Tales of a Brown-Haired Freak

The livejournal is dead. Long live the Blogger!

All the cool kids are doing it, so I will too. The story of my life continues...at http://brownhairedfreak.blogspot.com/

(but don't delete me from your friends list - I'll still be visiting to see what you're up to, and you'll still be able to get ahold of me from here if you need to. I just won't be updating this journal any more)

It's been 2 semesters since the kidney was last spotted and the students had finally begun to return to their lives. Sure, there were the memories - the sleepless nights and the tears when physiology seemed all to close and the morning too distant. But it was in the past now, and they were learning to move on, if not forget. They would never forget.

That, of course, it when it chose to strike. It had been waiting, patiently biding its time in the shadows, getting to know its enemies. That had been it's mistake last time, but it wouldn't make it again. Never coming close enough to be spotted, the kidney watched, and waited, and plotted. Now, the time was right.

With the students happy about defeating micro and their guards down in the wake of a week of short classes, the kidney knew the time had come to enact its revenge.

Stealthily, it infiltrated the path department and began to work its evil on the minds of the professors there, slowly bending their wills to its desires. When the department was fully subverted, it sent them out to find the students and defeat them, one by one.

It was only a matter of time.

I suppose it's about time I mentioned exam week - I know you've all been breathlessly waiting to see how it went. Or something. How about I just tell you anyway?

( Lots of details are just one click away! )

38 days to go!

I'm currently in the process of transfering this blog to a blogger account (all the cool kinds are doing it!), but it's slow work (there's an automated thingie that's doing it for me at a rate of 20 or 30 posts/day but there's about 4 years worth of posts to make it through). Anyway, I've been checking up on the transfer periodically to see how it's going, reading about my undergrad and construction days. From the latter, I discovered this:

http://brownhairedfreak.blogspot.com/2006/11/things-i-learn-at-work.html

The funny thing is that I remember almost exactly what I was doing when I wrote that as well as the long work day that triggered the need to do so. And yes, my knees *were* killing me by the time I made it home.

Dear Terms 1, 2 and 6,

Congratulations on successfully (or not so successfully) completing your semester! I wish you safe travels home and hope that, while you're enjoying being amongst your friends and family once again, you spare a thought or two for us 4th termers still stuck on this island, slaving our way through 6 more weeks of path, nutrition, and CPD.

Love,
R

PS - I hate you all.

In the hope of some of this actually sticking this time, I present to you R's exciting list of things I can't remember in micro, no matter how many times I go over my flashcards (distinguished from things I can't remember because I haven't had *time* to go over them yet):

-you can't diagnose Lyme disease from a CSF smear (why would you want to?)
-hepatitis C blocks apoptosis and interferon
-clue cells are pathognomonic for vaginitis/vaginosis/vagineesis (Yes, I made that last one up).
-campylobacteria are catalase positive and don't eat sugar
-Typhus has a Brill-Zinnser carrier state (whatever that means)
-TTP occurs in the elderly and HUS in children with EHEC. Antibiotics will kill them! (the people, that is. Not the EHEC's. Though they do kills those as well. That's why the people die. Uh, nevermind.)
-cholera has a phage-coded toxin
-rabies is diagnosed with dFA. (so is everything else. Except the things that aren't)
-herpes blocks IFN, CTL, and IgG.
-EEE, VEE, and WEE are different, even though they're pretty much the same. (I refuse to learn anything more about them, entirely on principle)

And so ends the much lamented medical micro, going out, as it were, with a bang.

No, really - today we discussed microbes as terrorism weapons (more specifically, how hard it is to use them effectively).

Planning on filling a box with dynamite and anthrax and setting it off in the subway? Don't bother - the shock wave will kill the spores. Going to stand on top of a japanese high rise and spray anthrax spores out over the crowds in the middle of the afternoon for 4 hours? Also not a good idea - UV from the sun will destroy the spores long before they come into contact with people. I suppose if you wanted to avoid that possibility, you could rig the exhaust pipe of a car to spray anthrax as you drove around downtown tokyo for a few days. But that too, would be doomed to failure - it's almost impossible to aerosolize the spores finely enough so that they'd make it deep enough into the lungs to cause damage. (That was also the Aum Shinrikyo, better known for the tokyo subway sarin attacks.). I suppose we're lucky that, as a whole, the world's doomsday cults aren't too bright.

