like this might be something I could see myself doing for the rest of my life.  I'll have to go back and do a month-long rotation my fourth year just to make sure...

In the meantime, I will simply relish in the fact that Literal Bears I'm Jealous Of posted four new entries today.  Is it Christmas in August!?

Tales from the Crypt

Much of last night was spent recounting the stories from the night before.  None of these stories make me proud, none of these stories can I recall on my own, but all of these stories are sadly true.  My last coherent memory from my birthday night was getting into the car with Sunny.  Apparently, here are some of the things I did after that:

- I ignored the extremely long line in front of Coupe's and just strolled into the bar.  There, I met some undergrad friends who entertained me until the rest of my med school friends walked in 15 minutes later.

- I stood on top of a large rock and yelled, "I'M ON A ROCK!" while the live band sang Happy Birthday to me.

- I baby-gait-ataxia'ed the entire way over to The Backyard in a manner not dissimilar to this:

- I acted like an angry baby the entire night, which turned out to be an effective way of clearing out a wide, open space for all of my friends and myself in an otherwise overcrowded bar.

- I ran into Chrissy, but I was not happy about it.

- I did the Thriller dance... over and over and over again.

- I chugged most of Neil's pitcher of beer.

- I took Kamikaze shots while yelling, "Suicide mission!!"

- I made fireballs with my hands (see last post).

- I repeatedly screamed things like, "TWO YEARS AGO, I OWNED THIS PLACE!  I KNEW EVERYONE WHO CAME HERE!"

- I met one of Chase's friends who was being very nice to me and asking me lots of questions about myself.  Then I turned to the girl standing next to him and slurred, "I want you to hook me up with a smokin' hot chick who doesn't ask so many questions."

- I peed hands-free on a bush, which Riel then pushed me into.

- I made a mess while eating Gus Burgers at the White Spot.

If you know of any other stories, please inform me of them.  Unless they're so embarrassing that it's better for me not to know.

Unlike the many stories from this weekend that I don't remember, I certainly will not forget last night.  I had driven to the other side of grounds to pick up several people to hang out at my house before Beer Olympics began.  Unfortunately, I unknowingly made an illegal right turn on red and was pulled over by a cop, who immediately noticed that I was carrying seven people in a car that only seats five.  He informed me that this was a reckless driving violation, but then let me go with just a warning.  And that, my friends, was the best birthday present of all time.  Well, second to this cake that Lindsay and Sunny baked and that Angie decorated:

Sigh, my friends know me so well!

Happy Birthday, Me

If you asked me today how it felt being 24, I would probably tell you "like death."  In typical Sam style, I went out the night before my birthday and spent most of my actual birthday laying on the couch, recovering from the worst hangover of my life.

It would be hard to top my 23rd birthday, when Brittany and Jim kidnapped me and took me to a surprise birthday party, but this weekend has been nothing short of a blast.  To start things off, we had birthday dinner #1 at Saigon Cafe, where we once again took over the entire restaurant with our loud and obnoxious laughter.  Or was that just me?  Meanwhile, Matt hoarded all of the Vietnamese crack sauce.

After pregaming to Futurama (yes, we're that cool), we eventually made it out to bars.  There, we discovered that at the ripe age of 24, I acquired the magical abilities of powering up and launching fireballs.

Man, nobody told me that being 24 years old was this cool!  But it doesn't end there.  We had birthday dinner #2 at Korean House tonight, where they even brought us a spicy tofu dish on the house to celebrate my special day.  And now to get ready for Beer Olympics... the fun just never ends!

If It's Too Good to Be True...

...then it probably is.  The Emergency Medicine rotation has been considerably slower the past two days than it was on Monday.

Yesterday, I did a ride-along with the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad.  We only received one legit call the entire afternoon for a guy who fainted in the parking lot after getting eight(!) teeth pulled at the orthodontist.  The rest of the afternoon we spent hanging around until we got two community service calls: one was to help an extremely obese woman off of the toilet seat in her new house, and another was to help a drunk guy who was wandering around the Chick-fil-A premises.

Today, I worked in the Pediatrics ED, where we only had four patients all afternoon.  I guess I shouldn't complain that not enough bad things are happening to people in Charlottesville, but COME ON!  Let me see some cool traumas, right?  RIGHT!?

