Catch Up June 16, 2009

I only have 8 days left until I’m officially an intern!! I’ve been “borrowing” someone’s wireless signal until my cable/internet guy shows up…

Anyways, these past few weeks since I’ve posted have been jam-packed.  You know how it can be painful to play “catch up” with a friend you haven’t talked to in months… I’m going to spare you all the nitty gritty details.  But just like those catch up calls, I’ll just give you the highlights:

- I graduated medical school: yep, I even giggled the first time someone from the hospital called me “Dr.”  I’ve gotten better at it now.

- I went to my home town for a joint graduation party with my lil bro that graduated highschool.  It was so much fun! My favorite food – Mexican, my favorite drinks – margaritas & appletinis, and of course lots of family and friends.  I raked in lots of cash, which will get me through the next month without a paycheck, and allow me to furnish my empty second bedroom!

- While I was home I did TONS of wedding planning in just 2 days: visited 3 reception sites with my mom and fiance, tried on 28 dresses at 3 different bridal salons with my mom and sister, picked out my bridesmaids and their dresses, and bought my wedding gown.

- I was a bridesmaid in one of my close friends’ wedding.  It was beautiful… she set the bar high for my own wedding!  I definitely have to invest in waterproof mascara for my own wedding – my tears were flowing for hers. The wedding means so much when you really know both the bride and groom, and know all the work that went into the relationship and the wedding.

- I met with Employee Health and will be cleared once I get my PPD read.  I’m surprised that I’m able to type given the soreness in my arm from my Tdap shot!

- I met with my GME officer and will be cleared once I do my ACLS and BLS training over the next few days.  It was great because I received my Resident Training License!  I was also pleased to be reminded that my $600 parking will be paid for, along with 3 new white coats (my sis got me one that’s embroidered, so I’ll be wearing that while my other ones are getting embroidered too!).  I’m also ahead of the game – apparently half of the Ob/Gyn interns will be starting a week late because they didn’t get paperwork in on time… I’m pretty shocked considering most Ob/Gyn’s at academic programs are type-A.

Well that’s the last 11 days in a nutshell!  I have ACLS tomorrow and orientation in just a week from tomorrow… getting nervous, but also excited.

Return From Paradise May 15, 2009

I just returned from my most memorable vacation yet.  The trip to Hawaii, the Big Island, was initially meant to celebrate my completion of medical school.  What it turned into was an engagment and subsequent romantic celebration all week long!

On Sunday morning, my boyfriend picked me up to head to the airport.  He had a small duffel bag that he referred to as his “man bag” that he was carrying on the plane.  He was juggling all of the luggage, so I offered to hold his “man bag”, but he wouldn’t let me hold it.  He is his mother’s only child and sometimes has these moments, so I didn’t really think anything of it.  The whole plane ride he was very cuddley and affectionate, so I was very much enjoying it.  We finally arrive in Hawaii and took a shuttle to the hotel.  He made a point of telling everyone we were celebrating my medical school graduation.  Then when we checked in the front desk told us that we were going to be in the “Ocean Tower.”  I was surprised because when we booked the room, we were definitely supposed to be on the interior.  He played dumb like he was surprised like me.  We arrive to the room and when I open the door there are beautiful purple orchid petals all spread out over the white bedspread.  There is a vase full of the orchids on the table in front of the couch in the room.  The drapes are drawn open and there is a great view of the ocean with the black lava rock, palm trees, and a golf course.  I comment that the flowers are beautiful and that I was so amazed with our ocean view!

