Last lecture for 1st term

Today, we had an integrated lecture. One professor from each of our courses was there. We were given a case study and we had to use all the knowledge from all our classes to solve the case. This wasn't for a grade and the lecture was optional. In fact, many people did not show up or left because they wanted to study for final exams instead. I stayed because I was curious to see what case study they were going to give us.

As soon as I saw the picture, it was clear it was ascites. There was a clear swelling in the abdomen, which is the definition of ascites. Now, the question is what caused it. It was an adult, so it couldn't be an embyrological defect. I also couldn't see any superficial veins near his umbilicus, so it couldn't be a porto-cavo anastomosis problem. That left me with only two options - hypoalbunemia or a pleural effusion with a CDH defect. There are probably other causes, but this is all I remember from what they taught us. Pleural effusion would be more of a thorax problem though, not an abdomen, so the most likely cause was hypoalbunemia. This is what I got from just looking at the picture of a patient with a swollen abdomen in 1 min.

Next, we had to go through the algorithm that most docs have memorized. Ask patient history, lab tests for blood, CT, etc. Eventually, they got the lab tests for serum albumin and it was low, confirming my hypoalbunemia. They later showed the picture of his eyes, which had a brown ring around his iris -->Wilson's disease b/c of Kayser-Fleischer rings. In this disease, there is an abundance of copper and it forms rings around the eyes. Though I would never correlate this with ascites in my wildest dreams. So if they didn't show me his eyes, I would've never guessed it. Anyways, mystery was solved and I left the class because there was no more reason to stay. The Anatomy professor discussed about using CT, the Histology professor pointed out the cells in the sclera with copper deposition, the Biochemistry professor talked about hypoalbunemia, and lastly, the ethics professor talked about um - ethics.

I left when the ethics lecture started. The diagnosis was over and I knew the pathophysiology. The only thing that didn't make sense was the fact that Wilson's disease was a genetic disorder, so why are the manifestations only now? The patient was in mid 30s. In real life, ascites would have happened a lot sooner. In Wilson's disease, there is a defect in a gene that codes for a transport protein that transports copper-->hence no copper is transported to the right places-->copper build-up in liver-->liver can't make albumin-->hypoalbunemia-->oncotic pressure goes down-->hydrostatic pressure is still high so-->ascites. They didn't say all of this stuff however. There was still 30 mins in the lecture, so I'm pretty sure they explained later. Though most of the time was just spent talking about the patient history, which really revealed nothing.

Anyways, it was a nice fun lecture, even though I didn't stay for all of it.

Ironic docs who smoke & drink

A lot of students coming into med school smoke and drink, which is fine since that's your choice. The irony is in that they didn't fully know of the consequences of smoking and drinking until they took biochemistry in 1st term of med school. I keep hearing people getting surprised, "Oh! I didn't know smoking and alcohol could do that! Can't believe I'm still alive!". Some students have the belief that alcohol is more dangerous than smoking, so it's okay for them to smoke - this is the logic they use.

OSPE finished!

OSPE (Objective Structural Practical Exam) is an exam that tests clinical skills and counts 11% of the total clinical skills mark in the 5th term of SGU. In order to study for this, you have to learn all the clinical conditions with "pictures" for all the courses. Every question on the OSPE has pictures in it and most if not all have to do with diagnosis or treatment. There are also physical exam questions where REAL patients are the questions. You are asked to do a specific procedure on the patient while a proctor watches you. Then the proctor tells you what to bubble based on what you did.

I have to say, this exam was a lot easier than I initially thought it was. A lot of people over-exaggerated stating that because this exam is cumulative, it is a very difficult exam. However, looking over all the clinical conditions with pics actually doesn't take more than 4 hours and you can do it the night before the exam. Most of these clinical conditions you have been learning already given you are studying normally post-midterm. This means you only need to review the pre-midterm conditions which will come very quickly once you see the pictures.

Questions from OSPE include percussing the lower border of the liver, feeling the pulse of the dorsalis pedis, listening to the heart valves, and cranial nerves.

Overall, I think I did good.

