TONY: Just Her Time…

I’ve been trying to remember every piece of this for the last month but time, as it often does, has managed to wipe many of the details away.  I suppose the best way to bring you back with me would be to tell you about the images that I still see when I close my eyes and think of my second day on surgery:  I can hear the cacophony of the bells, whistles, horns, and sirens of each monitor in the ICU room; I can see the heart monitor and watch as the normal rhythm changes suddenly to a pattern of tombstones racing across the screen; I can feel every muscle in my body tiring as I start my sixth round of chest compressions; I can pull my sneaker off of the floor and wonder why I was stuck to the ground for a moment, then realize that the linoleum is covered with blood;  I can hear fluid sloshing around in her lungs and underneath her skin as I pound on her chest; I can see the look of defeat in the eyes of everyone in the room when resuscitation efforts are called off; and I can still sense the stillness in the air of the room in the moments before it all started.

This patient came into the ER the night before for a problem that required immediate surgical intervention.  The surgery was long and reasonably complicated, but the patient was stable when she came out.  She ended up passing away approximately 12 hours after she returned from the operating room.  Within those twelve hours, her blood pressure readings were dangerously low.  Clinically, however, she did not appear as if her BP could possibly be as low as the machines were indicating, so hours were spent replacing cuffs, inserting new lines, and insisting that the blood pressure that we continued to read on the monitors was incorrect.  As it turned out, the blood pressure was being read correctly the entire time.  Every resident and attending racked their brains that afternoon, knowing that something just wasn’t right, but not prepared to second guess their treatment.  After all was said and done, three residents and I sat in the silent room, the patient’s cold body lying on the bed before us, wondering aloud if anything could have been done differently.  Everyone agreed, or perhaps was forced by defeat to agree, that every other path of management would have lead to the same outcome.

I know that this woman was eulogized by somebody, somewhere later that week.  If I know eulogies, much was made of the tragedy of this young woman’s death, but the universal consolation was that it was simply ‘her time’.  Some being greater than us had decided that her life on this earth was over.  Simple, really.  But as you enter the medical field, those consolations start to feel more and more empty.  Was it simply this woman’s time?  Or did your action, or lack of action, your judgment call, your mistake force the hands of the clock?

Welcome to the real part of medical school, kids.

TONY: Bad News

Hello Loyal Readers,

I wanted to take a quick minute to post a reflection piece that I wrote recently about breaking bad news to patients.  As a student on any rotation, you will have to be the one to (or be part of a team that) must deliver bad news, and believe me when I tell you that it is one of the most difficult skills to master.  Some doctors go their entire careers without fully grasping the importance of the subtleties of this delicate patient interaction.  Fortunately for me, I was recently working with a young doctor who, in my opinion, is off to a great start…

Mr. S is a 60 year old African American male, a man who lives with his wife, and is close with his many children.  Mr. S was not my patient, so I did not follow his hospital stay at Emory very closely, but I did round with my resident on him the day that lab tests determined that he had metastatic pancreatic cancer.  When we arrived, Mr. S was downstairs getting an ultrasound done, but his wife and son were in the room.  I remember that they had been sleeping when we knocked—it had been a very long and emotionally draining hospital stay.  Although they had had no idea of the severity of Mr. S’s disease when they arrived a few days ago, the seed had been planted by their medical team that cancer was a very real possibility.
My resident and I knocked and entered the room, greeted the family and both took seats.   The four of us were clustered near the window, looking out on the fading spring sun.  After we made our introductions, my resident told the family what our tests had confirmed.  The family members simply nodded—they had been expecting this.  Their strength, as it appeared to me, was clearly fragile—hanging by a thread.  This made it all the more important that the remainder of this conversation was delivered in a way that respected the fact that the family’s emotional breaking point could occur at any moment.
I felt that my resident negotiated this beautifully.  His tone was always calm, and inviting of questions.  He gave a brief overview of the differences between palliative care and chemotherapy, discussed the merits and drawbacks of both in lay terms that did not condescend.  These are the things that any good doctor should do when delivering bad news.  What I believe was truly special, and what I believe I learned most about, was my residents knowledge of the times when words fail.  There were many breaks in this conversation where there would be no words.  Not because he had asked a difficult question or because anyone had broken out in tears.  It was, quite simply, because there are times in these difficult conversations when silence is more valuable, respectful, and encouraging than words.  My resident knew this, and perhaps more importantly, he did not fear it.  Sometimes we would sit with the family mid conversation for what seemed like an eternity to me, but turned out to only be about twenty seconds, and simply be present.  I felt that I could see the family members digest each piece of life-changing information piece by piece during these pauses.  They asked questions when they felt they needed to, and kept silent when they didn’t.   The entire conversation may have only taken 15 minutes, but I felt that each moment was well spent, and no word was wasted.

