Fog

If those are even words, that's what's happening with the weather now. It's funny how we always complain and talk endlessly about the weather here in Vancouver. I remember my English 12 teacher who was originally from England, say how he found it so strange that Vancouver actually has a TV channel dedicated to weather only. Recently, we've been getting a lot more fog in the evenings. I would have to say that fog is my favourite kind of weather. It's the mysteriousness of it and knowing that you can be concealed in it. I have yet to find a fogginess that is so thick that you can't see a person standing within a hands-reach away. That's something I hope to experience in my lifetime. How lame right? Well, I need to search for a place in the world that has that kind of fog, my kind of fog. Another thing, I love drinking warm and milky 'London Fog' tea on a cold day. Here I have some pictures taken of the fog on campus.

After a nice run in the afternoon today, I had a craving for some McD's. Despite being mocked by most of my friends for liking McDonalds and my blood pressure workshop tutor repetitively drilling the notion in my head that fast food is extremely bad for my blood pressure, I still adamantly stand behind McDs. Who doesn't like a greasy meal after some good excercise. I know it defeats the whole purpose, but I need some cheap, fast comfort food on a cold day. Forget what 'SuperSize Me' proved, anything in moderation is fine. Don't hate.

Snacks to lift a moody day

The weather has made me quite despondent over the past week. I don't even know whether it's day or night when I wake up cause the sky always looks the same, cloudy. It was refreshing to have the sun last Friday again, but it's back to the gloom.

On top of that, studying makes my day even sadder. And so, what better way to cheer myself up than to buy a lot of colourful snacks. I just had the mandarin juice today, it's pretty good. And who would have thought, banana crepe flavoured filling in those koala bear snacks. Yum, yum. Too bad I have no one to eat this with. I will eat it all!

Tutoring, Studying

Nothing wonderful happened in my life today. I'm grateful to be alive and studying. Very boring, I know.

getting back on the grind

The past week was busy and I almost failed to keep excercise in my balance. It was so refreshing to go for a solid run today around UBC campus after anatomy lab. Ever since med school started, I promised myself to run every other day and slowly build up my stamina through the year. It's not great, but I managed to get down 5km in just under 30 minutes today. When it comes to excercise, I've always been more inclined to do individual and more reserved things. Running fits that description perfectly. I just use it at a time to think about things or use it to gas my personal motivation. I was running quite a bit 2 yrs ago when I got the 11km mark, but I came down with a running injury to my IT band. The right side of my knee was hurting a lot especially if I went on long walks. Tried physio, but nothing worked. I gave up on all the excercises and biking a lot didn't really help. It flares up every now and then when I'm running but it hasn't bothered me recently until today when I was running a stretch of uphill. I just gotta be more careful. My colleague was a licensed physiotherapist before entering med school. She checked me out and said my knee didn't come up straight as normal knees do when I bend and extend it.

Today in anatomy lab, we started dissecting the face of the cadaver. This was a really special moment because we identify a lot more with our cadavers as once-living humans when we actually see the face in comparison to the other body parts. A few students fainted and had to be dragged out as I can imagine it being really emotionally intense for some of my colleagues. Again, that whole notion of reaffirming respect for those who donated their bodies for our pursuit of knowledge.

Just to make a note to myself, the two new movies that I should watch are New Moon and Law Abiding Citizen. And the nicest song I've heard on the radio for a while, "That's what it feels like" by Jenna who is a rising RnB singer hailing from Toronto, Canada.

Mini OSCE Passed

A big relief to have a day off today to do some productive studying. I had my short 10 minute mini-OSCE exam at VGH today to test my communication skills in interviewing patients about their presenting problems. I missed asking about a few minor things, but overall I managed to ask all the right questions. Having my tutor sit there in the room and mark me while I was performing the interview, I admit did make me a little nervous and I had some minor pauses. All went well and I managed to get back to my car in time without being ticketted at the meter.

