Casting workshop tonight. Sarah and I learned how to cast and splint... Have a look at the pictures. It was really fun and a great skill to learn. Brought to you by the swell folks at the Sports Medicine Fellowship and Family Practice Residency programs at UMass Fitchburg.

Do notice the Husky colors vs. Duck colors that Sarah and I are sporting... just wait until football season starts!

So much to do... so little time to do it all!

Spent the weekend in Boston visiting Laura before her first week of orientation at Tufts Med. It was a great time - we discovered an amazing asian market about 6 blocks from her house and loaded up on "the essentials".

As for this week... Monday evening we "previewed" the physiology slides so that we could have small group discussion (instead of lecture) on Tuesday morning. Nobody warned us that "preview" really meant 2 hours of narrated, interractive powerpoint slides. Whew! The jury is still out on whether that was a useful way to absorb all the information.

Physiology is still fascinating, although it is my most difficult class, thus far. I'm finally starting to understand what's going on in an EKG (electrocardiogram).

Yesterday, we had our fourth CTO (cells tissues and organs) lab (aka. Histology). Hard to believe we're through with Lab 4 and we haven't even been here 2 weeks! My first impression of histology was that it would be impossible to tell any of the cells apart... but by week 2 I am feeling a lot more confident. It is also helpful that ALL the slides are posted on the CTO website, so in preparation for lab, you can actually go through and look at the slides ahead of time. Here are a few pretty cool ones thus far:

These are the individual cilia that line your trachea.










And this is a cross section of the umbilical cord. Pretty cool eh?

After many hours of physiology this morning, our class emerged dazed and confused. Do the terms preload and afterload mean anything to you?
I won't go into too much detail, but basically we learned how to understand how a "normal heart" MUST operate (in terms of the amount of stretch in the muscle and the pressure applied by the heart on the aorta when pumping). In laymen's terms, it gave us a bit of insight into the diastolic and systolic pressures... and introduced us to "the vicious octagon" (see below).Basically, if your right ventricle accepts too much blood (stretches out too much) it can't squeeze hard enough to get that all blood out through the aorta. Then it stretches out more, then can't squeeze... you get the picture. Ultimately this leads to acute pulmonary edema. Best if avoided. This guy looks pretty unhappy.

First day of classes! Whew! 2 hours of Cardiovascular Physiology and 2 hours of Cells, Tissues and Organs.
I learned 2 ways to stop someone's heart (probably won't come in handy)
I saw a bunch of nifty pictures of cells eating each other (see pic: a macrophage (immune cell) phagocytosing 2 red blood cells)
I wowed my professor with my snazzy tablet PC. To my chagrin, he called me out in front of the whole class and made me tell them about it and promise to email the specifics of my machine, just in case they were interested. Talk about a great way to start school... All day long people came up to me asking me if I liked my computer.
We had a first and second year bbq this evening. That was a nice break - no cooking and we got to meet some of the second years.
And lastly, Sarah and I ended up at the library until 9 pm (when it closed, incidentally). We agreed that we have never in our lives studied so much on the first day of school. Sadly, I have a feeling this will be indicative of our lives from here on out. Word of the day: BALANCE.

Orientation Highlight:

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop came to speak with us on Wednesday. His ideas were surprisingly contemporary, especially given that he is 90 years old and counting! He urged us to remember why we went into medicine… (to paraphrase) to save the world.
After his speech, we were each given signed copy of The Quiet Art, a book we should keep by our bedside and read "when we've had a good day... or a bad one" about the doctors in history.

Evening Highlight:

Sarah and I ventured to the Northern Lights Quilter's Guild Wednesday evening. It was an amazing experience!! We were easily the youngest members there by 20+ years out of about 50 women in the room (100 absent). Even after sneaking in late and hiding in the back, we were approached by a number of members throughout the “program” (it was “Bring in Your First Quilt Night” – see pic!). At the “break” (homemade baked goods like you’ve never seen) we milled about, filling out the paperwork to join, perusing the extensive lending library and picking up two quilt kits to make tiny quilts for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock hospital (what a way to combine our interests, eh). After “break” they had “show-and-tell”, where members could display finished products or works in progress or just about anything they wanted to show off… This, of course, was after they asked Sarah and me to introduce ourselves to the group (over the microphone). We were inundated with people at the end of the meeting. I kid you not – there was a line of women wanting to greet us and welcome us, make sure we had signed up – “do you get the directions on making a nametag?” – wishing us luck on medical school, asking us over to their houses for tea. It was a hoot. Even as we walked across the parking lot women were yelling “Thanks for coming! Hope we see you again!”.

