<p>Add some avo & swiss and you’ll have the perfect combo, Curm</p>
<p>Yeah, well. It wasn’t exactly that diabetic friendly but it beat the hell outta the box of fudgcicles I had for lunch. ;)</p>
<p>Adventures in the ER update: Two rattlesnake bites in one day. Gotta love rural medicine…</p>
<p>Btw, D1 says snake bites aren’t nearly as dramatic as they are on True Stories of the ER. Actually she said they looked kinda disappointing–basically 2 small puncture wounds with some swelling. (And yes, both were envenomed bites.)</p>
<p>When your D or S came home during the summer break, did she or he use the family members as her/his “patient” for the practicing purpose?</p>
<p>It appears DS starts to pay attention to STEP-1 which is like 8 months away. I notice he has ordered something pricy online but I do not know what it is.</p>
<p>He also starts to talk about renting a car only when needed during the MS3 clinical year (which for him is still slightly less than a year away), instead of owning his own car, because “it is cheaper.” I could not imagine it would work. I think the rotation in MS3 is not like “one or two times a semester” deal like some “field trips” for some class in college.</p>
<p>Coming from the southern area where it is almost never snowing, the thought of having to drive on the icy roads really scares us. We really do not want DS to drive in one of those tiny zip cars in the winter. It appears to me that less than a half of MS1 students at his school own their cars (I think being in the northeast area is a factor for not owning a car. I do not think any student in the south can survive without a car.)</p>
<p>BTW, i read from somewhere that the upcoming winter would likely be a brutal one, if you believe in the long-term weather forecast. They talk about the wet and warm stream in Atlantic will go north along the coast and will meet some arctic stream heading south in this winter. Some hurricanes in recent years were indeed on the powerful side. But I do not know how it would affect the winter weather.</p>
<p>If he will be in a big city with good public transport, that could work instead of a car, but it will be very dependent on his exact situation.</p>
<p>mcat, some third years at my school take a taxi to school when they have to go in at 5:30am or earlier. around $5 for them. Something to consider.</p>
<p>I hope those winter forecasts are wrong. Im going to freeze to death!</p>
<p>My daughter got placed at the local hospital, so fortunately she can take the free bus there. :)</p>
<p>Since this is the random thread, I’ll share that D had her first anatomy lab 2nd day and made it through like a champ (my words, not hers.) She said by the end of it she forgot that it was a cadavor, that she was just doing a disection, and it wasn’t a big deal. Y’all have a much stronger stomach than I do!</p>
<p>Mine uses her vehicle everyday on her ambulatory rotation. Didn’t need it on peds.</p>
<p>
From what I heard, it is not the low temperature that would freeze you to death. It is the icy road (sometimes just a small patch of ice) that makes you slip and fall and hurt yourself. Or, sometimes a falling branch from a tall tree could hit the person who happens to walk under it.</p>
<p>During a winter storm when we happened to be there, we could only walk very slowly like a penguin. It took forever to walk from point A to point B, especially for us parents who are older and are not used to that kind of road condition.</p>
<p>DS never wants to wear the heavy boot we purchased for him. He also did not want to wear that long Gore-Tex jacket, likely because it is a little bit too long (Its bottom covers the hip and almost get to the knee.) Maybe it is like a trench coat; it may not be the style of jacket this young generation would wear?</p>
<p>curm, I think DS will need his car eventually.</p>
<p>GAmom, DS also did not have a problem in his anatomy lab. We were worried at the beginning. When he was a premed, we told him about the anatomy lab. He said he did not know he would be required to “cut” a real human body. I think he will likely not be a surgeon. That kid of life is too tough for him. He recently talked about being a pathologist. Isn’t it a competitive field to get into because it is a “life-style specialty” just like ROAD (or most of these 4 specialties)?</p>
<p>D1 finished her rural medicine rotation on Thursday. She got excellent ratings in all evaluation areas, except patient charting (where she got “meets expectations”). The ER director was impressed with her work and told her if she wanted to an extern ER rotation during MS3-4 to email him. He/his hospital usually don’t accept clinical rotations, but for her he’d make an exception. D1 is thrilled because the ER director is a ‘name’ in Emergency Medicine. (He’s been interviewed 3 times by the NYTimes and has twice been interviewed on NPR.)</p>
<p>The ER was only one of 3 in county that almost the size of Rhode Island and where half the residents have no health insurance so she saw all kinds of stuff. Besides the acute intermittent porphyria (later confirmed by lab work and official gastro diagnosis), rattlesnake bites, she also handled a digitalis overdose and an accidental p**** amputation. (Note to tough guys—never stuff a loaded pistol down the front of your waistband…)</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>MS2 starts Monday with biochem and GI systems. She’ll be done with all her coursework by mid-January and her Step 1 is scheduled for late Feb. Clinicals start April 1.</p>
<p>She’ll be working in the OB/GYN clinic t)his fall and has already been told she WILL be working on Christmas Day AND New Years Eve.</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>OH, and because she never did find housing at her rural location, D1 commuted back & forth from her home base. (90 minutes-2 hours each way.) She turned over 100,000 miles on her Civic. To celebrate, she put her car up on ramps and replaced the timing belt, plugs, filters, flushed the radiator, and checked the waterpump. (Yes, D1 does most of her own car maintenance.)</p>
<p>My D is an MS4. The beginning of 4th year is a new level of stress because now it is time to apply for residency. She is in ER now for one more week and then was scheduled for neurosurgery rotation. Last week she was notified by the rotation coordinator than she had double-booked the neurosurgery rotation, so my D can’t have it as the other student was first. So now she doesn’t have anything scheduled for next rotation. They are looking for her. Nerve-wracking. </p>
<p>She is applying in general surgery so this was important.</p>
<p>Well, I got an extra call today. Of course, it was related to her vehicle but still…I got it. 