That's the good news. The bad news is that, if someone ever actually managed to engineer an effective biological attack to, oh say influence local elections, we're all pretty much doomed. History tells us (as well as various simulations) that were say, smallpox to be release into an american shopping mall, society as a whole is pretty much doomed. Economic and social collapse of the world as we know it. We'd be lucky if the government even realized what was happening, let alone found the perpetrators. And there's been other simulations done since, none of which have predicted a much better outcome.

Oh, and since doctors are most likely to be the first to deal with any infected people that turn up, we're going to be the first to die. Sorry!

Happy thoughts to end a not-so-happy course.

This is kind of how I feel right now:

So I studied, and then I called the taxi driver to double check our 8:00 meet time to head out to see the turtles.

"Uh, yes - didn't I tell you? We're going at 10 instead." "No, we're not. 10 is too late. In that case, we can't go." "Okay, then. My cousin will take you up at 8, and I'll take the rest of the group at 10."

Score! But I'm ahead of myself. You see, it happened like this:

S's fiance is in town for 2 weeks. She wanted to see turtles. I wanted to see turtles. S didn't really care one was or the other, but was willing to come with. I called up taxi man, and he said he had another group of 9 going at 8 and that we could join them. All good, until the mysterious 7pm notice of departure change (it's a 2 hour drive to the beach where the leatherbacks nest, and a friend of our had one last week and said it was better to go early. That combined with the need to meet people at 11am to practice CPD stuff meant that there was no way in christian afterword that we were leaving at 10).

We ended up driving in a car with L, another well-known taxi driver, who regaled us with stories and general info about the island until we got to the beach. The very large, long beach. The very large, long, empty beach. Where were all the people/turtles?

We decided to hike to the other end of the beach where, low and behold, we found a small group consisting of marine biologist, marine biologist trainee, and 2 vet students doing a turtle selective. They seemed confused that we were there (no one had told them we were coming), but pretty cool about the whole thing and patiently spent the next half hour teaching us everything they knew about leatherback turtles (not much, seeing as how they're ridiculously endangered and spend most of their time in deep ocean).

Every half hour or so, the biologists hike to the other end of the beach, checking for turtles laying and if they find any, checking flipper tags. If the turtle picks a bad place to lay (too close to the tide, too much water in the hole, etc), they'll catch the eggs as they're laid and relocate the nest somewhere safer. They also take extreme care not to bother the turtles, so no lights, cameras, or walking into the leatherback's line of sight on pain of being sent away. All in all, it's a pretty civilized event other than the millions of blood sucking insects.

The process itself is fascinating - the turtle will come up on land and wander around for awhile before eventually choosing a spot. She'll then hunker down and push the sand around for while before using her back flippers to dig a hole that's surprisingly narrow and deep considering that she only has flippers to work with. They actually use them like spoons, scooping up the sand and chucking it a distance away, alternating flippers and occasionally resting. It's certainly a better hole than I could dig, at least.

Around 1 - 1:30ish, the other group of people finally arrived, chattering, flashing lights, and being generally irritating to the turtle (not to mention, us) we were watching at the time until the biologist went to tell them to stop, They were also a bit miffed at us for not going with them (apparently it ended up costing them a bit more, but that was hardly our fault) I think they were just cranky about getting there so late. Did I mention that it started to rain within 15 minutes of their arrival?

The rain was the end of it for us - satisfied with the adventure and not wanting to get soaked or listen to inane chatter any longer, we headed back to the car and spent the ride home learning about the rampaging cocaine use on the island.

studystudystudystudystudystudy food.
studystudystudystudystudystudy facebook.
studystudystudystudystudystudy post this.
studystudystudystudystudystudy walk.
studystudystudystudystudystudy read the news.

rinse and repeat x 30.

studystudystudystudystudystudy turtle watching!

who says you can't just drop everything and head up island in the middle of pre-exam week? It's laying season!

(I'd originally planned on going right after exams, but S's fiance is visiting this week and it seemed like a good distraction on a long weekend when there won't be too many other students there with us).