I can hear again!

I went to the clinic today and they used the syringe to clean my ears. I didn't put any ear drops the day before nor in the morning. She even said that it didn't matter. Man o man, as soon as she did it on my right ear, the world changed. I could hear the sound of footsteps, clothing, the air, etc. In a way, I had a temporary hyperacusis. I had to re-adjust the filters and dampeners in my ear in order to focus on the sounds that matter. I didn't even feel dizzy after the procedure. Normally, you do since the fluid enters the semicircular canals in the inner ear which are responsible for balance. She said that my right ear had so much mucus that it may even have more that is deeper. Now, it makes sense to use the ear drops to loosen the mucus in the deeper areas. I am going again Friday for the last one.


I had an appointment today with an anatomy professor and we went through all the structures of the head and neck. Now, this time I could hear, so I was able to answer all of his questions.

My first experience to Grenada's walk-in clinic

So I've been having a problem lately. It started mid-August actually, but it wasn't a big deal then. It is early-November now and the condition has exacerbated. I pretty much have mucus blocking my ear and it needs to be flushed out. I already had my ears flushed out actually last year in Troonto. The procedure is simple, you just put some warm water in a syringe and apply pressure. The water will clean out everything. The solution also has some hydrogen peroxide in it. They even sell self-serve ear cleaners with a right-angle bent syringe. You need the tip of the syringe to be bent so that it doesn't go too deep in the ear canal and hit the eardrum. Anyways back to the story:

I had a 2-hour Histo lab in the morning followed by a 1-hour optional Anatomy Lab. I had problems hearing the professor the whole time. Then, I ate lunch, then went to class. I had 3 classes today: 2 Histo+1 Biochem. The problem is that my classes are 1 pm to 4 pm and the Grenada walk-in clinic closes at 4 pm! I didn't even know that clinics can close that early. Anyways, I skipped my biochem class. It was just a lecture on vitamins, something I can read myself. Biochem is the kind of course in which A+B=C and there is nothing you can learn from the professor to change it otherwise, everything is in the notes. The professor pretty much "reads" the notes.

So I went to the clinic, signed-in and wrote "ear cleaning" as the reason for visit. I waited around an hour, which is reasonable since there were other patients before me. During that hour, I read the vitamin lecture that I was missing and finished it. I got called later stating, that since it's my first visit, I need to fill some forms. No problem, done. Then, they asked, if I had insurance with the school or do I have my own insurance. When we registered, we had stated that I was going to be using my own health insurance company. Then she asked me of a form that I had sent to SGU when I registered. Obviously, I don't have that form with me. So then, she said that I would have to pay today and that she'll give me a receipt which I can get reinbursed later. Again, no problem.

I finally got called (it was hard to hear). The lady asked me why I'm here and asked why I didn't come earlier in the morning. I told her my schedule and told her that I skipped a class to come. She understood. Next, the actual doctor called me. He asked me, "Have I had any illnesses in the past?". This is the most general question I have ever heard from a doctor. Yes, of course, I have had illnesses in the past, would you like a list of all of them? Seriously, I just told him yes I did and that the only major procedure I've had was an appendectomy, but nothing related to my ears. Then, he checked my oral cavity and my breathing. This is normal since the mucus from the ear can go into the mouth and the breathing was just incase, the mucus went into the trachea in which case my breathing would be a little dyspnic. He finally said, after all of that, that I need to come another day. I asked, "Can't you just take a syringe, put some hot water and squeeze?". He said, "Yes, we can do that, but it requires more pressure". He wanted to prescribe some ear drops that would loosen the mucus and the wax in the ear so that when he puts pressurized water into it, everything would come out. This is fine, but it's not really efficient. The solution that is in the syringe has hydrogen peroxide for a reason and serves as the same function as the ear drops he was prescribing me. It would have taken him 5 mins to prepare the solution and another 5 mins to do the procedure.

