Stevens Admissions: Julia

St. Baldrick's

Every year, the School of Medicine hosts a fundraiser for the St. Baldrick's Foundation, a 'volunteer-driven charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives.'

On this day, several students and faculty pledge to shave their heads or donate their hair. I remember coming to my Georgetown Second Look Day last year and wondering why so many of the guys had buzz-cuts. It was really impressive to see how involved the students were, and this year I am supporting my classmates all the way. Unfortunately my hair is not at the length that it needs to be to be able to donate it, but my good friend Derek is shaving his head!

http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/531275/2012

If you feel so inclined, please donate :)

Though his hair is very nice, I look forward to seeing how much support he can get to shave it off.

 

Hydration Test

Today we finished the Renal module!

This course was only 11 days of lectures. One might think that 11 days is more than enough to cover the kidneys. I guess it might have been, but we had a couple of really specialized lectures. One whole lecture dedicated to the changes in renal function due to pregnancy.

We did have a really interesting lecture on Exercise-Associated Hyponatremia (the name doesn't do it justice, also hyponatremia = low salt concentration in body fluids). Take-home points:

- Athletes/trainers have stressed the idea of drinking water even when you aren't thirsty in order to prepare for their events

- In reality, by drinking this much water you're diluting your body fluids too much and shifting away from your equilibrium into a dangerous range. EAH is a the most common life-threatening manifestation of fluid dysregulation.

- The suggestion to consume 8 glasses of water a day was not supported by scientific evidence when it was first created

Don't get me wrong, I am the number one proponent of hydration. Stay hydrated, but don't over-do it. This is how I stayed hydrated this weekend.

I was too excited to eat the Pho to take a picture beforehand.

Little Friends for Peace

Last week we had to give our final presentation for our Service Learning Project. As I've mentioned before, my group worked with the Tenant Empowerment Network in Southeast, DC.

We presented in front of 4 other groups, which was nice because we got to see what kinds of experiences our friends and peers had. I was impressed with the types of organizations that the other groups had worked with. One group worked at a battered women's shelter, another group worked with the elderly, and one group created an oral healthcare initiative project.

I was really impressed by one organization in particular, the Little Friends for Peace.

"Little Friends for Peace teaches peace skills to children and their adult leaders to counter systemic violence. Through an open and responsive approach to our participants’ goals and by fostering connections among participants and partner organizations, we seek to empower a community of peacemakers with the knowledge and strategies for improved intrapersonal, interpersonal, and communal lives."

I really agree that true change can take place when it starts with children. Check out the website for ways that you can help!

Ambulatory Care

This week I started at my Ambulatory Care assignment. I don't remember if I've mentioned this before, but in the fall we were given a list of specialties and told to rank our top three. I chose:

1.) Neurology

2.) Emergency Medicine

3.) Hematology/Oncology

I was so excited when I found out that I would be shadowing a Neurologist at Georgetown. I spent 4 hours at the clinic at Georgetown this week and learned so much. At first I felt like I normally do when I try to understand a native-Spanish speaker (grasping for pieces that I can put together). Luckily, the doctors I was shadowing took the time to explain their actions and answered all of my questions. I was also able to help one of the fellows present to the Chief Neurologist.

It was so hard to concentrate on our coursework after shadowing, but the year is already going by very quickly. I'll be done with my first year in less than 4 months! Yikes.

Winter Ball

This weekend was our Winter Ball, or as we like to refer to it, Med School Prom.

It was so great to see everyone looking distinguished in nice clothes as opposed to disgusting in scrubs. It was held at the W Hotel in DC and we were thrilled with the venue. The ball was planned by the M1 Social Committee but was open to the entire School of Medicine. A bunch of M2s were in attendance, not so many M3s as they are busy in their rotations, and the band that played was actually an M4 band.

Here's a picture of me and my friends:

It was an excellent weekend! I do however envy those in the NJ/NY area for being able to experience the madness that must have ensued after the Giants won.

Scanning for Answers

This year, Georgetown increased the percentage of Radiology questions on our practical exams to 25%. That means that 1 in 4 of our questions will look like this:

Borrowed from: Interactive Atlas of Human Anatomy: SECTION: ANATOMY OF THE THORAX, ABDOMEN, AND PELVIS, Published on Sunday 24 August 2008 by Antoine Micheau, MD, Denis Hoa, MD

Of course, it will be unlabelled. Most of our questions on CT images will have 5 arrows pointing to different structures in the image. The questions are more than identification questions, but will tie in correlates. For example, 'an obstruction at which structure will cause ischemia of the ascending colon, disregarding all other anastomoses?' So you, as the student would know that the ascending colon is supplied by the right colic artery, which is a branch off the Superior Mesenteric Artery, which comes off the aorta around the vertebral level of L1. Now the only thing you have to do is locate it in the image.

It ends up being a pretty rewarding feeling when you can look at a CT and figure out what's wrong. Although it does add another item to study, it will surely be helpful in the future.

Back to studying for tomorrow's GI Exam!