Stay tuned, kids.  My next post will chronicle my second (and significantly more epic) trip to Haiti!

TONY: Where In The World Is…

I apologize for the extended absence, but once more the truth is back.  I believe that it has been nigh on four months since my last post.  I promise that I’ve been busy though!  Clearly we have a lot of ground to cover, so I will summarize my life since my last post in succinct bullet-points.  Prepare yourself—this will be a journey:

-    I took Step 1 of the NBME board exam on January 16th.  I know that other bloggers have mentioned this test and alluded to related anxiety/terror.  For those of you who don’t know, this is the first of many exams administered by the National Board of Medical Examiners that one must pass in order to become licensed to practice medicine.  It’s designed to evaluate everything that you’ve learned in the first two years of medical school.  People have been known to spend anywhere between four weeks to three months studying for this test, and the degree of sanity loss that you’ll witness among your classmates during this time is astounding.  Personally, I spent about five and a half weeks studying approximately eight to ten hours a day for six days out of each week.  Then I knocked it out in January so that I’d have six weeks of vacation.  If you have any questions about the experience of studying, feel free to contact me!

-    After the test I skipped town and headed up the coast to Washington DC.  I missed the inauguration by one day, but the spirit of merriment was still in full swing.  A few college friends and I met up for a mini-reunion, and we did our best to leave our mark on the nation’s capital.

-    I learned first-hand that parrots are the absolute worst possible pets.  Ever.  Did you know that in addition to learning how to imitate human sounds, they’re also very skilled at imitating alarm clocks and cell phone ringers?  In fact, they’re so good at these sounds that they often choose to share the full repertoire at the crack of dawn.  Seriously.  Own a goldfish.

-    My next stop was good old NYC, where I relaxed with my Mom, and saw some old friends.  Perhaps most importantly, I ate the best pizza that the world has to offer.  Every day.  Multiple times a day.  For two weeks straight.

-    Next stop:  Las Vegas for four nights.  We all know that what happens in Vegas is fated to remain in that heathen desert city, but I will give you one tiny sliver of a story.  Apparently, according to many Las Vegas residents, this guy:

plus this:

equals this much more famous guy:

And because of this mix-up, everyone was a winner.

-     The final excursion on my world tour was Costa Rica.  I flew into this country a city-dwelling, non-spanish speaking boy.  I returned a zip-lining, volcano-climbing, surfing, wildlife-loving, salsa dancing, occasionally-fluent-in-Spanish man.  I had a bunch of pictures that I’d been meaning to share with you, but unfortunately I lost them when I was robbed on a bus!  Ah well.  As one of my patients this week said, “Ain’t no time to look back, only forward”.  And as the Costa Ricans say, “Pura Vida!”

And now I’m back in Atlanta starting my clinical rotations!  Starting out with Internal Medicine at Grady has kept me quite busy, but I have a lot of thoughts on my experience thus far that I will definitely be sharing with you.

