Stevens Admissions: Julia

No Place Like Home for the Holidays

I spent the days leading up to Christmas baking cookies, wrapping presents, seeing old friends, and watching all the TV shows I've wanted to watch for the past 4 months. 

Because I am frequently reminded of how fortunate I am, I would like to say this:

Stevens is a very small, tight-knit community. It may not be for everyone (people who really want to root for a football team in college), but I truly value the friends I made in college and know that I will keep in touch with them for years to come. These friends and classmates made Hoboken feel like home, and if you're on the fence about coming to the school for any reason, I suggest that you come visit the school again. Walk around Hoboken by the waterfront, eat lunch on Washington Street, stop by for an Athletics event etc. The school will win you over.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone.

The Actual Tree

So usually, on the Saks building across from the Rockefeller Center Tree, there is a display of Snowflakes. I had to go to the archives to get this picture I took in 2007:

This year, Saks instead created a 3D display that is AMAZING. This is a picture of the countdown to the display, but here is a link I found on youtube with the whole performance.

And finally, the tree.

Teeming With Christmas Spirit

Now that my exam is over, it finally feels like the Christmas season. We finished our exam on Friday, and those of us who did not sprint out of the exam room to catch a plane/train/bus home, celebrated the fact that we had completed our first semester of medical school. It really flew by.

On Saturday I took the bus up to NYC and then took the PATH to Hoboken to catch my best friend before she flew back home to Hawaii. Yesterday a bunch of us met up in Hoboken and went into the city for our annual 'Funday Sunday'. [Fun Fact: When I first applied to blog in my sophomore year, my 'blog writing sample' was a recap of that year's Funday Sunday.]

Anyway, went to see the shops at Bryant Park, saw the tree at Rockefeller Center, and most importantly (according to my friends)... saw the new 3D Nintendo DSes at the Nintendo Store. 

My friends definitely offset the table's average age. We ate ramen at Menchanko Tei, and taught a few of our friends how to hold chopsticks.

(We were all wearing Christmas sweaters)

Afterwards, we came back to Hoboken and went to one of our favorite establishments, Mikie Squared, to meet up with more people who were in the area. It really felt like the old days. We had a table for 10, and there were at least 10 other people scattered throughout the place to whom we said hello.

I'll post some more pictures of the tree etc in another blog. Happy Holidays :)

To Save a Million Hearts

Today in class, our lecturer asked us, "how would you like to Save a Million Hearts?"

She was referring to the Million Hearts Initiative, of which few of us were aware. I've mentioned before that Cardiovascular Disease is the number one cause of death in America. This project is a broadscale effort that aims to increase compliance and awareness.

• Million Hearts Initiative is a new Health and Human Services (HHS) effort that aims to prevent a million heart attacks and strokes over the next five years and demonstrate to the American people that improving the health system can save lives.
• Each year there are approximately 2 million heart attacks and strokes in the United States. The campaign is expected to produce a 10 percent reduction in the rate of acute cardiovascular events each year for 5 years resulting in one million heart attack and strokes prevented.

If you'd like to read more about the effort, here is a link: HHS Aims to Save a Million Hearts

Study Breaks

Since our last exam is on Friday, this week has been spent trying to get into "full throttle" study-mode, as one of my friends refers to it. Friday exams are more stressful in my opinion because you're still accountable for all of the lectures during the week leading up to Friday. We had our CP Gross Anatomy Lab Quiz on Thursday, and my group nailed all our questions. We're also in the running for having the best dissection in our room. Hooray.

We decided to take a break on Thursday and go out with our "academic family". I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but we have academic families here, consisting of 10 students and one faculty adviser. Our doctoring classes and our anatomy groups are based off our family, so we have gotten to know each other pretty well. We went to the Dupont Circle area and had dinner at ShopHouse. People have been referring to ShopHouse as the "Asian Chipotle". Basically, it's Asian food that can be prepared in the same assembly-line style that Chipotle utilizes.

The food was delicious! And for my fellow Sriracha enthusiasts, ShopHouse has you covered. 

Heart Sounds

We've been told that the Cardio-Pulmonary module is one of the most interesting ones, and I'm starting to see why. In our other courses, we've touched on a few clinical correlates. In this course, we have had full lectures dedicated to: "Heart Sounds", "Arrhythmias", "EKGs", "Heart Block" etc.

One of the most famous professors at Georgetown School of Medicine was Dr. Proctor Harvey. Although he passed away a few years ago, his legacy at the University is still very strong. The school provided us with stethoscopes designed by Dr. Harvey. Our professors refer to Dr. Harvey as an incredible cardiologist, but also as an incredibly caring and compassionate physician. Here is an example of this:

Dr. Harvey received a call at his house in the middle of the night, informing him that one of his patients has passed away. He immediately started to get ready to leave for the hospital. When asked why he was going when there was "nothing he could do for the patient anymore", he answered by saying this was the time when he could help the patient's family the most.

It's no wonder our professors keep talking about this man.

"Dr. Harvey had been a professor at Georgetown University since 1950 and was considered the nation's most skilled practitioner of auscultation, or the ability to detect cardiac ailments by listening to the sounds of the heart. He invented stethoscope models, his books have been standard texts for more than 50 years, and his patients included at least four presidents, as well as diplomats and members of Congress.

A strong advocate of the human touch in medicine, Dr. Harvey had a gentle bedside manner that extended to shaking hands with every patient and plumping up their hospital-room pillows. He believed modern physicians had become too dependent on technology and other diagnostic tools and had lost the ability to work with patients on a person-to-person level.

"For the past few decades," he told a Georgetown publication in 2000, "the trend has been to order too many tests too early . . . when a complete and careful history and an excellent physical examination can produce the same information. The sounds of the human heart are enduring. They won't ever change." "

The National Christmas Tree!

Back in the day (1923), Calvin Coolidge created the tradition of lighting the "National Christmas Tree", on December 1st. I'm so used to the tree at Rockefeller Center, but I will take any tree I can get down here. The White House in the back is a pretty nice touch. This is a picture of the 2010 Tree:

I unfortunately could not attend the tree-lighting ceremony because we were in anatomy lab dissecting the heart, but I plan to before I leave so that I can compare it to the one back home. Apparently there were a couple of celebrities there, including Ellie Goulding and Kermit the Frog. 

Today marked the 89th anniversary of this occasion, and it has reminded me that Christmas is indeed coming. The weather has been very mild for the past couple of weeks, so it doesn't really feel like December. I didn't believe that there was a really big difference in temperature between NJ and DC, but now I'm realizing it. I also didn't know that DC was South of the Mason-Dixon Line until today (I actually lost a bet to my father over the fact), so I still have a lot to learn about the area. Never bet against Dads.

For anyone else who hasn't taken a US history course in years, here you go: