In my search for a new hair do, I decided to leave Queens today in search of cheaper prices to put some baby curl twists in my hair.  Granted that doesn’t have anything to do with my medical education but it does have a lot to do with my appearance when I am in the hospital. After a few days of trying to meet up with my friend Mohammed, we finally were able to meet up today in BayRidge.  Although, I was not so excited about taking the long train rides, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to finish reading my book ‘At first sight’ by Nicholas Sparks.  I did read the book during my ride but it got so interesting that I missed my stop in Manhattan (42nd Street), I was  7 stops past my that when I realized.  I looked out the window and I saw in large prints with the color purple ‘Spring St” and I say to myself where the heck is that.  I looked on the map and realized I had missed my stop a little bit ago.  I guess I forgot I took the Express E train from Queens to Manhattan.  I got off the train and headed back to 42nd Street.  After, I arrived at 42nd the walk to catch the N train heading to Coney Island was another trek on its own but one I had to take.   I caught the N train and finally arrived at BayRidge 2 hrs after I had left my apartment in Queens.  Mo and I took a train to Flatbush and we began another trek, this time in search for an hairdresser for me.  1st one I came across said that she did the baby curl twists after I had described it to her. I asked her how much it would cost and she said $180 and she also mentioned that it would take her 4 hours to do it.  What was very interesting was that she offered to give him a $10 discount since I was African, hmmmm… $10, I’ll say no more.  Anyways, before I wasted anymore of Mo’s time I decided that it was best for me to head back to Queens before it started getting dark. As we headed back to the train station, Mo and I discussed our experiences,  I told him I was just ready for a new rotation.  I really am.  Today, in the hospital i didn’t even do much at all. We had morbidity and mortality conference at 8am, lectures right after that for about 2hrs, no cases to scrub into the OR and headed to the library. Oh well, what can you do? you can’t force people to need surgery so you can stay scrubbed in till 6.30pm everyday.

I made it home, in time to watch my favorite show ANTM (America’s Next Top Model) and now watching the final presidential debate.  Its been very interesting so far, the last two debates I fell asleep about half way through.

Stay Blessed!

I remember when I first started to write a blog , I said everyone should ignore all my typos and spelling mistakes and now it seems I am paying more attention to them and starting to feel really bad.  The last post I wrote was also shared on my facebook profile and when i accidentally bumped into the synopsis on facebook I was traumatized by what I saw.  I definitely need to work on reducing my spelling errors and typos.  I hate editing after I have written something but I guess I will have to force myself to do so.  I have to say though that no one else has pointed my mistakes to me and I appreciate that but I am sure you’ve all noticed them.  So what’s new, I went to Chicago last weekend to spend time with my family. My sister came up from Minnesota with her kids and we all had a wonderful time together.  It was a house full of fun, lots of laughs, and gisting. On Saturday night, we had dinner at this restaurant called Grand Lux Cafe in downtown Chicago.  I had never seen a crowd that large waiting to be seated.  They had customers waiting at every corner and I knew that meant he had to be really good food there. While we waited to be seated we saw several waiters pass by with meals that looked so good that I was getting full just looking at them.  For dinner, I just couldn’t decide what to have so as usual I went for the safe bet and had the stacked quesadillas which turned out to be really good.  For desert we had fudge fusion and New Orleans beignets (ben-YAY).  Even my little niece Anu was eating up a storm too bad her younger brother and the recent addition to my family is still eating formula. Anyways, I was glad my sis Feyi took us there it was really nice.  If you’re ever in Chicago, you should visit. I do believe they have other locations so just Google them.

So, a few weeks ago I decided that I have to try something new. My new thing is reading fiction novels.  I always read non-fiction and self-help books but never thought I needed to read fiction novels, so right before my trip my girlfriend and I went to Barnes and Noble and I picked up a book called “At First Sight” written by Nicholas Sparks. I figured I would like the book since I enjoyed the movie Notebook so much.  He wrote the book as well.  So far, so good, I have been enjoying the book and find it to be a page turner I am looking to finishing that one sometime tonight and pick up another one soon.  Whoever thought reading fiction could be so much fun.  I must make an effort to stay away from reading too many romance novels because I hear they give you unrealistic fantasies and I wouldn’t want to be caught day dreaming while scrubbed in on a case in the OR (hehe).