I head out to the balcony to take pictures and he comes out shortly thereafter.  He tells me, “You know how much I love you right?”  And I say, “Of course.  Why is your nose sweating!?”  So yeah, whenever my boyfriend is nervous his nose sweats.  So I wipe the sweat off of his nose like I always do and he asks me if I have any idea why his nose might be sweating.  I tell him, “No.”  He then diverts my attention to this couple to our left golfing.  Then as I turn back around he is on his knees with a ring box open.  He said my full first middle and last name, “Will you marry me?”  I get this huge smile and ask him if he is serious, if it is for real, and I give him this huge embrace.  I start crying and he asks, “Is that a yes, I didn’t hear your answer?”  I immediatey respond, “Yes, I will marry you.”  He then puts the ring on my finger and we hug and kiss again. Then he points out the intricacy and personalization of the ring.  On the side where the metal prongs come together is a platinum heart.  When I graduated college he gave me a heart shaped necklace with diamonds, and our first Valentine’s Day when he moved to my city he gave me a bracelet with a heart.  Thus, now my engagment ring has a heart to stick with the same theme!  He and I also have the same first and middle initial, so when we marry and I have his last name our initials will be the exact same.  He also got my soon-to-be initials engraved in the band. I was so impressed with all of the detail he put into the ring!  Turns out my ring was in his “man bag” which is why he didn’t want me to hold it.  That definitely would’ve ruined the surprise.

That night we headed out to the edge of the resort and cuddled up into a cabana to watch the sun set.  We then went to a nice steak and seafood restaurant to celebrate the engagement!  The rest of the week we had so much fun.  He kept calling me, “Fiancee,” and I couldn’t help but smile every time.  We did a tour of the whole island where we got to see Rainbow Falls, Volcanoes National Park, the Black Sand Beach, a macadamia nut factory, a coffee factory, and tons of beautiful scenery.  We headed to a salt-and-pepper beach for a day in the ocean and beach volleyball.  We had a night out on the hammock star-gazing.  We watched the sunset on a few more nights.  We definitely hit the hot tub.  We went into the local mart.  And of course, we explored every inch of our magnificant resort!

This was such an amazing vacation.  I’m so happy that he proposed now and not at graduation (which he revealed was his original idea) because we had a full 5 days to enjoy it!  Everyday was just another day of relaxing in each other’s company.  I can’t wait to see what the future holds, but I already like how it’s starting!

Match Day! March 20, 2009

First of all, I want to say sorry for not posting yesterday (Match Day)… it was truly a busy day and I wanted to give you all the quality posts that you are used to .  Hopefully you at least saw my Twitter status with the great news!

So I show up to my match celebration 15 min before the refreshments were to begin being served, which was an hour and 15 min before we got to open our envelopes.  I was so nervous that I literally ate only 3 grapes and 2 orange slices!  I was running around talking to everyone, wishing them luck, etc.  The one day that I chose to actually be early to an event and it was driving me crazy.  About five min before it was time to open the envelopes my Dean took the stage to share some stats.  Apparently 78% of the class would be staying on the same coast – with 40% staying at hospitals affiliated with my home institution, and 24% at my home institution specifically.  As far as specialties go, 32% went into primary care, followed by 21% in surgery/surgical subspecialties, and 9% in radiology.  “All others” made up the remaining 38% (with 8% being Ob/Gyn).  Clearly I was distracting myself from the anticipation by taking notes!

Then the clock strikes and my Dean has all of our family and friends go outside to the terrace.  I had no idea what was going on.  I thought they were going to make us open the envelopes in solitude or something crazy!  Then we are told to go outside.  All of our envelopes are taped to the window in alphabetical order.  I find my envelope and grab my boyfriend.  We walk all the way to the back corner of the terrace.  I really only wanted he and I to be a part of this moment.  I flip my envelope over to open it and there’s a photographer standing right there!  So much for privacy.  I tear into the envelope (and the letter) and unfold it frantically.  There it was… the name of my #1 PROGRAM!!!  I started jumping, and laughing, and smiling.  I hugged and kissed my boyfriend so many times.  He did such a great job of capturing it all with my camera.  I was in total disbelief at what I was reading.  I must’ve read #1 program’s name over and over and over.  I actually took a picture of it to be sure!