Is She the One?

It's been but one brief day, and I already think I'm in love.

I worked the Triage Center in the Emergency Room this evening.  ZOMG, IT WAS AMAZING!!  My first patient was someone who had a near amputation of the left pointer finger due to a skill saw accident (the finger was still hanging on by a piece of skin).  This was followed by a drug seeker and then a patient with chest pain and abnormal EKG readings.  And I lurrrfed it.  So many patients!  So many angry patients!  So many loud and angry patients!  So many obese, loud, and angry patients!

I had no idea that the Emergency Department was so busy.  We literally never sat down, and there were always at least four patients waiting to be triaged the entire time I was there.  And this is how it made me feel:

To cap off a wonderful night, here's a heartwarming story from NPR.  Ahh.

I Was Wrong

Despite having killed two mosquitoes in my house within ten minutes of waking up, today was not the great day that I had foreseen.  First, I wanted to play The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, only to discover that our GameCube has no controllers or memory card, so I had to pay $25 for used ones on Amazon.  Then, I wanted to do my Emergency Medicine BLS certification, but the website was down this afternoon.  Then, I tried to go for a run with Titan, but as soon as I stepped outside, it started raining.  Finally, I resigned myself to watching Steppin': The Movie on TV, but it turned out to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen.  And not in a good way, either.

Perhaps I need a new algorithm for calculating wonderful days, or perhaps all my luck has been building up for tonight's Pirate Party.  And if last year's party was an indication, this should be a mARRRvelous night!

Today's Gonna Be a Great Day

The autistic character of Mark Haddon in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time decides that it will be a wonderful day if he sees four red cars in a row.  Like Mark, I enjoy looking for patterns in life, but I use a different paramenter:  it will be a wonderful day if I kill two mosquitoes in my house within ten minutes of waking up, like I just did.  Yes, it's the simple things in life.  It also helps that, having finished a week-long rotation, I have no responsibilities whatsoever this weekend.  Schwaaa??

On a completely unrelated note, I met a really cute girl at No. 3 last night.  I think she was a nurse and I think her name was Annie (sp?) Tran (sp?), but unfortunately Don't Stop Believing started playing and I got dragged away.  As I was being pulled back into the med school dancing circle (well, more like dancing blob), she asked me to Facebook her.  Didn't she know that there are 879 people on Facebook named Annie Tran, and I don't know if I'm even spelling it right??  So, not to sound like a stalker or anything, but if you know anything about who this girl is, let me know...

Anesthesiology Recap

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Pros:
- Anesthesiologists have a fantastic lifestyle.  It's basically like shift work, and at UVA, if you have to work past 5pm because of a PACU holdup, you actually get paid overtime.  ZOMG, really??
- You get a lot of instant gratification.  The patient's blood pressure is too low?  Administer some phenylephrine and see it rise!  The patient is beginning to buck on the operating table?  Shoot 'em up with some more propofol and watch 'em calm down!
- Anesthesiologists are really nice people.  Well, maybe except for one or two attendings... but seriously, they tend to be laid-back and easy to talk to.  I mean, you have to be a likable person if you're going to be the one helping someone through a traumatic surgery.

Cons:
- The job is characterized by intense moments scattered throughout an otherwise boring day.  Too much sitting behind the drape in the operating room, not enough action.
- I'll be honest, it would be hard for me to be in the operating room and not be the alpha dog.  I don't want to spend the rest of my life responding to surgeons asking me to decrease the heart rate or raise the bed.
- I've never been recruited so diligently in my entire life.  Either those anesthesiologists really love what they're doing, or they're just brainwashing me into joining their cult...

And, because my blog is a shining beacon of truth, here is the most truthful article on the entire interwebz: The Official Michael Cera Aging Timeline.

Um, What?

EDIT: This post has been deleted by the author.

Post-Prandial Somnolence

Woodgrill Buffet.  Enough said.

Geriatrics Recap

With the craziness of this past weekend and the excitement of SMD14 Orientation, I totally forgot to do this!

