So when I'm at the operating table, I have to keep my hands up on the table where everyone can see them. This is so they stay "sterile." Sterile is all relative, a shifting point of satisfaction with a mutually maintained level of diligence. If I'm not holding instruments, I lay my hands on the table, but the table is covered with the patient, ( Read more... )

A few weeks back, all of the courses I took so far in med school popped back up on the Blackboard site. I'm guessing this is to help us with boards prep - should we be that excited to re-access some old handout on cholesterol transport - but it has a dizzying, slightly traumatic flashback effect, as I have to scroll through everything I've already ( Read more... )

I dream of the perfect television doctor show, off and on. When I'm waiting with my hands clasped in front of me, sterile-ly, in that way that looks so deferential and penitent (which is how I feel most of the time anyway, around a bunch of midcareer pediatric surgeons who whip ties around bleeding veins with stereotypical composure and dexterity ( Read more... )

Went grocery shopping. On my way, saw that behind one of the apartment blocks on Lagoon, a guy was rummaging through the dumpsters. He was in halo traction. It made rummaging tougher. Many sign-holders of Minneapolis have mostly been kicked off the freeway exits by cops and signs saying, No Trespassing, but they've resettled on Lake, by the ( Read more... )

Back from San Francisco. Changed my email signature to say, Year 3. Cut hair, new shoes bought, Surgical Recall, Biochemistry Rapid Review. Remaining (many) tasks listed in a takeoff queue - reflex hammer, used furniture store, mend pants...prepare for summer to be stormy, chaotic, unpredictable, terrific, terrible ( Read more... )

dear kate ( Read more... )

Alex wrote about the illustrious History Day and its life as a harbinger of future academic praxis ( Read more... )

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First chalked hopscotch boards on East Isles streets. One went all the way to 100, the squares getting baggy and misshapen by the end, eager kids wanting to hopscotch and not draw. I thought, does that say Scleroderma? next to it, but no, it said Selena Gomez, probably the artist in charge of the hopscotch. Shit. Been in med school too long ( Read more... )

My psych group advisor, describing his evaluations.

"I'm kind of a Star Wars fan, so I ask the kids, Why did Anakin go over to the dark side? And they say, you know, because the Emperor made him, or because he loved Padme too much.

"And then I give them drugs."