Lock Down

I can start to see all my classmates locking down and getting down to some serious business with their studying. I feel that urge too now. Not only am I behind in my blog posts, I'm also majorly behind on my studies. It kinda freaks me out when I see my colleagues so persistent throughout the term. I guess everyone has their own study methods and I still need to accept that for myself. I've gotten used to cramming a lot of information in my head in a short period of time during my years in undergrad, and I realize that this isn't the best way to do things now in med school especially if we're learning for the sake of actually retaining this knowledge in a practical sense for our future clinical work. But then again, some people told me that half of what I learn in medical school now won't really be applicable anyway when I'm really out there working. For now, I'm just going to revert back to my usual, and maybe in 2nd term, I'll be a more responsible student in terms of persistency in my studies. There is much needed due diligence on this matter. They also say that how we act in medical school will be a reflection of how we act as future physicians. And if this is the case, I don't think my current study habits will be well translated into my future work ethic. I want my future patients to know that I'm giving them my 100% every day. No excuses.

1st GHI Meeting

Note to self: apparently, the green tea ice cream that haagen daz makes is sweeter than regular green tea ice cream made by more asian brands.

Couldn't fit in my regular run today. I had to work on a presentation with my DPAS partner for tommorow and I had a Global Health Initiative Meeting at MSAC in the evening. I am really excited to go to rural Kenya next summer of 2010 to be a part of helping with health improvement initiatives in the area. Hopefully, I can put some of my business acumen to use in these projects. I was debriefed and shown pictures of where I would be staying and the people I would be working with. For a part of the trip, we will be spending it on Rhemba Island in Lake Victoria, a fishing village, to help with water sanitation in the area. Rhemba Island is quite isolated from a clean water source as the surrounding waters are quite dirty. It will be a very unique experience as we will not be living in a secluded shelter, but right amongst the rural community. We will be eating local food and be taken care of by a host family.

Tutoring Madness

Despite finals dawning upon me, I still really enjoy tutoring during this busy time. Not just for the money, but for the passion. I love to teach, especially something that makes me feel smart when I talk about it. I can see myself probably teaching my area of expertise in the future as a physician and being tied to the school. I love making really difficult concepts into extremely simple things that anyone can understand. A lot of the lectures we had this term could have been taught a lot differently to make learning easier. There's no point to teaching something in a confusing manner and then expecting students to figure out problems on their own. If you can't get the message across clearly and succintly, there's no use for that knowledge. Learning is about efficiency and time as much as it is about struggling and mastering a concept. And a lot of profs don't get that.

I can say that I was inspired to tutor by a great physics 101 T.A. that ran my tutorial in first year. You can tell that he was a very intelligent person by his demeanour when he was trying to solve a practice problem or explain something to you. He was a very busy graduate student himself, but he even took the time out of his busy schedule to help me in 2nd term with some confusing concepts in circutry and capacitance (at least it was confusing to me) before a midterm. I absoluetly admired the intensity and enthusiasm I could see in his eyes and the way he spoke, always with a sense of urgency and attack. I realized, that's the exact attitude you need to embody to be successful at learning information and teaching it as well. I've always tried to take the best I see in others and try to acquire for myself a greater skill. And I think that I have definitely taken a page or two from Justin, my old physics T.A. I'll never lose that.

typical sunday and the new Bay

Went for another hip hop lesson today at the Harbour Dance Centre in downtown Vancouver. Our regular instructor Eric was missing and we had someone else sub for him. This guy was more of a B-boy so the style he taught us was slightly different from what we're used to. We learned a cool routine with a cell phone in our hand that we could drop at a club. There was a dog just chilling out at the receptionist's desk which was nice to see.

I really like what the Bay has done with regards to being the official supplier of 2010 winter olympic apparel. They did a really nice job sectioning off a portion of the store to all things olympics-related. The Bay has definitely revitalized it's image in recent months to become that truly "Canadian" store that delivers quality and affordable products to its customers. In past years, the Bay was becoming like any large department store (ie. Sears, Zellers) and I felt that it was losing its identity in the market. I think that the Bay's greatest competitive advantage would be to fall back on their long history as the original Hudson's Bay Company and deliver some of that nostalgia to its customers. Their new marketing efforts and brand selection has definitely gotten my attention. The one thing I think they could do better on (especially in the downtown location) is to revitalize the interior of the building to make it a little more snazzy and classy. Brighter lights, glossy floors and more glass displays outta do the trick. They could even turn a section of a store to resemble that of a wooden log-house, again to draw on that nostalgic feeling. They have to remember that providing great customer service doesn't just end at the staff. Customer service also includes creating an atmosphere for your customers that they will be delighted to experience and hopefully convert some of those good feelings torwards an actual purchase.