New york living is somewhat tough but it got even tougher for me when I realized that my electricity wouldn’t be as cheap as I was expecting it to be.  I really don’t like paying for my utilities separate from rent but I guess I have to get used to it.

Not much is going on at work which is why i didn’t say much.  I am still in surgery clinic and will remain there for the next 2 weeks.  I am so tired of being on surgery rotation I am ready for a change.  This morning, I was in hand surgery clinic.  It was quite helpful because this time the Attending actually criticized my H&P (history and physical) and my presentation skills. I  was glad that he did that because that’s the only way you learn  how to do it better.

Hopeful task for tomorrow is to find a new hair dresser, the last one was not very good at all.

Stay Blessed!

I guess those ahead me weren’t kidding when they said the surgery rotation goes downhill from trauma. I am now in clinic and things just don’t work with a schedule. Today I was supposed to report to clinic at 8;30am which I was on time for but I was informed that clinic didn’t start till 11:30am.  So what do I do with the time I have since they were no general surgery cases scheduled. I went to the library to study. At 11:15 I went to the clinic and reported to the Physician Assistant who I discussed with for 30 minutes about how much we love our iPhones. The Attending finally came in at about noon and we started seeing patients. The attending was very nice and managed to involve me in all the patients we saw.  I wrote most of the H&P (history & physical), helped in patient examinations. And also wrote the assessment and plan for each patient based on the Attendings orders. Clinic lasted about 2h after which I headed home to continue studying.  That’s
was all that happened today- going to clinic was worth it. Tomorrow am not assigned to clinic so I guess I will be in the operating room.

Stay Blessed!

It’s nice to know I can blog on my phone whenever I am less busy. It’s been a while since I blogged but it’s not because I don’t have anything to write or don’t have time it’s because I am being lazy. So what’s new with me?  Well I have 4 more weeks of surgery to go which I will spending in several different clinics and the operating room in my free time. To date, my fav rotations have been with trauma and orthopedics. Much least fav has been my time in surgical ICU just because they really didn’t have anything for me to do so during that time I got to scrub in on some interesting cases in the operating room. I am now in urology and I am enjoying it. Only case seen in the oper.room is implant of penile prostheses. To scrub in on that case I had to scrub for ten minutes, not only was I ashy when I was done my arms were also very tired.  Nevertheless, it was an interesting case. For those of you who might not know what a penile prostheses is for I will
educate you now. Some men have difficulty / inability to have/ maintain am erection. For those men, an implant might be opted for.  So that’s what it is I’m a nutshell I am not going to go into details on what it looks like just use your imagination.   What’s on the agenda for the next few weeks? Family coming to visit I hope, having more fun, preparing for my surgical presentations and studying for exams.

Stay Blessed!

Its coming to the end of my day off, awww men..  Not that I am not excited to go back to work tomorrow it just seems that i’m not home that much at all and I would love to just chill in my lovely apartment.  This week has been kind of funny.  We’ve had some interesting trauma patients. it hasn’t been very common that we would have trauma patients refusing treatment.  One of them actually said that we were over doing it. Granted, sometimes I think the same. For example, a patient came in with a fracture but we had to go through all the processes we would go through as if he came in with severe trauma to the head and loss of consciousness which wasn’t the case.  The fact is regardless of how serious the case might appear we cannot assume that we know everything about the patients injury based on just our physical findings. So sometimes although it might feel like we’re overdoing or actually are it only for the good and safety of our patients.  That was something I found interesting enough to mention today.

My apartment is finally feeling more homey which just makes me want to stay home more but I can’t.  Oh well. I will be done with my surgery rotation pretty soon and will have a little bit more free time.  I’m really looking forward to it.    My next rotation is in Psychiatry.  I hear that Psychiatry ER is the most dangerous place at the hospital I hope I won’t attest to that.  Not much else to say back to work at 6.30am.  Right now gonna watch the democratic national convention and head to bed.

Stay Blessed!