Next I proceed to call my parents who were both excited.  I also called my best friend who got her #1 program as well!!  I spent the next hour running around to all of my classmates to see where they were going.  It was such an intense experience.  There were tears of joy and tears of disappointment filling the room.  There were hugs and kisses, screams and laughs.  Such an intense amount of emotion it was a bit overwhelming.  The hardest part was seeing the faces of the classmates that I knew didn’t get their first choice.  I suppose that’s the downside of the 3 week waiting period.  By the end, people were alot more open to sharing where they were going to end up.  So when I asked where they ended up, we both would know that they didn’t get their number 1.  Even more shocking was a classmate that was a stellar student, had stellar interviews, great personality, and got their 4th choice.  This classmate was just in shock… it’s still an amazing program, but since we’ve talked about it extensively, I knew how heartbreaking it was.  In the end though… at least we matched!

I spent the rest of the day eating and drinking.  First with my boyfriend.  Then with a few of my close classmates.  Then with my best friend and her classmates at a neighboring school.  The night concluded with me putting the final touches on my poster and heading off to the club and dancing the night away.  I suppose my school was smart for making us have to be at school the next morning for poster presentation set-up at 8am!  I definitely drank less and came home earlier because of that obligation.  That won’t stop me from partying tonight!

My last point, for those readers that have not yet applied, I will update my “Numbers” posts under the USMLE Books & Advice page if it may help to give you insight.  If I could match my #1, so can you!!

MedObsession on Twitter March 7, 2009

During the election I was pretty hooked to CNN for the political commentary.  The broadcasters used to always talk about Twitter.  They would post questions and then read the comments live on air.  I had forgotten about it until recently.  My intern has a crackberry like me and was on “TwitterBerry” one day.  He instructed me on the ins and outs of Twitter.  Basically, it’s like constant facebook status updates.  People can become “followers” of your page to stay up to date with your posts.  You can also reply to other posters’ updates as well.

My first reaction was that this seems way too invasive!  I heard that there was a celebrity “twittering” during the delivery of her baby.  So I immediately deactivated my personal twitter.  I decided that only my close friends and family need to know what I’m doing moment-to-moment, and they can get all the updates they need by calling and texting me.

However, I thought about my readers.  My blog has had increasing numbers of readers, with 4800 views alone last month!  I know that my time during Ob/Gyn residency will be limited, and thought this could be a good way to still stay in touch with my readers.  I created a Twitter page for my blog: http://twitter.com/MedObsession, this link is also post on my blog roll.  I’ve also subscribed to my own RSS Feed and displayed it in the right-hand panel under “twitter updates.”  For those of you that don’t have twitter you can read the updates on my own blog.  For those that do, you can click on each of the status updates and it’ll take you to the page to favorite it or to reply!

We’ll see how long I keep this up…

Timing is Everything February 17, 2009

With graduation from medical school being in the very near future, I have begun to do alot of thinking about my life in general and where it’s headed.  I suppose in my “perfect world” I would have gotten engaged last summer, matched at my #1 program, planned a wedding and gotten married this spring and moved into a new home in the city where I match this summer.  Considering that it’s only 4 months until I graduate, I have no money saved up for a down payment on a house and no engagement ring, I guess I have to reconsider my “perfect world.”

I suppose looking at it now, I’m happy the way things have transpired because I have no time this Spring!  I finish my rotations at the end of March.  I will be attending my last SNMA conference as a med student in early April.  My boyfriend and I are going to Hawaii to celebrate my Match Day and graduation in late April.  In addition, since several women realized that 4th year was a great year to get married,  I have 4 weddings that I have been invited to in a matter of 3 weeks during late May/early June.  In case you didn’t notice, I said 3… not 4 weeks, which means that 2 of my friends are getting married on the same date!  I’m in one of these weddings, so no skipping that one.  In addition, I am booked for out-of-town bachelorette parites: 1 has a trip planned for Miami and another for Vegas.  On top of all of this, I have my own graduation to attend, along with my college roommate’s med school graduation.  Plus, the majority of the programs I applied to have Intern Orientation the last week in June, which means that I will be moving (possibly accross the country) during all of this.