I'm studying

OK. And so the studying begins for me. This last week on the kidneys was definitely the hardest week for me. The complicated physiology definitely brought flashbacks from undergrad. I guess this is the first taste of what med school is really going to be about these next 2 years.

Yesterday, we had our anatomy lab dissection on the genital area. I realized what an idiot I was when I was looking for the spermatocord in the female prosection. Everyone was laughing at me, including myself. For the record, I still haven't changed my anatomy lab coat since day one. And this never bothered me until Kaila my colleague reached over and gave me a hug with her soiled gloves after she got a little flustered in explaining to me the female genitilia. I spent some time talking to Emily after anatomy about how being in med school is still so surreal to me. And for the first time, I saw lightning flashes sitting in the LSC, which was pretty cool since the building has an all-glass roof. In PBL, for the second time, my new PBL tutor told me that I had a great personality (I have no clue why since I don't speak excessively in PBL, except that when I have something important and unique to contribute). But I guess personality doesn't always have to conveyed through words. Maybe it's the way I sit or the different ways I can make my face look puzzled when I'm thinking. I absolutely have no idea.

Weatherwise, Vancouver has definitely gotten a lot more rainy this past week and a lot more windy too. In response to this and preparation for the colder weeks ahead, I bought a dark blue puffy jacket and a dark grey flannel wool pea coat. Both are great investments. The puffy jacket brings out the street style and the pea coat brings an air of sophistication with it. The puffy jacket definitely kept me warm while I was trying to keep my ice-cream from melting before handing it off to my friend today by standing outside (this is how you improvise when you don't have a freezer on hand).

Urine Test

We had to stop eating and drinking normally 9pm the night before the lab. And when we woke, we voided once and then one person had to drink 1L of water /hr and the other didn't drink anything. Once we arrived at the lab, we had to void again and use the collected urine to do some calculations and demonstrate the use of osmolar and free water clearance to see how well our kidneys were working in increasing the excretion of solute-free water upon a water challenge. (I seriously don't know what that means right now, need to do some studying haha).

For some reason, it was such a challenge for me to drink so much water in such a short period of time. People were taking 1L like nothing, but I felt so full (to the point of feeling nausea) after about 400 ml. My body can't take so much water all at once unless I'm excercising heavily. I was surprised to see how much urine some of my colleagues could generate. Here's a picture of my histology lab partner Ryan madly calculating away. And here I am in the picture looking like I'm about to drink my own pee. Bottoms up!

Misconception about me

After a tiring run in the late evening (I've been trying to stay healthy since school started), I ran into my med buddy Shifana who was still staying late at school. We chatted for a while and somehow the conversation got to her assuming that my parents were well educated, successful and wealthy individuals. I know a lot of my current colleagues come from very privilegded backgrounds and I have no doubt in my mind that this has put them in an advantage in life. They not only have the strong financial support, but also the opportunity to learn and be inspired from their successful or highly educated parents. I on the other hand, come from a very solid middle class family (my dad an blue collar electrician and my mom a bank clerk for 35 yrs) and my parents didn't have a lot of education. My parents are very frugal still to this day (both my parents drive cars that are from the 80s and they probably have 800,000km between the both of them on their odometers). Though my parents lack a great education, I am so very lucky and grateful that they understand the value that is in education. I think that without this, I may not even be what I am today. Growing up, I didn't really have a personal role model or have my parents to look up to in terms of getting an understanding of high success and what it took to achieve it. I'm not saying my parents weren't great role models for me. They were hardworkers, very polite people and had strong and good values and I am very fortunate to have acquired that from them. The thing was that my parents were very happy being stable and didn't desire the need to go further with the lives and show the motivation and drive to climb higher. I had no idea how to be successful besides keeping my head down and working hard studying. The only role models I had that showed me success and motivation were strangely rappers in music videos (more on this later, a whole other story). I truly believed that the best chance I had at doing anything great in life was in an education. That's all I had to fall back on. At the end of the day, I'm not discreditting the hardwork and drive it took my colleagues to achieve what they have today and I'm not saying that I'm better than those who grew up in better circumstances than I did. I have total respect for all my colleagues and I have high regards for all of them. But I just want to tell the world how proud I am of myself and what I've accomplished to this day. I came from really having nothing (a very modest living), to having something which I never dreamed I could ever achieve in my lifetime. To me, being able to have a career that satisfies my personality and is financially rewarding at time same time is my American dream. Shifana probably was under the impression that I came from a wealthy background because I'm always dressed to impress. But looks can be misleading. People don't realize where I've been and what I've come from until they really get to know me.