So, I went then to the pharmacy, which was located in Grand Anse. I waited for the bus for 30 mins. Two Lance Epine buses came and went. (I live in Lance Epine, but I need to go to Grand Anse). I finally took the bus to Grand Anse and got to the pharmacy. I pulled out the prescription, which I couldn't even understand the handwriting since it was so bad. I gave it to the lady. I got my medication 20 mins after I gave the prescription. All 20 mins were spent looking for it, the pharmacy btw is 1/8th the pharmacy found in an avg. Wal-Mart. I got the medication and am now in Grand Anse. I'm going to get something to eat here and I might as well do some grocery shopping. This is the only good thing that came out of it.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, my worst day of the week where I"m occupied from 8-5 pm. This means, I can't get my ears flushed until Wednesday. So, basically I skipped a class, wasted an hour, just to realize that I need to come in the morning. If the nurse who was also the receptionist had seen that I wrote, "ear cleaning", she could have just told me this fact. I would have been able to go back to class. It almost makes me want to buy a syringe and do the whole thing myself. I have hydrogen peroxide in my contact lens solution too. Don't worry, I won't be not unless I can bend the tip.

Lastly, the bus that was supposed to come and pick me up at 7:20 pm from the grocery store didn't come. So, I had to take another bus back to Grand Anse campus, then wait for another bus to take me to Lance Epine.

98th to 106th days: Only 26 days remaining!

It's time for an update again. I'm done eating all the pancakes. There was a dodgeball tournament on Friday that I really wanted to participate in, but I chose not to in order to stay caught-up. One of my friends actually needed 1 more person for their team and they were not able to participate :(. That's the compromise you have to make sometimes. There's a dodgeball tourny every term though, so it's really not that big of a deal.

On Saturday, I did the same routine - laundry, cleaning, breakfast, lunch, etc. By the time I was actually ready and in the mood of studying, it was 5 pm. Though I did get a lot done. I pretty much read the entire chapter for the BRS (Board Review Series) Anatomy for head and neck. It is actually a great book and covers everything. I did relax afterwards and watched some tv shows like Master Chef India, Nikita, and Merlin.

My eyes are almost back to normal since I got my hydrogen peroxide contact lens solution. Before that, there were some people saying my eyes were blood-shot red and who knows they probably thought I was smoking too. It was just an inflammation response from the conjunctiva though, it happens all the time. One of my friends was gracious enough to lend me their solution until mine arrives in the mail.

Tomorrow, I plan to finish Histology and just review because that's the only thing I can do. When it comes to Anatomy, you can never stop eating pancakes since there are always some pancakes you find that you haven't eaten :)

92 to 97th days - Diwali in GND=Studying

I'm doing 1 post per week now. Nothing exciting has really happened. A professor from Northumbria University (Europe) came by to teach us some biochemistry lectures. The guy was pretty intense and put structures for every single molecule on his slide. Thankfully, after going through his lectures on my own, I drew the reactions and pretty much compressed his 33 slides into 2 pages. In Anatomy, we started the head. It seems simple in theory, but hard to memorize and not get confused with nerves, arteries, lymphatics, veins, etc. Plus, you have to remember the previous associations. That's why I'm making my own "laundry list" to keep track of everything in a very organized way. It only takes me around 3 hours to look at my laundry list and memorize the whole thing.

The laundry lists I should say, one for each - biochem, histology, and anatomy are getting longer each day. They serve as somewhat as my external hard drive. Eventually, they will be part of my hard drive and not RAM.

Oh, and I almost forgot - HAPPY DIWALI!! There were some people who were selling some mithai here, but I think I missed it. Oh well, I plan to go to India and party there with the patake and the mithai. There is also a ICSA show on Saturday. Don't ask me what it stands for, all I know is the first letter is Indian. It's pretty much a dance show where students try to dance. It's great, but unless I'm done with all the Gray's Review+Physical Examination+Review Biochem+Review Anatomy+Review Histo, I very highly doubt that I will go to this show.

Not only that, I already saw the show last term, it's no big deal. Just another compromise you gotta make in the road to success.

So it's a Friday night and I plan to eat 4 pancakes+questions from Gray's Review. Then, finally, relax and watch some shows and eat some dinner at the same time.