Basically, the way the timing worked out, I’m happy that all I really have to worry about is showing up to everyone else’s planned events.  Any money that I would’ve used for a wedding or a house is being sucked up flying all over the country for bachelorette parties, graduations, weddings, and of course all of the gifts that go with these events.  So much for my “perfect world.”   Once I match, I’ll be able to make the appropriate plans to move into a nice apartment.  I’ll just have to pick a free weekend amidst my busy calendar.  At least there is still hope to match at my #1, which would be quite perfect right now!

Dreaming of Change January 20, 2009

This has been one of the most amazing weekends of my life.  I started off watching the Obama Whistle Stop Tour on Saturday, which aired on CNN.  I love the symbolic nature of this train ride, which was how the old Presidents had to travel to the White House back in the day, including Abraham Lincoln, whom Obama has had many parallels to since his election on November 4, 2008.  On Sunday, I headed to one of my friend’s home who has HBO, in order to watch the inaugural concert, “We Are One.”  What was great about this concert was it reflected all of the different faces of America.  The introductions were done by Black, White, Hispanic, and Asian people.  The music included country, gospel, and R&B to name a few.  There were some pretty cool collaborations and it was another uplifting event.  It was so cute because you realize that his kids really are like any other 10 and 7 year old: when Beyonce was performing Malia pulled out her camera and had the biggest smile on her face!

Come Monday morning (Martin Luther King, Jr Day), I was all geared up and excited for the inauguration.  Since my childhood I always knew that the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday was an important one.  However, I never did anything to really honor MLK on his holiday.  This year, with my boyfriend who is from Atlanta, we decided to do what his family does: celebrate the holiday!  We found out about a local MLK parade that ended with a large festival.  There were people out there in different huddles, dancing to all types of music ranging from African drums to 80’s beatboxing.  There were poets paying tribute to Dr. King, and also reflecting that his Dream will be actualized the following day!  What’s interesting of course is that the speech is as much about his Dream, as it is economic empowerment, both of which are so applicable to our current state as Americans.  As you would expect, there were so many vendors out there selling MLK paraphernalia.  Yet, side-by-side with the MLK t-shirts were Obama t-shirts; MLK calendar or Obama calendar; MLK magnet or Obama magnet, take your pick.  It’s just amazing that the historic MLK holiday was on the eve of the inauguration of our 1st African-American president!

Last night I couldn’t even sleep in anticipation of today’s events.  I set my alarm to wake up and watch the very start of the CNN coverage (okay, if you haven’t noticed I’m biased to CNN).  Anyhow, I was glued to the screen in awe of the beautifully orchestrated event.  I mean everything was timed: from the seating of the VIPs, the exit of the outgoing and incoming officers from the White House, and the introduction of speakers.  Even more amazing was the sea of people covering the National Mall.  It was once I saw that huge crowd waving their American flags so vigorously that I had to grab my camera.  I didn’t care if I was sitting in my living room with my boyfriend thousands of miles away!  I love to take pictures and I had to capture the moments that I didn’t want to forget.

Finally, after almost 2 hours of coverage the inauguration began.  I found it interesting that as the men of the hour entered the Capitol, the sober expression which has covered former President George Bush’s face lately was replaced with a large smile, while the charismatic grin of President Barack Obama was now more solemn.  You can see that the weight of the presidency had been transferred from Bush to Obama, even before the official swearing in occured.  I was happy that Aretha Franklin had a very respectable outfit on (which hadn’t been her norm in the past few years), and sang beautifully.  I was inspired to record a 1 minute snippet of that.  I then recorded the swearing in of both Vice President Joe Biden, and President Barack Obama.  That Bible that Biden used was the largest Bible I have ever seen in life!  When it came to Obama’s swearing in, I knew he was nervous!  He could barely repeat the words back for the first line of the oath.  Shoot… I’d be nervous too after the secret service recommending I wear a bullet proof vest, and the creation of “The Beast” (the new presidential limo), which is like a tank!  However, after that first line, he got it together and finished the oath smoothly.  (Update: it was actually the Chief Justice who mixed up the words, and President Obama paused to allow him the moment to correct himself!) Since this was the only inauguration that I’ve ever watched (see… Obama has inspired some change!), I was surprised at how short the Oath of Office was.  I was also surprised that it was the soon-to-be First Lady that holds the Bible.

Now on to his speech.  I thought that it was a great speech!  I’ve heard some people were disappointed, but that’s probably because people were expecting him to cure all of their ailments with his words in just 20 minutes… not realistic.  I think that he made me feel that while our nation is in a pretty crappy place right now, there is still hope for our nation.  He helped restore my confidence in our government/leadership, especially knowing that he is going to make sure that it runs correctly!  It was also nice that he spoke to the people of the world because today he set the tone for a new regime.  We are going to restore our standing in the world and our former allies during this term.

My boyfriend and I recorded our own video clips immediately after the inauguration so that we can look back at this moment.  I’m so happy, and I think Jeezy may have said it best: “MY PRESIDENT IS BLACK“!!!!!  I’ll be going out to celebrate with friends at the end of the night.  I can’t wait until my parents return from Africa, so that I can hear their perspective of this event from accross the world.

I really am so excited for all that President Obama will do, and what he will inspire us as American people to do!  Thank you to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for your dream, and thank you to President Barack Obama for your message of change.  You have both given me hope for the future!

2 Year Blog Anniversary December 3, 2008

I can’t believe that another year of blogging has passed!  My blog has definitely grown over the year, as have I.  This post will be full of links to posts with the most hits over the past year, and to some of the ones that were important to me.  I first saw my monthly readership triple when I became syndicated in March 2008: I’m syndicated!.  My main topics included the transition from being a nervous third year medical student: Hmm…Excellent?, to a confident third year medical student earning honors in several rotations (Ambu Med, Psych, Medicine) and my proud moment of being selected for the medical honor society: Alpha Omega Alpha.  I also talked about my personal life and experiences with relationships: Long Distance Coming to an End, Valentine’s Day, Cooking for His Parents, and A Surprise Concert.  In addition, I polled the readers for opinions about things I don’t understand: Diamonds Are Forever, Right?, Insight into the Cheating Mind.  I even went on a game show, Deal or No Deal Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, which I now realize I never did a “Part 6″ post for.  I guess I owe you one.  My monthly readership then more than doubled again in July 2008 when I became a 4th year (MSIV, Finally) and started talking about applying for residency: Advice for Applying to Residency, ERAS Submission, MyERAS, taking boards: Step 2 Preparation, The Numbers, Step 2 and interviewing: Ob/Gyn Interviews.

Over my 2nd year here are some of the stats for those of you that are curious.  Check out the post from my 1st year: 1 Year of Blogging.  I put the total for each category with the amount from each year alone in parentheses to compare the years:

256 Posts (Year 2: 143, Year 1: 113)

470 Comments (Year 2: 325, Year 1: 145)

3144 Spam Comments (Year 2: 1983, Year 1: 1161)

21084 Visits/Page Views (Year 2: 17439, Year 1: 3645)

—-Best day ever: Year 2 – 376 (November 19, 2008); Year 1 – 85 (July 1, 2007)

—-Best month ever: Year 2 – 3316 (November 2008); Year 1 – 479 (June 2007)

To date, the top three pages are: “Ob/Gyn Interviews“, “About Me“, and “Step 1 Books & Advice“.

The top three posts are: “MyERAS“, “BRS vs Goljan Pathology“, and “Done with USMLE Step 2“.

As you can see I have quadrupled my annual readership, and my best month this year has 7 times more readers than my best month the prior year!  It is very exciting to have new readers and new people commenting on the posts as well.  I hope that you keep coming back to read!  Please pass on the link to your friends: www.medobsession.com.  That’s right, for those of you that may not have noticed, I bought my own domain!