Until next time,

C-Q

JOSH: Dissecting My Life – Or – My Life Dissecting

Hey again, everybody! I just got back from an amazing two week break in which I was able to sit back and reflect on the whirlwind that was first semester here at Emory. It was amazing to think how much I’ve learned and how many new experiences I’ve had in such a short time.

To give you a blitzkrieg recap of where we’ve been so far, our “healthy human” module – a week-by-week progression through normal human physiology – has come and gone, and we’ve moved on to the real reason we all came to medical school, human disease. Furthermore, we’ve begun our Outpatient Experience (“OPEX”) internships in which we work side by side with doctors to integrate our new knowledge in a clinical setting.

However, as hard as we worked last semester, I’m now realizing that it was just med school spring training. If, on your interview day, you notice a group of bewildered looking M1’s stammering through the halls in surgical scrubs, it is because anatomy has officially begun to consume our lives. I’ve heard anatomy described as “the best time you never want to have again,” and I couldn’t think of a better way to put it. Yes, at times it can be incredibly frustrating as we spend hours a day searching for a particular nerve or vessel that often bears little resemblance to its picture in the text book, but at the same time there is something very special about being down in the lab, late into the night with your fellow students, taking part in a centuries-old tradition of medical education. After years of putting blind faith in textbooks, it’s very rewarding to be able to explore the human body first hand.

And just for fun….

Top 10 Signs that Anatomy is Consuming Your Life:

10) The first thing you notice when meeting a new girl/guy is surface anatomy

9) Everything you eat tastes like formaldehyde.

8 ) The sun wasn’t out when you got to school…or when you left

7) Your motivation behind mapping out your cadaver’s vasculature is to determine which of your peripheral veins would be ideal for your intravenous coffee drip.

6) When people see you in scrubs, they think you must be important…until they

smell you.

5) When your buddy says he’s going to the gym to work out his biceps, your response is “femoris or brachii?”

4) You don’t have time to round out your own top-10 list

To the untrained eye, this probably looks like Jessica Alba. But as per #10, all I can see is the sternal head of her sternocleidomastoid muscle. It’s just as pretty.

TENG: Anatomy and Xmas Break

I still think that if you open me up you’ll find nothing but fairy dust. But can you believe that there are a bajillion muscles in the feet, and a gazillion nerves in the neck? We all started anatomy around Thanksgiving, and had our first Block (module/anatomy) exam before Christmas break. So while Anatomy takes up a lot of time and doubles the workload, it is fun. Most people will agree on this. First of all, it is a very collaborative course. We work through every 3^rd dissection with our partner, and then teach the other people in our group (6 people per group, split into 3 teams of 2). Secondly, there are the the anatomy urban legends — “and when she woke up, beside her head on her Egyptian cotton pillow was…a piece of fascia!” (true story, just ask Sheila J).

Because we don’t know her actual name, my group has affectionately nicknamed our donor body “Agatha”. I like to wonder about her. What kind of person was she? What made her decide to donate her body? At Emory, before we started Anatomy, we were given stern lectures about how to treat the bodies with respect. We even have a lab reverend to help us with any ethical or religious issues. Knowing all this, about how the bodies are in good hands, I still don’t know if I could ever donate mine. It is a serious decision. It’s got to be one of the most generous things you can do — for your children (who would not have to pay for cremation services), for science, and for mankind in general.

I wish there was a way (a non-creepy way) the donors can talk to us — to make it clear what exactly they want us to do with the knowledge we gain from their bodies. There was probably some specific, outstanding reason as to why ‘Agatha’ would take the huge risk of relinquishing control over what happens to her body to the unskilled hands of fumbling, scalpel wielding strangers (that’s us, btw). Perhaps she wanted us to find a cure for lymphoma. But we don’t know for sure. In the end, there is only an unspoken trust that because of her sacrifice, we will become more skilled physicians who will do everything we can for our patients when the time comes. So I guess even though that’s not a direct line to the netherworld, it’s pretty cool, too.

