<p>Ditto. Same 2002 Construction Yellow Xterra she has always driven. Not putting any real miles on it. Maybe 6K a year now. Makes no sense to change until she needs to change. I’m sure it will let us know when that is. lol</p>
<p>She picked it out. Mom drove it for the first year and a half. D learned in it. No HP. Weighs two tons. Can find it in a parking lot. Perfect!</p>
<p>D1 has Honda Civic with 75,000+ miles on it. She got it in 2007 when her $400 '97 Chevy Prizm needed a new engine and new tires. (BTW, she put all those miles on the Civic herself! Kid is the original leadfoot too.) Right now she’s lusting over a big honking pick-up truck with an off-road suspension pkg. so she can lug her bikes, kayaks and other outdoor toys up jeep roads in the National Forest. I keep telling her that when she buys her next vehicle she can get whatever the heck she wants.</p>
<p>D2 has a 2005 Corolla that belonged to my FIL until he passed away. D2 drove it her last year of high school and it’s been more or less garaged while she was away at college. (OK, sue me, I used to drive it to work 4 or 5 times a month when my 25 year old Jeep was misbehaving–which was most of the time.)</p>
<p>Miami
Just hope your D matches to somewhere affordable to live. We thought we finally had S off the payroll but Washington, DC is a VERY expensive place to live. In order to make his $51K salary (before taxes) work, we’re still paying for the car and insurance.</p>
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<p>I’m not even sure what this means…mannequin simulations? Lectures? Because if it’s real patients, it sounds like the best ER ever and more than I’m getting 2 weeks into a Critical Care Fellowship 
…sounds like I could really benefit from this PIE thing.</p>
<p>BRM-- it’s on REAL patients. Not standardized patients. Not mannequins. </p>
<p>She called after Day 1 and said she got to suture facial lacerations on 2 different ER patients and helped to stabilize a seizing patient.</p>
<p>"Miami
Just hope your D matches to somewhere affordable to live. We thought we finally had S off the payroll but Washington, DC is a VERY expensive place to live. "
-There is no way under sky that D. will apply in Washington, DC, NYC, California. Not sure yet, she mentioned that she is thinking about south more lately. One thing for sure, she does not like to be in a city, she likes to be in a middle of nowhere - this is the diff. between her UG and Med. School location. She has time to sort it out. She is only done with 1st year. With her travel habits, who knows maybe she decided to check some locations out during rotations. I really do not know how it works out, but she has been very open to all kind of opportunties, just came from trip abroad that also could be counted as rotation as some people do. They definitely did a lot there, lots of things that she would not have opportunity to do in the USA, she greatly improved her Spanish.</p>
<p>D1 just came home after a 3-days of 12 hours shifts (just like a “real” ER doc).</p>
<p>She was all excited because she got to reduce a double displacement fracture of the humerus. (Auto accident-drunk driver) </p>
<p>Worked on a case of what the docs think might be acute intermittent porphyria. (Patient is a frequent flyer at the ER–presents with psychosis and severe vomiting. Has been referred several times to gastro, but refuses to go.)</p>
<p>She also got to help examine a partially evicerated small bowel for perforations before sending the patient onto surgery. (Auto accident–drunk driver, not the same accident as above)</p>
<p>Jeebus! Why you folks do this again?</p>
<p>Also sobering facts:</p>
<p>Of the 96 med students who started MS1 with her, only 90 remain: 3 dropped out, (including one who quit the second week of class and another who quit after her baby died); 3 need to repeat MS1 for various reasons.</p>
<p>Of the 12 married students who began MS1, only 3 are still married.</p>
<p>Yikes wow mom, that is sobering.</p>
<p>My class which is larger had only 5 drop outs and no marriages ended (and in fact at least 6 people have gotten married and there are two couples within my class and two people dating med students from other years).</p>
<p>With regard to the p/f question asked a couple days ago, I imagine this varies by school but at mine we see number grades for the tests as well as the mean and standard deviation so you always have some sense as to how you’re doing within the class</p>
<p>Those are sobering stats. I think all of D’s MS1 class was still there to start MS3. In fact, I think they gained one somewhere along the way to make it an even 100. I have no idea about divorce stats but dang. 75% seems really high.</p>
<p>Divorce rate shocked me too. And now I totally get why D1 is relectant to talk about the M word in her future.</p>
<p>On a lighter note—her roomie (MD/PhD) has now fainted FIVE TIMES while trying to administer injections to mice. Roomie did OK with cadavers, (“They’re already dead and I can’t hurt them.”) but cannot do any procedure on living things that involved blood, needles or inflicting pain. </p>
<p>Roomie gets squeemish and light-headed just hearing about D1’s ER adventures.</p>
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lol. That is hilarious. That’s where being ranch raised pays some dividends for my D.</p>
<p>No official numbers of drops outs, etc., but DD knows several people who have had to remediate a class or two, she even tutuored a couple. Her school has a minimum passing percentage and if you do not get it, you may retake a final once I think, after that it is retake the class. They don’t seem to call it ‘flunking’ but extending. Since they do the equivalent of a 4 year BS in 2 years, some people simply cannot absorb all the info that rapidly and are allowed to slow it down and take fewer courses, but paying extra tuition!!</p>
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I think that is a word at D’s school, too. Certainly wouldn’t want to tell anybody they flunked. Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I knew a guy who had to re-take his entire first year. But, back then, he flunked.</p>
<p>Haha, remediate is a popular one at ours too. You must hit a certain percentage to pass. Since some of the exams are short answer and you can get partial credit, you can request your exams be reevaluated if you believe you didn’t get “enough” credit. If you fail, you can remediate the exam; if you fail an exam two blocks in a row, you may have to repeat the year. With “only” 4 exams per block and 4 blocks, that amount of failing is pretty substantial. </p>
<p>We’re down 1; she’s joining the incoming class and more or less starting over. There was 1 baby born this year and there are a few expected this summer and fall. I’d estimate 15% of the class is married (at least). There were 4 additional weddings (one was a pair of classmates!) this summer and two more are being planned. As far as I know, no divorces, but some long-term relationships from undergrad bit the dust. </p>
<p>My summer’s going well. Got a gift from a patient today–a bag of homegrown tomatoes :)</p>
<p>Jeez, kristin, if you were jonesing for homegrown tomatoes, you should have just asked me, I’m overrun with them right about now.</p>
<p>"On a lighter note—her roomie (MD/PhD) has now fainted FIVE TIMES while trying to administer injections to mice. Roomie did OK with cadavers, (“They’re already dead and I can’t hurt them.”) but cannot do any procedure on living things that involved blood, needles or inflicting pain. "</p>
<p>-Very funny. D. was sawing post-op mice in lab. while in HS. She always loved rodents and had a chance to work with them again while interning in UG. Never mentioned any problem with any cutting or other procedures on living or cadavers, enjoyed skin biopsy a lot, but rulled out surgery as big NON-NO. We do not know why, we mostly just listen. Our language is getting less and less relevant, we do not know most of her vocabulary any more.</p>
<p>Send mine to Tomato Fiend, 1234 Hillbilly Way, Nowhere , Texas . I love vine-ripened tomato sandwiches.</p>
<p>^^ me too. Though lately I’ve been eating sliced tomatoes on a plate with salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil, with a glass of nice red wine and a couple of slices of peasant bread or sourdough to sop up the juice.</p>
<p>One of true joys of summer…</p>
<p>Just had one tonight. Well, yeah. There was bacon and lettuce on it, too.</p>