‘Tis the Season… For Shopping! November 28, 2008

Yesterday was a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. My boyfriend and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving alone in this city together. I cooked baked macaroni and cheese, fresh greens, and biscuits. He took care of the ham, turkey and cranberry sauce. We finished it all off with some wine and good ol’ apple pie.  One thing that I realized is that I have no serving dishes.  I suppose that will be something to purchase once I get a place for residency.  Afterward we headed off to the movies to see the 007 movie Quantum of Solace.  Of course it was weird to not have a house full of family members, but we both took the time to share what we were thankful for this year, including the chance to spend the holidays together!

After all the festivities, I planned my map out of shopping!  I’ve never actually gotten up early to take part in “Black Friday” sales, but now I’m hooked.  I made it to the mall right at 6am when it opened.  I managed to buy everyone’s Christmas presents, plus a few items for myself , in a matter of 3 hours.  Some places had up to 60% off of items, or a free $30 item with any purchase, etc.  I ended up having a combined savings of 44.3% on all of my items!  You really can’t beat that.  I felt a little guilty about how much money I spent, so I spent the next hour after I got home going through my closets to pull out 3 shopping bags full of items to donate to Goodwill!

I also managed to get additional coupons for 50% off at Express, 15% off at Nine West, $10 off at Victoria’s Secret, and a “secret santa” gift card for an unknown amount at Victoria’s Secret.  Looks like I’ll be taking another trip back to the mall in a few days.  Hey, I rarely shop, let alone for myself, so I figure now’s the time since there are so many good deals.  Plus, I’m helping to stimulate the economy!

Diamonds Are Forever, Right? November 26, 2008

My boyfriend and I had an interesting conversation about this topic.  Since we are coming upon the holiday season, it seems like during every other commercial break there is some advertisement for diamond jewelry, and particularly engagement rings.  The classic lovey-dovey engagement commercial comes on and at the end the announcer says, “A diamond is forever.”  Then my boyfriend chimes in, “Is it really?”  He goes on to say that women now expect that they will get a diamond now and then an upgrade later on.  He’s like, “what happens to that first diamond that’s supposed to last forever?  It just gets tossed and replaced with the upgrade.”  Interestingly, he is from the school of thought that he would just like to get it right the first time so that the first diamond ring bought would be the one to last forever through the duration of the marriage.

I, on the otherhand, thought that for 20-something year olds, it’s a bit unrealistic to expect a 2+ carat diamond off the bat.  Although I’ve got to say that some of my classmates and residents have these amazingly big and beautiful rings already.  Anyhow, I think it’s okay to start with a nice 1-carat and at some monumental anniversary, or hey just for the heck of it, upgrade to something bigger or add side stones or whatever.  I figure that makes the initial engagement ring purchase less intimidating!

I’m going to try out this new poll function.  Let me know what you think! I split the answers into man and woman so that we can see if there is a trend for one response based on sex.

Surprise Concert November 2, 2008

For about the last week my boyfriend has been telling me to make sure that I don’t have anything planned for Saturday night because he has a surprise double date planned.  I really like surprises, so I tried my best to not dig for info out of my friend (one of the other double daters).  So finally Saturday arrives and I was told to be ready at 6pm and to be dressed “trendy,” whatever that means.  The 4 of us meet up and my boyfriend hands me a piece of paper folded in half.  I open it and it’s a print out from ticketmaster…

That’s right! Tickets to see Maxwell.  Since I never really listen to the radio anymore, I had NO IDEA that he was even in town.  He put on a really great show.  He was a lil freak on stage humping the ground and microphone stand! At one point someone threw their large white panties on stage and he put his head through them and rubbed his face in them!!  After the second pair of large white grandma panties were thrown on stage, we decided it was staged.

Anyways, he did a bunch of his old songs, like “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder)” and “Fortunate.” He then did a bunch of new songs as free advertisement for his new album coming out next year.  It had a pretty nice sound.  The night would not have been complete without his rendition of “This Woman’s Work” which I was bootleg and recorded (see below, and ignore the people singing and cheering in the background!).  Finally afer an hour and forty-five he said farewell, but in good performer fashion came back out for an encore.  He performed “Whenever, Wherever, Whatever” to finish out the night.  It was such a wonderful surprise!!

This Woman’s Work (LIVE, 60sec):