So that’s it for now for school stuff. Christmas break was FANTASTIC. I was very happy to slum at home in Baltimore for a week. Christmas break at the Lu’s — let me paint you a picture: The scene is in the living room. My mom is on the recliner– with her laptop; my dad is on the other chair — with his laptop; I am on the sofa — with my laptop. My parents are both very busy people. Since my mom is now taking classes as well as working full time, when I call home she is always the one saying “Oh, I’m so busy I have to write a paper and study for a test”. It’s a pretty funny role-reversal. Over break, I also did quite a bit of shopping, eating out, and going to church with the parents. Since there are only 3 of us in my family, we spend major holidays at the church potluck with other small families (which are more festive if you can imagine than the aforementioned scene described above). I spent the second week of Christmas Break in South Carolina — also a fantastic, relaxing time. So, Happy 2009 everybody!

My mom, wrapping up food to take to the Christmas potluck

SWAISHA: It’s Like this Alternate Universe…

I don’t know the day it happened. I have no idea when it was that I crossed over.

In the first week of school, during orientation, the faculty made it a grand point to notify us that we would no longer be laypeople. They made sure we were informed that this process that they call medical school would change us forever, and we would never again be the people we were before that day. When you hear that, you believe it. I mean, that’s the point, right? We want to be doctors, and that is a huge deal. Of course we won’t be the same. We believed it, and we were all very excited. What we did not know was exactly how or when this change would take place. So here we were happily (or not) living our lives, attending new classes, learning new things. We met new people, made new friends. We did some partying, did some studying, took some tests (okay, many tests). Then finally, there was a break. Thanksgiving break! We were so happy, so excited, and so burned out. Thank GOD for holidays, and bless Emory for giving us the whole week off! Yay!

Thanksgiving break! “What a good time to catch up with friends and family!” is what you are thinking. That’s exactly what we were thinking too, and it is a really good time for that. But, what we didn’t know was that we were no longer a part of their world. Don’t get me wrong; we are still very important to our families and old friends, and we still love them and they us. We are certainly still a part of their lives. What I am talking about is that world that we were so very familiar with, it seemed as if someone had plucked us out of it and dropped us into a different one without us noticing. Okay, fine, it could be just me. See, there’s this world where my family and friends have what is sometimes referred to as “leisure” time. They make plans for this time, and they do stuff during these times…sometimes together even. There are TV shows that they watch every week at the same time. They can even predict the next time they will have this “leisure” time. Thinking back on it, I used to know this “leisure” time. There was a time where everything on my calendar wasn’t tentative based on how difficult lecture was on any given day, or how many hours I may need to catch up on my studies, or how much fat and fascia were between me and a major nerve, artery or vein. There was a time when my day would end simply because it was the end of the day, and not because my brain refused any new information. It all felt very familiar.

So there I was, amidst my family and friends and their TV shows and their leisure time…feeling like I had been abducted by aliens for a few months then returned to Earth. I mean, all the things that had been going on, it felt like maybe I had read about them somewhere but I was definitely not around to see them for myself. And it all happened so quickly. It had happened. I had changed! I was so different! My priorities were different, my commitments were different, and my brain couldn’t even process real-time the way it used to. But I had a week to relax, and that is just what I did. Who knew how much of that I would be able to do from now on? It was a little shocking to realize. I couldn’t do what they were doing except this one week. For a moment there was panic. No one wants to feel like they’ve lost control of their own life or their own time. “Will I ever get it back!?!” Next came envy. “Why can’t I go out in the middle of the week?” Then, after the reality set in, there was a little bit of fear. “I have to go back next week!!!”

For a moment, I started to dread the inevitable. The break was going to end sooner or later and I would be back in that alternate universe that is medical school. And all too soon, that is exactly where I was. But when I got back, the shock & awe had subsided. It was like I never left and I realized it was exactly where I wanted to be. It is who I am right now. I am a med school student. I work hard, I study hard, I stress out a little bit, and then I rest hard. There’s really nothing else that I would rather be doing (except fast-forwarding to actually being a doctor, maybe.) So when Christmas break rolled around I was more than ready. I took a little time off to visit my old universe, got a lot of sleep, then it was back to business as usual.