86th to 91th days Just missed a Tropical Storm

After the 4-day weekend, I was a little behind. I didn't use my 4-day weekend to my advantage. Instead of being ahead, I got a bit behind. So to catch-up, I had to sacrifice 2 days of pre-reading and some hours of sleep. By Friday, I was fully caught up and ready to go. Normally people use the weekend to catch up, I plan to use the weekend to review.

On a side note, after I came out of class on Friday, there was a bit of panic from students. Apparently, SGU sent everyone an email giving a warning about a Tropical Storm will hit Grenada. I didn't even know about it until someone told me. Then, I checked online, and we would be hit by the corner of a TS called Tomas. The email also said they'd be shutting the water off and most likely the electricity won't work either. So everyone was buying water bottles like crazy and flashlights. I refilled my 1 water bottle. In my house, we have 2 water tanks, that's only for us, so there's no problems. As for the electricity, can't do anything about that, will have to study using paper notes. I had a flashlight from Canada, but it had no batteries. All the stores, including the grocery store were already closed by the time I finished class, so there was nothing more I could do. My cellphone would be my flashlight as it already is when I come back late in the night.

So the storm was supposed to hit us Today (saturday) at 2 pm. It's 12:17 pm right now and the latest storm tracking says that it will miss us completely. It's not even raining here, bright and sunny day. So all that panic for nothing. Good thing I didn't panic.

the 4-day weekend

On Thursday, I completed all my anatomy and biochem notes. On Friday, I studied Anatomy, but I also completed my ultrasound notes. On Saturday, I completely finished re-reviewing my notes and started doing questions. I have 30 more questions and I'm done with Anatomy.

On Sunday, I had an island tour trip planned with some friends. I had to wake up at 6:30 am and meet them at 8:15 am for the trip to start. This island tour was similar to the island tour organized by the school, but better! It was a very thorough tour, and I got to visit many more places that I've never seen before. They took us to many beaches, 1 restaurant, some waterfalls, a rum factory where we actually got to sample 5 different flavors of rum.

69th to 81th days

Nothing much has been going on. The lectures are continuing as normal. The past 2 weeks, I have not had any anatomy labs, which is a good thing and bad thing. It's good because I don't have to wake up at 6:30 am, change into my scrubs and go to the lab for 4 hours and then class. It's bad because I'm not getting as much practice.

We did have a special lab this week that involved examining a robot patient. From a BME's point-of-view, this was great. Though when I got there, it was just a dummy that has been programmed to say yes or no, most of the visceral structures can't be seen and there's a microphone inside that simulates the heart beat, breathing, etc. I thought the design would be a little bit more complicated, but what can you do. I think there are some universities with a very complex robot body that can mimic some symptoms.

It's also a 4-day weekend because Friday and Monday is a holiday. What are my plans? Study and study. Ok, I do have an island tour planned on Sunday, but I can cancel that if I really need to. Though, I'm pretty much ahead in all subjects, but I need to continue reviewing so that everything sticks in my head!

61th to 68th days

The week after the midterms, I continued studying so as to not fall behind. On Friday, there was a talent show where students of various talents performed and people watched for free. One of my friends did a guitar solo and my roomate was is in the "Cardiac Arrest" team. This team is a hip-hop dance group. All the talents were pretty good. I could've performed, but I don't have time to practice any of my talents except medicine.

On Saturday, there was a huge party on the beach, called "Sandblast". This party is the biggest party and only happens once per term. I went and had fun. I met some friends and there were free banana boat rides. There was also some shows. Afterwards, I was in a "good shape" to be able to walk back home with no problems. I couldn't say the same for my friends who were in "bad shape" or worse.

I'm keeping up with all the new material and reviewing my notes meanwhile. My favorite tv show now has officially become, "House". This is what I watch while I'm eating. In undergrad, I never watched House because I had no medical knowledge to be able to understand the episodes. However, now it seems to be a great show that I'd recommend to anyone with a medical interest. The main doctor, Dr. House also reminds me of someone in the family!

50th to 60th days - Lots of studying and midterms are over!!