I am finally doing something I always looked forward to and it is my clerkship.  My last two years in Grenada, although they were sometimes fun, i was really getting tired of seating in the classroom and discussing all this diseases and only studying about them.  I wanted to put a face to it as  medical students say time and time again.   With two weeks gone by already with the trauma team at jamaica hospital, I am starting to get used to the schedule and realizing what is really expected of me.  I find that with medicine comes so much paperwork that it does take some of the fun out of it. An employee at JHMC told me you gotta CYA (cover your ass).  So many physicians are being sued for malpractice nowadays and its important for them to document everything they do in order to have a strong case.  Lack of documentation could really be the end of you.  Documentation is a big part of a Physician’s assignments.

I remember when the first season of grey’s anatomy aired and  Miranda Bailey the now chief resident was telling her new interns (first year resident) where they are in the medical hierarchy .  from one of the episodes this was said ” Your first shift starts now and lasts 36 hours. You’re grunts, nobodies, the bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, work every second night until you drop. And you don’t complain.” A difference between me and those interns is that I am actually below them.  So I have to make them look good.  So far, so good.

Haven’t studied much since i started my rotation, thats only because every time I am at home all I can think about is resting.   in the next two weeks my schedule changes and then rest will not be an excuse to not study any longer.

i love it when we get a trauma call,  I get a bit of a rush I walk swiftly towards the trauma bay and check my pockets to make sure I have the following : trauma shears, stethoscope, tape and a pen.  Once I am sure I have those items I continue my walk to the trauma bay.    As I get in there, see the patient on bed, I begin to use my trauma shears to remove all article of clothing they have on for a good physical examination, and from that point on listen for orders because they are usually being yelled e.g. x-ray abdomen and pelvis, CT head, c-spine, maxillofacial etc.  I hate missing something  because that means I usually have to ask the chief resident who is usually the ones that yell it.  He responds without any problem but I am sure he would rather not have to repeat himself.  I do whatever else I’m asked to do until we are ready to roll the patient to their side for a digital rectal exam (DRE) and an examination of the vertebral column.  At this point, I am wishing to not be called to do the DRE.  So far, i haven’t been called but I know my day is coming.  Doesn’t seem like the most fun for both the individuals involved.  While in the trauma bay, the hardest thing for me is getting the information from the paramedic.  Because he walks in and just starts to dictate exactly what happened at the scene, mentions very important details but yet my mind is focused on so many other days I can only catch a bit of it but I hope with time I’ll get better.  Thats usually the most fun part of my day, but sometimes when its 2am in the morning and you are ready to sleep that’s the last thing you want.   I don’t want to seem like the perfect third year medical student so I’ll share with you some of my shortcomings to let you know that we can all learn from things and to remind you that our fingers are not equal so we can all be great at something.  In the last week, I have had a really had time going to the operating room, not because of the guts and blood that I usually come across but the aspect of scrubbing in for a case.  I have spoken to some of the operating room nurses about this and they all say it process and it takes time to get it down but I don’t understand why it taking me time.  After i have scrubbed and enter the operating room, I always make mistakes i consider to be stupid ones just because I am not thinking of it, e. g let the sleeve of my gown touch something thats not sterile or touch something below the operating table which is a No-No.  I am trying honestly,  but that’s aspect of surgery really gets to me.  I know they are going to have some surgeries tomorrow that I am going to be scrubbing in on. I will make sure I say a big prayer tonight about that so that I will and don’t have to get kicked out of the OR.  I know to some it might not be a big deal but promise you it really is to the patients that are been operated and the others in the operating room that we maintain a sterile environment when dealing with a patients insides for lack of a better word.   Wish me luck.

Stay Blessed!

Well, as you’ve probably guessed I have now reached the practical aspect of my medical education, also know as clerkship which is pretty much when you begin to work as a slave and love it. I successfully passed by USMLE Step 1, thank God for that. Getting my results for that exam was probably the worst 5 minutes of my life yet. I was literally shaking and it felt as if my heart was making back flips on my chest and could jump out at any minute. You get an email the day the results are ready telling you your result are ready and to log on to a site to view them. As I logged on, I was so scared. After logging on, you have to actually open a PDF file, which seemed to just take forever to open, when It opened and I saw it I had to make sure the results I was looking out was not a sample result so I scrolled down and realized that it was. I just started saying Thank God. I was so happy, I finally felt a sense of relief that I have been looking forward to for the last 3 weeks. I can finally carry on with the next plan.