Med School Kwanzaa

BRITTA: My Body of Knowledge

Welcome back! I hope that you had a lovely Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice/December! Since the last time I wrote, we M1s have faced a number of new challenges and obstacles. We’re now solidly into the Human Disease portion of the curriculum – more interesting, yes, but also a lot more work! The most exciting part for me has been getting into the anatomy lab. At first, I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, to be honest with you. Surprisingly, it turns out that a dead body is completely different from a living, breathing human being. They feel so cold and stiff and…dead. My first contact with our cadaver was two Tuesdays before Thanksgiving when my group and I came in to roll him over in preparation for the first dissection. At Emory, we dissect our cadavers in groups of 6, paired off into 3 teams of two. (We call our group the Supergroup – we’d hate to be too modest!) The teams alternate, each one performing 5 of the 15 total dissections over the course of the year. It makes for a lot of work during your dissection week; on the other hand, you’ve got plenty of space since you’re not trying to elbow your way in amongst 5 other people. But I digress. I was telling you about the first time I met our cadaver. The first dissection was scheduled for the back, and since he was facing upwards, we had to roll him. That doesn’t sound too hard physically, I know; the emotional strain was something else. It felt so insensitive, somehow, flipping him like a big sack of potatoes. Maybe if the six of us could have turned him more gracefully I would have felt better about it, but it was our first experience turning approximately 180 pounds of dead weight, and we were not particularly adept. I hurried out of the room as soon as we were done, thankful that my partner Chrissy and I were third in the rotation and not due back to the lab for another couple of weeks.

Eventually, however, I had to come back. I sat down at the table, bracing myself for the moment when I would have to touch him, and then all at once grabbed hold of the leg and made a quick, long incision down the tibia. The first few cuts were disturbing – it’s an odd sensation to cut into a human body. Respect for the dead is something engrained into us, I think, more than I had ever realized. It was amazing how quickly I adjusted, though. Distaste turned to tolerance, then tolerance to enjoyment. By the end of our first three hours in the anatomy lab, I discovered that despite my apprehensions, I loved anatomy. There’s something fascinating about getting to dig through the layers of the body to see what lies underneath. It’s something so few people outside of a medical school get the opportunity to experience. (As a caveat, I will say that I have been considerably more frustrated with our current dissection – the neck. Too many nerves to keep track of! Still, I can’t deny that it’s interesting.) It also helped me considerably to find out about the stringent requirements necessary to donate one’s body to a medical school. Anyone who donates their body absolutely knows what will be done with it (and to it); that’s the way they wanted it to happen.

So that’s my introduction to the wonderful world of anatomy! Whether you can’t wait to race into the lab or are dreading the moment when they drag you kicking and screaming inside, you can’t deny that it’s a major rite of passage.

Me rocking out on the drums on my brother’s new Wii game (Rock Band 2) at Christmas break!

ADEEB: Winter Vacation

I had a stress-free and food-filled winter vacation that allowed me to excel in three important aspects of my non-student oriented life.

The first (most time consuming and grueling) endeavor was to catch up on the TV shows that I’d been missing out on. This was made possible by an abundance of snacks and unlimited rentals from Hollywood video – an 8 minute walk from my house

If you have not watched LOST….you must take a moment to decide whether or not you want to. The pros to watching it is that it is an amazing show that will captivate you and play with your emotions. The con is that you will not want to leave the house and will be forced to watch one episode after another – regardless of hygiene, prior commitments, or time constraints. I was bound to watching 48 episodes. It was beautiful.