On Professionalism

We had a lecture on professionalism today. It was interesting to find out that no matter how small the community you're practising in, you can't date any of your patients (assuming everybody in the community is your patient) no matter what. A representative of high standing from the College of Physicians and Surgeons verified this zero patient-dating tolerance policy. It's absolutely crazy that this is the code. What if you're spending all your years working in a small rural community and all your patients are basically your social circle? Bottom line. You're screwed or you have an opportunity to find a potential partner the next time you head into the bigger city. All this, to maintain the standard trust of the patient-doctor relationship. Another interesting thing was that professionalism is met if one can manage a balanced lifestyle between personal life and work life. Sometimes doctors who suffer in maintaining healthy personal lives, start to fill that void in their lives through their patients. And when this happens, there's the chance of breaching that proper patient-doctor relationship that constitutes professionalism.

Laughter is the best medicine

I haven't laughed really hard in the a long long time. Until Dr. Kwok, our kidney specialist taught us today. He has a heavy chinese accent and as a bonus, he also tries to make a lot of jokes. Thank goodness we have profs with a sense of humour that can keep us attentive in class. I can recall back to my first day in med school. We had to circle on the card a characteristic which we most valued in our colleagues as future physicians. I was looking through all of them and there were all the typical ones including compassion, trustworthiness, sincerity, team player etc. But I had my eye on something that was more important to me than anything else. And that was humour. Life is absolutely dry without laughter and you lose all motivation and enthusiasm to keep going without it. To be able to make someone laugh, I think transcends all other characteristics that are all generally accepted to be important in a physician colleague. To be able to make someone truly laugh, is the best way to impress on someone else that you are genuine, trustworthy and considerate. You're essentially making yourself vulnerable to try to bring some joy into someone else's life. And I think that certainly takes more effort than simply being kind and considerate to a colleague or patient. Of course, I am probably totally wrong to say that humour is this important. But I'm going to choose to advocate for something most people overlook. I'm always actively trying to make people smile :)

Hip Hop Sundays

It's only my 3rd class in, but I absolutely enjoy it. I love dancing to hip hop and listening to it too. It's the music I grew up with in highschool and I will never lose my love for it. I go to hip hop class with some of my med school buddies, Will and Shifana here in this photo on the staircase after class. Afterwards, we decided to hit up Cafe Crepe across the street and I ordered the sugary strawberry one to satisfy my sweet tooth. Shifana was trying to describe to me how she wants her man to be more chivalrous, but at the same time, not look like he's trying too hard. This relationship stuff is so complicated. I nodded to Shifana and I finished my crepe happily.

Weekend Trend

OK. So to keep with the theme of weekends being work free (supposedly), I`ll try to make sure that all my weekend blogs have nothing to do with school.

Friday the 13th

Fortunately and unfortunately, nothing really crazy happened to me today with all the superstitious hype around Friday the 13th. With med school so far, friday has been the toughest day for me every week. I'm worn out from all the lectures during the week and the hardest thing to do is stay awake at my 1pm anatomy lecture before heading into anatomy lab (mind you it's right after lunch too). Things got more interesting today as Dr. Krebbs pulled out the 3-D glasses to help orient ourselves with the pelvis. I'm glad she did that for us and most importantly, it kept me awake. Dr. Krebbs is a very nice lady and I always walk past her outside class, but I've never said hi to her yet. I made a promise to myself today I would say hi to her the next time I see her in the hallways.

