Olympic Break and personal update

We were very lucky as a class to have 2 weeks off in February to accomodate the 2010 Winter Olympic Games right here in beautiful Vancouver city. All the upper years were quite envious of our time off as they only had a long weekend at most for a spring break. We actually only had 1 real week off as we had online podcast of lectures and self-directed learning during the 1st week off. I had good times with my friends going around the city visiting the many olympic venues and attending free concerts. I've never seen that many people on the streets of Vancouver before in my life. The skytrains were packed and I even had to wait in line to get on a skytrain one night. I never felt more proud to be Canadian. Random people would burst out singing the Canadian anthem everywhere, in the streets, the pubs, the skytrain. The olympic break could not end any better with a fairy tale ending with the men's hockey Team Canada scoring in OT with Sidney Crosby and beating out Team USA 3-2. Team USA tied it up in the last minute of play in the 3rd period. Couldn't have been anymore suspenseful. One thing that was interesting was the protest that happened downtown to give Muk Muk (the official sidekick of the olympics who is a Marmot from Vancouver Island) official Mascot status for the games among Miga, Quatchi and Sumi. Aside from such frivilous protest, there were also the expected protest from anti-olympic organizations and the gestalt of others who used the international olympic coverage to gain awareness for their cause. Some of these protests got quite violent and many shops had their glass windows smashed.

So far, we are now into our 3rd week in the Cardiovascular block. I'm struggling a bit to readjust to a quicker learning pace and I'm finding it hard to dig up time in the day to do work, especially when I'm dead tired by the time I get home from school. This week, I spent 5 hrs interviewing a Rett Syndrome patient and her mother at their home. This is for our DPAS project to enable us to gain a stronger appreication for the difficulties and challenges that peoples with disabilities have in trying to live a normal life as possible and also navigating the healthcare system. Rett Syndrome is an early neurodevelopment disorder that leaves the patient unable to function normally in terms of physical movement as well as normal communication. It is a serious condition that requires very supportive and ongoing care either from family or care givers. I need to write a report at the end to describe what I had learned. After the interview, I can say that I don't feel as persoanlly uncomfortable to approach the disabled in the public as my perception has changed for those living with disabilities. I also understand the importance of my role as a doctor to consider the hardships of those living with disability and to recognize that my credibility and societal position has a doctor enables me to have an important influence on improving policy to help disabled persons advocating on their behalf. I will tell you more about what I've learned from the interview after I actually get my report done.

Dr. Trevor Corneil, a member of UBC Faculty of Medicine and a family doctor gave a talk educating us about what we should be thinking about with regard to career planning. I would say that it was quite useful hearing about the things that usually get swept under the rug unless you shake the answer out of the right person. It was good to know that 95% of us will match with the residency speciality of our choice. 1/3 of us will be family physicians. 2/3 of us will be leaving BC to other provinces for our residency. It was shocking to me that now that we've made it into medical school, the next 10 years of our lives will be dictated for us in terms of where we go. We really have no say in terms of where we want to be geographically. We just choose our speciality and let that take us wherever that may be. If I'm out of BC, the next place I'd want to be would be Toronto. I prefer living in big cities. The bonus if I were in Toronto would be that New York City would just a drive away. I've never been there, but it's one of the places I've recently developed a strong urge to visit. It's the wealth of culture and history that's concentrated there that attracts me the most, especially the many stories of 1st immigrant families that had to struggle to make it in the big city. I've been listening to classic songs like "New York State of Mind" -by Billy Joel and "New York New York" by Frank Sinatra. I love the phrase "If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere." It's just a very uplifting and optimistic phrase that embodies the constant struggle to be successful. Right now, I'm just wondering if there's a possiblity that I can do part of training or practice in New York one day.

I recently bought some sketching pencils, acrylic paint and some paper at an arts supply store on Granville Island. I'm going to start doodling away now. I'm also playing with my new iTouch now. I couldn't afford to own an iPhone so I'm doing away with the Touch. I can take my rap music wherever I go now. Before I forget, I also did something really cool over the break. I got the opportunity to shadow Dr. Raval, an colorectal surgeon at St. Paul's Hospital. I followed him for 3 days doing colonoscopies, in and out-patient rounds and colorectal surgery in the OR. One of the hardest things to do as a general surgeon at least for me from this experience is the intense amount of thinking on your feet that you have to do. And I mean that literally, standing for 8 hours straight with barely a break in between surgeries and having to figure your way thru a successful operation. I got to srub in, stick my hands into someone's abdomen, give the patient an anaesthetic, learned what a stoma was and felt a 3 cm rectal tumour (and in the process almost stuck my hand into the wrong hole - very embarassing but the senior surgeon almost did the same thing with a pipe much larger than my fingers). I learned that surgery is hard work and it felt like the long work days stacking cans and ringing customers in at my summer jobs, except this time I couldn't be mindless. I had to be 100% concentrated in the mind, despite the physical strain of doing the procedure. Dr. Raval glanced over at me during the surgery and said "Hard work, eh?" I went home and took a very very long nap.