In that call she volunteered the following :</p>
<p>“Dad. If I had to do Primary Care I’d just quit and work for Burger King. No, Dad. I’m serious. Burger King. Maybe even an accountant. Anything. Ugggh.” </p>
<p>I just laughed. The kid knows herself pretty well, indeed. </p>
<p>OTOH, she says “something” GI is very good. She talks excitedly fast so I didn’t catch it. It might have been “Out-Patient GI”. Before I could ask she was gone again.</p>
<p>LOL! </p>
<p>Well, D1 just started her GI/Nutrition unit on Monday and she stopped by after class (to snitch 2 quarts of home-made marinara I’d just finished simmering [gotta use up all those tomatoes somehow!], plus raided my fridge/pantry for eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers, chicken thighs, onions, black olives, whole wheat pasta and fresh tomatoes–all of which was supposed be go into the Chicken Cacciatore I was going to have for dinner…) and explain to me it’s wonder that any one of us ever poops.</p>
<p>Son just got back from LA to attend a wedding, took the red-eye back and forth to fit between exams. He had just dropped his gf off 2 days before at the airport for a short visit at the the SAME time picking her up dropped off his buddy (same undergrad, same major) who is now starting his 2nd year at Harvard law.</p>
<p>And sometimes he attends med school.</p>
<p>The buddy at H law had an internship this summer, 2 months, $30K for the summer. Interviewing now for next summer, same dealo for internship but looking now for position AFTER law school. So freaking different than med school. Loans, internships, residencies, fellowships. No MONEY!</p>
<p>And they both had the same score on the GMAT, see where they will end up with that…</p>
<p>And his other BFF just moved to a PE firm and her bonus was more than 6 figures.</p>
<p>I asked son what was he thinking???</p>
<p>Are you kidding me? He is the only one in his “posse” who ended up at a trade school…according to his peers.</p>
<p>Great.</p>
<p>I swear there is something wrong with all of them.^^^^^</p>
<p>Kat
son did check out Cedar-Sinai while in CA, hospital ok, traffic a nightmare and iffy location</p>
<p>lol. Mine does have the Harvard law grad needling her. But she is really whining about missing all the weddings. She is trying to get a quick flight to Memphis for one coming up during her surgery rotation. Let’s see how that works. Surgery starts in two weeks. Self-defense class in one. ;)</p>
<p>mcat2,
“Cutting” is what my D. loves, but she said “no” to surgery long time ago, I think it was at the beginning of HS when she finally switched from marine bio to medical. She always loved to cut, all these little things back in elementary school,…etc. When she first visited gross anatomy in Med. School while still in HS, she came back with very bright eyes and could not stop talking about it. I doubt that her “no surgery” will ever change, she has been pretty strong headed about her preferences in a past. I believe, that Derm. is back on her very short “yes” list. But she is aware how selective this is and she knows that there is very slight chance for her as they have to do so much research just to be able to get in and research is not her favorite activity, she prefers clinical experiences… Whenever she has Derm. clicnical experience, she is always very satisfied. And of course, the score needs to be very top…
Anyway, she loves her current block, which is immunology, but anything connected to it is also on her “no” list. The next (last) block, neuro, is actually is in the area of great interest. We heard that it is a tough one.
In regard to visiting, D. loves doing that. She misses her UG friends and her UG campus and very few HS friends who are still in hometown. She visits fequently and has been “maid of Honor” at one weddig, but it was last year. Choosing school close to home is really helpful for her. She could have been very home sick otherwise. She has tons of friends at Med. School though and has her “specialty” to take to potlock parties - chocolate deeped strawberries. She also tends to pile up too much of un-related EC’s, we talk about it all the time, but that is the way she has always been.</p>
<p>Curm & Kat- we, too, are seeing tons of weddings, DD had six invites this year including being in two of them. One of them was actually scheduled around her post-MCAT-pre-rotation schedule. She will have to miss two of them, but has already made it to three of them. It’s tough to fit them in.</p>
<p>Wrong test Somemom. The MCAT is so 2009. 
The next for D is in her UG city of Memphis but is a high school friend from our hometown. So kind of two birds with one stone. Hope she can pull it off. </p>
<p>On a happier note she gets a month off at year end. I don’t know why. Of course she’s planning it to the Nth degree. Hmmm. I just realized I have no idea what that means.</p>
<p>Curm - when does your daughter get done with medical school?</p>
<p>She is doing a research year after this MS3 year so not for a bit.</p>