All is well. The surgeon said the surgey was textbook normal and my mom made it down to the wards with nothing unusual happening. Now, as long as she can avoid anything nosocomial, she'll be home tomorrow or saturday!

And, I've been promised copies of the pathologist's report. I'm hoping for pictures, but I'll be happy just to find out what exactly she's got. (She told me it was a 4cm tumor and that it hadn't spread and that it was probably due to years of smoking in her misspent youth, but I want specifics.)

I appear to be getting sick. At least I'm in good company - half the campus seems to be coughing and popping drugs. Why does this always happen right before exams? (don't answer - I already know about stress and crowding in the study halls and all. I'm just complaining).

My mom heads to the hospital today to have a kidney removed. It's common but still major surgery so I'm worried, but not excessively so. However, I've been consciously avoiding looking up anything at all about what the surgery involves or the specifics of her particular condition because this seems to be one of the cases where ignorance really is bliss (or at least, closer to bliss than the alternative). I'm just glad we haven't gotten to renal in path yet or I'd probably be a bit of a mess right now.

And again I'm reading articles. From this article, (it's about classism, but you might as well read it yourself - it's a hoot) this has got to be the funniest paragraph I've read in awhile (if for no other reason than that it pretty adequately describes some people here):

"Meanwhile, tacking starboard then port around Graydon Carter’s fresh, startled horror over the latest outrages of the Bush administration (and I will miss those) are soft-focus ads pimping what appear to be blond, pink-argyle-sweater-clad, Ralph Lauren–fraternity Hitler Youth who look 30 seconds away from clubbing me (a light-mocha-hued person) over the head with an oar, or perhaps with a Nautica-logo polo mallet, sunglasses by Fendi."

In completely unrelated news, it's generally a bad idea to snort coffee out your nose in the middle of a talk about HIV.

Midterms are three weeks away and I'm already having to bribe myself with candy to get myself to study. I'm exhausted and doubting my abilities and I want to go home because then I wouldn't have to learn my lymphomas anymore. They raised the price of peanut M&M's at the D store. We had a quiz on the weekend and we had a quiz today and we have a quiz next week and there's been no time to prepare for any of them.

But at least I have candy (even if it means that now I have to study).

Medical school is proof that improved patient education is not the answer to society's health problems. Think on it:

Medical students are, as a whole, probably the best educated people there are when it comes to healthy behaviors. Barely a week goes by where we don't have the key points of healthy behavior drilled into our already over-stuffed heads, and we get it already: the best thing that a human can possibly do for their body is exercise. And the worst thing is drink alcohol (combined with smoking is actually even worse, but you knew that too). Every single bodily system is affected one way or another by these two behaviors. So we sit through lecture after lecture, dutifully taking notes on how alcohol causes these cancers, and smoking causes these problems, and how exercise improves memory and mental health and attracts unicorns. And then we go and study for 6 or 8 hours while munching on high fat/high carb snacks, breaking only occasionally to go outside for a smoke. And on weekends, we all head to the bar to engage in a good round of binge drinking-induced catharsis.

Really, if this is how med students behave, should we really be surprised that regular people continue to do things that are bad for them?

(caveat - yes, lots of us get regular exercise, and most of us don't smoke/don't drink heavily. Med students are probably healthier than the average population. But my points still stand!)

The nice thing about having entire mornings devoted to micro group presentations is that it means we don't have to learn anything new before the weekend starts. This is especially appreciated this week, when we have several dozen leukemias and lymphomas with identical presentations to memorize, hepatitis A through G to figure out, and a CDP quiz on Monday.

The not so nice thing about having entire mornings devoted to micro group presentations is that we have to sit through entire mornings of micro presentations. The topics aren't so bad, but listening to person after person liberally embellishing their powerpoint with "ums", "uhs" and "hmmms" can get a bit grating after awhile. But it's not all bad - as a whole, we appear to have dropped the "likes" of our undergrad years.