I have now completed my two years in Grenada and have been assigned to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens, New York. It was my first choice when I selected hospitals I would like to train at. I started rotations on Sunday, the 10th of August. My first rotation is in Surgery. It has been said that surgery is the most difficult or should I say challenging rotation among all the core rotations I will be doing as a third year med student but I have to say that I have heard otherwise as well. Anyways, the word out there about surgery been the most challenging seems to have stuck because I was really hoping that I wouldn’t get surgery as my first rotation but surprise surprise I did anyways. For the next 4 weeks I will working with Trauma team on a 24h on, 24h off schedule. Oh my, when I heard that it sounded like torture. And to be honest the last few days have seemed like that just because you are well aware that you are working 24 hours when you are in the hospital but once you leave and you’re home it doesn’t seem like you have 24 hours off at all all you can think of is the fact that you have another 24 hrs to do tomorrow. I am sure, that as things progress and days pass by things will not be as bad as it is right now. My body and mind will adjust that way I won’t ever have to see my resident laugh at me because I’m walking around like a zombie at 3am in the morning while doing rounds. So far, I am loving it jamaica , because I have had some hands on experience that I wasn’t even expecting to have and its just the second day. I hope they keep the good surprises coming. I will share more detail on my next post . It’s bed time now. Remember, don’t focus on my typos/spelling mistakes.

Stay Blessed!

Want to know more about JHMC? Visit: http://www.jamaicahospital.org/

On friday, we had our graduation from the school of massage. We receive beginner’s level 1 certificate which certifies us to give massages to friends and family, to actually be able to give massages to clients you will need a lot more studying as you can imagine.   Michael(coordinator) planned  a nice ond day tour filled with different activities before we go to Bangkok for the second half of our summer selective. It was a nice tour. we had the opportunity to ride on an elephant, bamboo rafting, white water rafting (i opted out of this one) and trekking to a fountain.  this was the first time i had ever done something like this before so I was excited.  we also got a chance earlier int he day to to see an orchid farm and butterfly farm. (those should be self explanatory).  It was a long day, and I was very tired by the end of it.  Janelle and I returned to the hotel, took our showers, grab something to eat and packed for our trip this morning.

We are now in Bangkok and things are certainly a lot more different than they are in Chaing Mai.

I have completely lost count of how many hours I have been traveling. After collecting our baggages at Bangkok airport, we had a good 6 hours to wait to purchase our ticket to Chang Mai. During the six hours Janelle and I talked, made attempts to contact home which we were eventually successful at. We stopped at a restaurant to eat something, I looked through the menu and I figured ordering Fried rice with shrimp was a safe bet. Boy, was I wrong when the waiter brought the food there was a sudden smell of urine in the air. yea.. that smell was coming from the food on my plate. I am very big on the smell of anything I eat. I won’t even use pancake syrup because I can’t stand the smell of maple. Back to the urine, it tasted like what I imagined urine would taste like. You know how they say when you’re hungry everything tastes good.. that a BIG lie because this wasn’t tasting good at all. i tried to eat just some of the steamed rice but it was still hard to do. Thank God Janelle got some sour cream and onion pringles because that was what I ended up eating. We are now ending to Thai air terminal, my phone just started to work. I hope it continues to work in Chaing Mai.

Stay Blessed

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This is the longest trip I have been on so far and get this I still haven’t reached my final destination. I will be spending the night in Bangkok and take the first flight out Chaing Mai. It’s nice to have company, my friend Janelle and I met at the airport in Tokyo and will be continuing the journey together. I will also be sharing a room with her during the entire trip.

I am extremely tired and should be able to fall asleep once I arrive in Bangkok. Unfortunately, my phone doesn’t work in Tokyo and not likely to work in Bangkok. I guess just having a phone with a SIM card is not all that’s required. It also has to be able to work under the country’s frequency and mine didn’t Oh well… I’ll figure something out when I get to my final destination.

Stay Blessed!

10:15pm in Bangkok, 10:15am in Minneapolis (yea.. a full 12 hour difference) my jet lag is going to be really bad.