The picture says it all

Who doesn’t dream of having super powers? That’s right, everyone does. That’s why HEROES caught my attention. Though the acting is sub-par, the storyline is decent. Season 2 wasn’t all that it could’ve been (due to the writer’s strike I hear), but they make up for it in season 3.

I also had the urge to re-watch the Lord of The Rings Trilogy. This time I went all out and watched the extended versions. I found that the beautiful scenery really lends itself to being great movies to watch in the morning while eating breakfast. Granted, the scenery outside my window isn’t half bad either….but there are no hobbits, dwarves, or elves in Savannah.

My second and third goals are a little more musically oriented. I like to think that I can take a stab at playing the guitar from time to time. During my weeks off, I wanted to finish learning a piece on the guitar that I had spent some time on earlier. After 6 weeks and some change, I finally finished. It’s called ‘Song for Stephen’ and it’s by ‘Antoine Dufour’. I’m not as flawless as him, but you can check out what it’s supposed to sound like on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgsB_xA2G0I

Finally, I wanted a djembe (If you say ‘djembe’ fast enough, people think you’re saying ‘gym bag’). I had bought one a year ago and was trying to teach myself how to play by watching youtube videos. Although I had gotten decent at it, I lost motivation because the djembe I bought was half the size of a normal one, if that. Now, I’ve got everything at my disposal to rock out, all I need is some time set aside to practice.

A djembe

Overall, I would rate it as an extremely relaxing break. Maybe a bit too relaxing. Now, with the start of a new year, I have newfound willpower to achieve some resolutions that I’m setting for myself. I guess we’ll see if I actually achieve them in the next installment of le blog.

SWAISHA: …And So I Moved In

Can I just tell you that Emory is awesome!?! Okay, now that that’s done, I want to introduce myself.

Hello, I’m Swaisha D. Fields, first-year medical student. Although I may seem a little more enthusiastic (on paper) than the average first-year, 3 months in, it is genuine enthusiasm and boy do I have my reasons for it. Before I go into those reasons, let’s get to know me a little, shall we? I was born and raised in Youngstown, OH. If you’ve ever been there before you’ve probably already formed an opinion of me (just kidding), but for those of you who’ve never heard of it, you’re not alone and you’re not missing ANYTHING. I studied at The Ohio State University for two years, before I transferred to Georgia State University where I received my B.S. in Biological Sciences back in 2003 (please, don’t do the math). Since then, I’ve been majoring in minors, and minoring in majors, pretty much up until last year when I decided to take a serious crack at applying to medical school. This wasn’t something I just came up with out of nowhere, but my confidence had taken a hit or two in my educational career up to that point so I was too unsure of myself to apply before. This brings me squarely to reason #1…

When I decided to apply to medical school (this time), my strategy was to try schools that I thought I might have a solid chance of getting accepted to, and to apply at Emory because it was here in Atlanta, where I was already living. I wasn’t sure I’d get accepted anywhere, to be honest, but it was time to find out. Although I was slowly piecing my confidence back together, I didn’t believe I had a serious chance to get into Emory SOM at all. I’d heard some pretty stellar things about the university as a whole, and never considered myself competitive enough for their MD program. So, imagine my surprise when I got a phone call on February 26th with an invitation to interview on the very last interview day, February 29th…a day that only exists once every four years, if you really think about it. With such short notice and so late in the interview season, I felt like a second round draft pick (NBA not NFL). To me it felt like, maybe someone had cancelled and they wanted to fill the spot with someone who lived close enough to get here on short notice. I felt like I had been given a great chance, and I had nothing to lose. I didn’t feel like my interviews went that well, but it was the “funnest” interview day that I’d had. I may have fallen in love that day. It was still like a pleasant dream and not something I thought was going to happen for me. I remember telling my mother all about the school, and the campus, and of course the wonderful new building and new curriculum. After that day, I didn’t give it much thought. I had two more interviews crammed into the next week, the last week of interview season for two other schools, so I put it out of my mind and kept on interviewing. Six days later, I got the good news! It was unreal! Just when I was preparing myself for that horrible waiting period between when all the interviews were done and the final decisions were made, my wait was over. I went from worrying that I wouldn’t get in anywhere to being accepted at the best school on my list. So yes, I am super excited to be here!

