Monday, May 02, 2005

Grand Rounds XXXII: A Day In The Life of a Medical Student

12:35 AM

Finish studying and do a final check of Medlogs. Stumble upon a post by The Anonymous Clerk asking Does NPO Include Holy Food? Decide to head to bed. Because tomorrow will be filled with interesting clinical correlation lectures instead of biochemistry, I'm actually planning on going to class in the morning....

6:45 AM

Radio alarm goes off. Hit snooze

6:52 AM

Hit Snooze again. Why are lectures always so early?

6:59 AM

Drag myself out of bed. On the radio, Red State Moron reports the latest on surrogacy and quintuplets. I wonder why medical stories are the only thing that can drag me out of bed in the morning. Hit the Shower.

7:15 AM

Grab breakfast while checking the traffic on Good Morning America. Diane Sawyer introduces Denni from The Break Down Manual who has an important message about postnatal depression. Though it may make me late, I decide to watch the whole segment.

7:30 AM

Drive to School. Dr. Charles explains the symbol of the Green Man on the morning radio show.

7:45 AM

Since I was blessed with no traffic, I run to starbucks, where I catch up with Jen who has just finished up her last nursing exam for the year.

8:00 AM

Clinical Correlations Lecture:
Dr. Rack, the Sleep Doctor finishes up his lectures on narcolepsy Looking out at my fellow students, I'm amused that a sleep lecture was scheduled so early in the morning. While Dr. Rack is anything but boring, our collective sleep deficit seems to have overcome certain students' interest in the topic at hand.

9:00 AM

Careers in Medicine Lecture:
Dr. Tony describes life in the emergency room in a typical night patient in the EC (part 1) and Part 2. For another perspective on life in the emergency room, Mad House Madman reminds us of why we should always have our white coats on hand. To round out the hour, The Cheerful Oncologist muses on an oncologist's track record in leading the code team during a cardiac arrest in Goodbye to All That CPR.

10:30 AM

Clinical Correlations Lecture:
Dr. Parker from Cut-to-Cure teaches radiologic interpretation using the example of a GSW patient.

11:00 AM

Clinical Foundations of Medicine Lecture:
Kevin MD warns us that Math + Medicine = Confusion.

11:37 AM

Medical Instrument Fair:
MedGadget shows off an amazing video of Vein Viewer.

12:11 PM

Lunch Talk: The Effects of Pharmaceutical Marketing
After patiently waiting for all of us to grab free pizza and pop, Galen discusses the effects of pharm marketing on prescribing habits in Who Benefits? In Ask Your Doctor, DB from DB's Medical Rants explains some effects of Direct to Consumer Advertising. Corpus Callosum follows up with Direct to Consumer Advertisements of Antidepressents. To close the session, Aaron at Two Terms Later gives a student perspective on the issue in To Take or Not To Take? Its great to know that I'm not alone in my confusion over how to approach the issue of pharmaceutical gifts.

1:03 PM

Full from pizza, I head over to the clinical skills lab to learn about the Role of Ultrasound in Dengue Fever from Sumer.

2:10 PM

Break. Finally! I can catch up on reading the latest journals. Dr. Emer at Parallel Universes suggests ACAT2 and Dr. Lawrence Rudel:
Inhibition of ACAT2 in the liver shows great promise in preventing CHD from developing. Since it was mentioned in lecture yesterday, I decide to look up Legionnaires' Disease at New York Presbyterian over at Kidney Notes. Since I still have a few minutes to spare, I pull out the trusty laptop and read Four Shades of Gray at Ad Libitum.

3:00 PM

The Patient Perspective:
In Pain Scales and Daily Living, Peggikaye at Pearls and Dreams explains to her health care providers that what they see is not necessarily what they get. It's an important point that we are glad to hearAcid Test describes a medical episode that taught her more about getting treatment than she ever wanted to know. Amy from Diabetes Mine explains why Stem Cell Research Matters. These patient accounts are worth every word.

3:55 PM

Run to the coffee machine for an afternoon pick-me-up. Medical school is exhausting.

4:00 PM

Medical Ethics:
Orac at Respectful Insolence explores some of the issues in the Taran Francis case in Sad End to a Sad Tale. Dr. Berstein from Bioethics Discussion discusses the priorities regarding the humanitarian issues in life: the born vs the unborn. He examines the case of the 13 year old pregnant Florida girl in Meddling Again? and The Troubled Living Don't Matter as Much as the Yet-to-be-Born.

4:57 PM

Though classes for today are done, the learning is not, and I run over to the Business club meeting where Tim Gee, a connectologist at Medical Connectivity dissects a press release from a wireless networking company that’s getting lots of attention and traction in U.S. hospitals. He emphasizes that, while the technology is way cool, the press release is not. Not to be outdone, David from Health Business Blog points to a hospital that added patient blogs to its website. Our next speaker, Tony from Hospital Impact summarizes the recent blogosphere debate on the uninsured & healthcare reform.

6:15 PM

As I head over to the research building, I run into Aggravated DocSurg who muses on the tragic consequences of a missed diagnosis, and how it hits close to home. I empathize; in high school, my mother attempted (but thankfully, did not complete) suicide three times, and everytime it happened, we were sure that she was finally out of danger.

6:30 PM

Journal Club:
Orac describes the biomedical meeting creatures he encountered at the poster session during his last conference. I can relate to his experiences as it wasn't so long ago that I went to my first major conference and presented a poster in the very first session. Nervous, because I had never even been to a conference before, I stayed up half the night looking up obscure facts that someone might ask me about. It turns out that most of my poster audience simply wanted to be "walked through the poster." I wish I had been warned.... Once everyone has arrived, Dr. Andy presents a recent article about the possible risks (or lack thereof) of biotech foods.

8:07 PM

Dinner Time! I meet up with a few friends and Street Doc, a local paramedic, who regails us with tales of a hydrocodone and alcohol interaction and a particurally good trauma. I think that the people at the table behind us are giving us strange looks. Changing the topic of conversation to something a little more normal, Mad House Madman pulls out a photo of future intern smiling. Joining us for drinks, Saint Nate describes a visit to the Philadelphia Museum and says, "Don't Say 'No' to the Incredible Medicine Show." We quickly decide to visit the exhibit next weekend.

10:24 PM

Heading home. I guess I wont get too much studying done tonight.

10:47 PM

Start reading about Home-Based Rehabilitation for Patients With Cognitive Disorders. Definitely something to keep in mind when I finally get out of school. I hope that this material will be on tomorrow's test, since what I find interesting is usually not what is actually tested.

11:49 PM

Time for bed. Dream of turning over the reigns for next week's Grand Rounds to Azygos.

Good Night!

posted by Mudfud @ 6:39 PM