Retreat Highlights:

I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures of this – my phone was in the cabin. On Thursday night we had a retreat at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, owned by Dartmouth. After a series of bonding activities, which culminated in a raw egg drop using only straws and tape to pad the egg (unless you cheated), we had dinner and put away the tables for a good old fashioned square dance. Girls on one side, boys on the other. Spin your partner, do-si-do, the whole nine yards. It was great exercise and great fun. Sarah, having lived in rural Kentucky for quite a while this year, provided the extra explanations and helped us organize ourselves properly!

On a completely different note, we hiked up Moosilauke Mountain this morning. For some reason I thought this was nice little jaunt around the lodge. It was definitely a true hike up into the White Mountains… It was 40 degrees at the top! I took a picture from close to the summit, just to give you a sense of how far we were from the lodge. It was a lovely day – perfect temperature for hiking – and the view from the top was spectacular. Overall, it was a really nice hike!

Okay, so one more little thing before I turn in for the evening...

Have a look at my room. Most of my stuff is still down at Laura's, in Boston, but here's the makeshift room... Complete with very comfy mattress, desk and snappy desk chair! Like the walls?

Day 1 advice:
"It will be very hard. Try to remain balanced."
Well, I suppose I'm not surprised, but I'm still a little nervous!

Day 1 comprised of a long line of speakers welcoming us to Dartmouth Medical School, quoting snappy statistics about how great we all are and introducing themselves with stories, slideshows and puzzles. Admittedly, it was not the most thrilling of days, but we did learn a few interesting tid-bits about our classmates: We have an ex-undercover agent... Someone who used to sell undergarments at Victoria's Secret. We have a naval officer who worked on submarines... And one who worked on anti-submarine technology. We have enough cooks to open a restaurant. Enough musicians to have a kickin' band (or orchestra perhaps). And our average GPA is 3.72, average MCAT is 32.5. Whew!
Afterwards, Sarah and I went to our first med school party last night, complete with Flip Cup, loud music and way too many people squished into not quite enough space. Glad to see we've all graduated from undergrad...

Day 2 advice:
"You DO NOT HAVE and WILL NOT GET every disease you learn about"
I must admit, from my conversations with many classmates thus far, there are a fair number of germaphobes and hypochondriacs in our group, so perhaps this advice is justified.

After a thrilling morning with Dartmouth College Health Service (the on campus health center) and the computing gurus, we had lunch IN THE LIBRARY with the librarians (our library advisors, in fact).
Interesting fact, they ALLOW food in the library... I guess they figure most people have their own computers and are studying their own books, so who the heck cares! No delivery though.

I have met a lot of people who graduated this spring from school. Then again, I met a woman who graduate ten years ago this afternoon, so I think I'm right in the middle of the pack.

This afternoon I ventured off to the gym for the first time. It's a lovely new remodel - every piece of equipment has a flat screen TV attached to it. The weight machines are easy to use. And there are spinning classes!!! The pool is on very limited hours that fall in the middle of the day for the moment, so no swimming yet, but it's in the works.

Although the social scene is still shaking out, the weather has been lovely, the campus is beautiful and the people are all incredibly nice. I am loving Hanover and Dartmouth...

After a few speedbumps getting up here, I arrived in Hanover on Friday evening to meet Sarah, my new roommate, and move into my new digs. Sarah is great! Our apartment is funky (every wall and every door is made of pine wood), but it is quickly growing on us. She helped me lug everything inside (and up to the third floor... whew!) and then we went to work on all the Ikea furniture.
Today I went yard-saleing over in Vermont along Rt. 5. I found a few odds and ends, but nothing spectacular, although I did get a brand new Mariners cap :-).
It has been really nice getting to know Sarah in the evenings. We seem to be well suited to one another. We are different enough that we don't need to spend every waking moment together, but similar enough to enjoy each other's company, have great conversations over dinner and play a few games of Sequence every so often :).
And she's a quilter!