( And then there's all sorts of other things going on right now. )

Well, the SGA/IEA/Powers That Be meeting ended all of 5 minutes ago, so naturally, 3/4 of our class has already heard the good news. We're not going to have a retest (not like that was ever really an option, but it's still good to hear). Instead, they're dropping the 10 contested questions from the exam, adding 5 more to each of the next to tests, and calling it even.

Yes, it really took them 2 weeks to decide that. 2 weeks of stress and uncertainty, solved by a 30 minute meeting, and spread by 5 minutes of instant messaging. Turns out the rumor mill really IS the only thing faster than light.

You know what sucks?

When it's dinner time on Monday and you're only now discovering that you did the wrong slides for path, and you still have half a week's worth of lecture material to review.

doh!

2 weeks later and still no news on the path scandal. Dammit, I just want my grade already! It's really interesting to see how the story has spread - I caught a ride to campus today with the school ambulance driver, and even he knew about it! Most fascinating to see is how the different terms see it - terms 1 and 2 seem to see the chick who went to admin as some sort of hero, full of integrity and sunshine and unicorns. Terms 4 and 6 (who know what path is like and know how much stuff (mostly useless) gets passed around for it) see her as a self-righteous tantrum-throwing hypocrite who only did it to "show them. Show them all." Reality is probably somewhere in the middle.

Yesterday J and I threw our biannual non-denominational potluck. Our landlord leant us his bbq and some tables and chairs, and (after some issues with getting the charcoal lit and accidently setting our trash can on fire), we cooked up a bunch of tuna kabobs and corn and fried up some mahimahi, and everyone else brought the sides. I ate enough to have me sincerely envying bulemics (and B - I want your mac n'cheese recipe. I'll bother you about it later), and then added some of E's most-absolutely-incredibly-amazing flan (though I want to call it creme brulee - is there a regional difference in the naming?) and A's ice cream on top. Thanks to everyone who came out (and J, for coming by after!) - and we'll see you at thanksgiving!

Of course, the rest of the day was a bust, so I got to catch up on my fiction while I digested. Today, I'm paying for that with a lot of path and mocro catching up to do, but it was worth it.

So I did great on the micro exam, but I attribute that mostly to luck (on an exam where a fifth of the class failed, statistics say at least a few people are going to get A's, even if only by guessing). The exam was horrible and at least moderately unfair, but now it's over and that's all there is to say about that. I'd like to say I did well on the path exam, but the truth is that I'm still not sure. Here's the deal:

We wrote the exam. Then we all celebrated. During celebrations, someone said something along the lines of "sure am glad I had that recording of last term's post-exam review! Those 5-10 questions really saved my butt." People nearby said various things to the effect of "There was a recording? Why didn't you share it with me? I wish I'd had it. Oh well - maybe next time."

But one person heard, and said, "OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!! THERE WAS A FILE? AND I DIDN'T GET IT? THOSE PEOPLE WERE CHEATING!!!!!11!ELEVEN!!! I'M TELLING!!!!" and went to the course director about it. The director said "Yeah, and?" and ignored her, as the recoding was common knowledge amongst the Powers That Be and no more cheating than using copies of old tests as practice questions. So she went to the dean. (keep in mind that she wasn't upset about people cheating - her outrage came solely from the fact that she didn't get the chance to do so herself. When similar items have been available in the past, she's quite happily used them without any complaints).

Of course, the dean has to do somehting - that's why he's the dean. So a few days later we get an email tellng us to sit tight, we'll get our grades this week after they "clear up some confusion."

Fast forward to today - no grades. Little Miss Tantrum's outburst is now common knowledge (with some alterations and exaggerations, in typical rumor-mill style) with all the expected disgust and resentment. A mass email gets sent out, that essentially says "Test has been compromised! Turn yourselves in and we'll be lenient! Failure to do so will result in expulsion! Free ice cream for anyone who rats out their friends! Fail to do so and you'll all have to retake the exam! This message will self-destruct in 24 hours!"

And that's that. I'm really hoping that the retaking the test idea is an empty threat and they'll just drop the contested questions, since there really isn't much time to study for it on top of everything else right now. And no, I didn't have the file - I tried to get my hands on it after I heard about the whole scandal, but oddly enough, I can't find anyone willing to admit to any knowledge of its existence prior to a few days ago. Go figure.