Two weeks ago, in our anatomy lab, we were dissecting the foregut of the GI tract. Our cadaver had some serious surgery done in this area and the standard anatomy was totally messed up. Neither Dr. Vogl, Doroudi or Krebs could figure out what was happening. The greater omentum was missing, the stomach was extremely small and out of place and it seemed like the duodenum was surgically redone to connect with the large intestine and then loop back to the small intestine (absolutely not normal). We were totally confused and the whole team was quite fustrated. Our team decided to abandon our cadaver as we thought it wouldn't be beneficial to our learning, missing landmarks that other teams were able to uncover in proper sequence. Dr. Krebbs found me and pulled me aside to tell me that our team should not have abandonned our cadaver. She emphasized what a great learning opportunity our cadaver was and insisted that I go back. I couldn't find any of the team, so I just went at it myself the rest of the lab. And you know what, she was right. I think I learned more that lab than any other lab I've done so far by developing a deeper sense of respect and gratitude for the person who donated their body for my learning. What a great learning opportunity. I will never forget what Dr. Krebbs told me that day. And it is for this reason that I admire Dr. Krebbs so much now. I admire her for the deep respect that she has managed to re-waken in me after all these labs.

Catching it before it all falls down

I took these photographs of fall on our beautiful UBC campus about a month ago in late October. Fall is my favourite season. There is something very romantic in the atmosphere that comes this time of year. It is also so invigorating to see such a sudden burst of energy from the warm colours of dying leaves. A beautiful death, an oxymoron, the last cry for attention before it all ends. Fall gets me thinking about death. I think that death should not be something we should try to hide from, but something we should wholeheartedly embrace. As a future physician, I know that I will have to deal with the dying. And although I have not had to deal with the death of a family member very close to me yet, I feel that my preparation in dealing with death starts from my own internal outlook on life which I can begin to establish right now. I remember once someone telling me that I had only about 18,000 days to live before I died (assuming I lived to average expectancy). This really brought a call to urgency for me that we ought to live life like everyday was our last. It's easy to understand this and just as easy to forget this as we go through our lives in such routine ways. When fall rolls around each year, it's such a beautiful reminder for us to give everything we got into that last roar before the curtain closes.

Saving Private Finch

It's Remembrance Day in Canada today and I made sure I paid my respects by pausing for one minute at 11am to realize the enormous sacrafices that were made for the freedom that we take for granted so easily today. Final exams are approaching quickly in 4 weeks and it's time for me to buckle down and actually start giving a little more effort in studying. I still don't quite feel the pressure coming on yet. Maybe because I feel that med school is actually a lot easier than what I had to endure in my undergrad in Microbiology and Immunology and my Masters in Business Management. I was literally sleeping for 3 hrs and working almost continously during my waking hours for 3 week stretches while I was doing my masters program, rushing presentations and assignments to no end. I can't believe I survived that torture. The good thing is that med school doesn't feel anywhere close to that work load (at least for now).

My mom was cleaning out the roof gutter today and she accidently knocked a little bird down onto the ground. Upon approaching the little bird (it was a Finch), I noticed it couldn't fly away and only mustered enough energy to give a faint flutter. Having worked with saving and rehabilitating wildlife for 3 yrs (how handy), I placed the Finch in a tiny box, covered it with a blanket and brought the bird to the Wildlife Rescue Association of BC located near Burnaby Lake. There, I admitted the Finch and got a case number for it so that I could follow up on its status later. Later on in the day, I got a phone call telling me that the bird was just stunned, nothing being broken and managed to fly off safely. I've always had a soft spot for animals and have had an interest in animal biology. There is just something so fascinating about the diversity of life and the many forms it can take and I truly appreciate this.

First Post!

I know it's a bit of a cliche, but here's to my first post! It's too bad I decided to start writing about my account of med school this late into 1st term, but better late than never right? I have never been committed to writing any journals about myself before, but I guess it'll be cool to be able to look back once this is all over and remind myself of what life was during medical school undergrad. I am a medical student currently starting my 1st year at the University of British Columbia.