Pros:
- Flexible work hours.  I am seeing more and more how important this is to me.
- Continuity (and frequency) of care.  We would schedule weekly or biweekly follow-up clinic visits for many of our elderly patients with several medical problems.
- Relaxed work environment.  As Kristy always said, "There are no emergencies in Geriatrics."

Cons:
- 90-minute initial visits and 45-minute follow-up visits.  Yes, I like talking to patients, but even I find this to be a little too long.
- Having to work with many demented patients.  The healthy and active geratric patients are awesome, but the ones that are losing their ability to communicate with the rest of the world are awfully depressing.
- Limited population.  Why focus on Geriatrics when you can see the whole spectrum of ages in Primary Care by doing something like Family Medicine instead?

Speaking of SMD14 Orientation, though, it's time to go venture out to this "Socializing at Coupe DeVille's" event.  Man, I wish I were a first year again...

But I Am Le Tired

I think you're supposed to take the weekends to re-energize yourself, but I've done quite the opposite.  I don't know how it's possible, but I think I actually got negative eight hours of sleep, and I certainly did nothing productive.  At least I got some cool pictures out of it:

Titan sitting in my lap while we tubed down the Shenandoah River.  He swam the first time we did it, but the second time he discovered that it pays to be lazy.

Brittany and Brandon getting married.  Obviously, we had to get a medical school picture with the new bride and groom.  Here is the poem I wrote for them in their guestbook:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Brandon Lenz is married
To Brittany Hu!

Of course, we acted like teenagers the entire time.  Well, at least most of us did.  Others behaved more like toddlers.

Neil attempting to karate chop all of the bubbles that were blown.  It's okay, as you can tell by this picture, he has very special needs.

Why Did Nobody Tell Me?

Apparently there are filters in window air conditioning units.  Apparently you should clean them or replace them every few months.  Apparently nobody ever told me this before Bassem did tonight.  The filter in my a/c unit was pretty disgusting, and I can't believe I've been breathing all of that gross air for the past two years that I've lived in this house.  Gross.

Now, will somebody please finish this presentation on wrist pain in geriatric patients for me?

Only on Geriatrics

...would I have a day that is scheduled to go until 5pm but actually finish at 12:20pm.  NAPTIME!

Isn't It Ironic?

Dear anonymous commenter, please tell me where I can get my ties dry cleaned for $1 each!  I am simultaneously sad that I have overpaid and glad that I will never have to do so again.

On with the show:

Back when I was working 14 to 15 hours each day on my Surgical Subspecialties rotation, I never once touched a cup of coffee.  The fact that I was running around nonstop and always involved in some form of patient care prevented me from even having time to feel tired or worn out.

Flash forward to my Geriatrics rotation, where my hours are light and the workload is negligible.  I can't survive a single day without at least one cup, sometimes two or three, of coffee.  It's days like yesterday and today, when we spend all day in teaching sessions, that really kill me.  Being seated in a conference room is like a kiss of death to me.  Even after my cup of coffee this afternoon, I was having trouble staying awake through our workshops.

And now it's time for me to share with you some fake movies that I wish were real.

Spoils of War

Yes!  Bassem and I have finally finished dumping everything out of the house that doesn't belong to us.  In the process of cleaning out the basement, we found:

- A messenger bag!  It's a really nice one, too, so I'm going to start using it as my doctoring bag.
- A hibachi grill!  LOLWUT!?
- A badminton set!  I'm totally going to start bringing these to our cookouts.
- A GameCube along with several games, including The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker!  ZOMG, is this the best day of my life!?

Home Alone

First, allow me to clarify my previous post.  My roommate Kristen and two of her friends are all leaving town this week, so they hosted a farewell party at our house on Friday night.  They each invited their own guests, and unfortunately, two of Suzie's guests decided that it would be a good idea to hook up at the end of the night... in my bathroom.  It took several attempts made by myself and others to finally get them to come out of the bathroom.  What a bizarre end to my night.

Anyway, all of my roommates are moved out except for Bassem, who, like me, is staying here next year.  The house was empty last night, and it's hitting Titan pretty hard.  He keeps looking for Marley, Kristen's dog, and then looking sad and dejected when he can't find her.  Poor Titan.  Don't cry because it's over.  Smile because it happened!