I am also super excited about how my time here has gone so far. So I don’t really need to go into detail about how long I was out of school, or what I was doing, but let’s just say I was very nervous to dive back into the life of a full-time student. Up until now, there hasn’t been a time where I’ve been unemployed for more than a couple of months since 11th grade. I really couldn’t wrap my brain around how hard med school would be, or how I would handle it. Fortunately, these people know what they are doing. The faculty and staff do a really good job at putting together a class, and they put together an awesome curriculum. I’ve been able to ease into student life without any hiccups. I’m hanging in there right now, and it is hard, but I lean on my classmates, and they let me. I now live in an alternate universe where I often forget how old I am (no math here either ladies & gentleman), I work harder and play harder than I ever have, and I spend more time in the med school building than I do at home…and so I moved in! =)

TENG: Introductions

Dear Everybody, I am Teng–very happy to be your blogger.

(That’s me in purple on the right)

When I was applying for medical school, I read some student blogs to get a feel for what life is like as a med. student, so I hope that someone will find this helpful. Feel free to think of me as your Valerie, passing on wisdoms on toilet paper that inspire you with purpose as you toil away in applications. Know that even though I do not know you, with all my heart, I love you…
(V for Vendetta…anyone?)

Introductions:

You will be asked ‘officially’ introduce yourself many times in the first few weeks of medical school, to your small group, society, and to any member of the administration who has just met you and wants to be your buddy. At your Emory interview you probably have to do this in a circle with the other interviewees. My blurb would go something like this:

1 Personal background — I claim to be from Baltimore, even though I have spent very little time there. Baltimore is just where my parents live now. I actually spent the first 9 years of my life in Xi’an, China, where up till the 3rd grade I sat with my hands behind my back in class, suffered some physically abusive teachers, and learned about Mao. And Math. Just kidding…kind of. Anyways the rest of my childhood was spent in Clemson, SC, with a brief stint in Vancouver, Canada.

2 Educational background — I attended college at Clemson University. I majored in Biochemistry, did research, some service, etc., tied it up in 3 years and went off to Bethesda, MD and did the NIH Post-Bacc. IRTA.

Looking back, I would advise against graduating early. Live it up. Hang out with your friends. Double major. Read some fiction. Take a class in Aesthetics or Slavic languages. College is great.

I would advise taking a couple of years off after college before medical school. Doing research full-time after college helped me realize that medical school was really the place I wanted to go (instead of grad. school). Even though I loved my project, I wanted to know how everything in the human body worked together instead of just focusing on one pathway. Also, I wanted patient interaction and to see the fruits of biomedical research applied at the patient’s bedside. And research is just one option. The point is to take some time for yourself so you can start medical school rejuvenated and excited about learning again.

3 Why Emory? – You’ll definitely be asked this at your interview, so be prepared. For one, Atlanta is great. It’s only starting to get chilly here so that means more pool time per year. There are many concerts and shows. So far I’ve been able to see Wicked at the Fox Theater and Maroon 5/Counting Crows in concert. There are always events at the High Museum. In sports this is home of the Braves, and UGA football seems to be a big thing amongst my classmates. So there you go.

Emory itself is amazing, too. Great building, great people, great research, great education. You’ll hear more about my experiences in the SOM as this blog thing gets going.

Your blurbs I’m sure will be infinitely more interesting. Maybe some of you will even work in a joke or political reference. Take the other people in my class for example: there’s a skier, several people who did Peace Corps, an opera singer, and someone who biked across the continental US. I don’t remember who did what after that first week when we all introduced ourselves, but the point is that they’re all here. Just ask around when you’re here and everyone will have a good story to tell.