I haven't posted anything for 10 days and that's because I've been busy studying! All my midterms are finished - Biochemistry, Histology, and Anatomy. After a lot of late nights in the library with many thunderstorms and running in the rain, it's over! Overall, I think I did pretty well, but I'll wait until my scores come out. Anatomy, by far was the toughest of them all, as expected. It was also the one that I studied the hardest though.

After the long exam, I got some food and went home. Then, in the night, I went out with some friends to "Fish Friday". Basically we take a taxi to the city where there are some streets that sell all types of fish varieties including fish fries, cakes, kebab, shrimp, lobster with noodles. It was good and I had some ice-cream after.

The next day, I went to the beach, did my grocery shopping, laundry, cleaned my room, went to school for a wii tournament, and then finally for dinner, I went with some friends for street meat.

48-49th days - Anatomy and Histo labs

I had a 2-hour Histo lab on Monday and a 4-hour Anatomy lab on Tuesday. Histo's always the easiest, once you know the slides, there's nothing you can do stop me. The problem is sometimes I go overboard and tend to say everything about the slide once I see it. This was the case this time. I normally hold back when other's are presenting, but after the presentations are over, we do practicals. In practicals, the clinical tutor can show us any slide and we have to say what it is. I can't help it if I don't hold back now. People are starting to think I'm getting cocky because I'm just saying what I see in the slide every time. So looks like I need to hold back yet again for even the practical....

In anatomy lab, it's the same stuff. We had abdomen again, but with some new stuff. It's fun to go through different cadavers and point out abnormalities and differences you see. This is the stuff I like the best and anatomy is the closest thing to what I will be doing for the rest of my life as a doctor. Most of the professors already know me by face, if not by name. There's a professor who's asked my name 9 times (and I thought I had bad memory). I like my anatomy group too, they're all smart and nice people. Today, we had a question on Meckel's diverticulum and the rule of 2s. The rule was 2% of the population, 2 in. long, 2 ft. from ileocecal valve, occurs in 2 yr. olds, and there are 2 types. I had all of those things, but I also said that 2% are symptomatic. Suddenly, a lot of people started disagreeing with me. The MIT girl in our group said, "I wrote a paper on this, trust me, it's not 2% symptomatic. You must have gotten that off of wikipedia". I said nothing further and gave in. I went back and looked it up and found in the NIH and American Journal of Emergency Medicine including that 2% ARE symptomatic! I wonder if I should even bother telling my group because they think I only use wikipedia to find things lol.
http://www.ajemjournal.com/article/S0735-6757(07)00440-8/abstract

The anatomy lecture we had today was about medical imaging. The professor was teaching it was a PhD and a surgeon. He said that he spent 6 months trying to understand the MRI and can only talk about it for 10 mins. In terms of reading the radiographs, he knows his stuff, but in terms of the physics, he has no idea.

47th day - Amazingly loud and long Thunderstorm!

It is 3:36 am as I write this and it is because I started sleeping at 12 and I woke up from the sound of the thunderstorm. Normally, I would just keep sleeping, but this one definitely wins the prize as the loudest and longest thunderstorm I've ever experienced. I would record it, but I'm too lazy for that. The weather forecast said we were hit by a heat wave and so we may be having t-storms the whole week!

Doing Laundry in Grenada

One of the biggest disadvantages of living in Grenada is doing the laundry. The mold here already spontaneously forms at a much faster rate. With the heat and humidity, this is prime for bad smell. I'm living off campus currently and in order to do my laundry, I use the washer, but not the dryer. To dry my clothes, I must hang them outside on a line on my balcony. Once I do this, my clothes have regained the stink that they had before I washed them from the outside environment. Not only that, the fabric becomes more wrinkly and harder.

Compared to on campus though, I do not have to wait in line. On campus, there are only a few laundry machines in each building which houses more than 100 students. I've been talking to my friends on campus and even they have problems with laundry. There have been many reports of girls getting UTI (urinary tract infection). This happens frequently since if your clothes are not washed properly, pathogens can travel up from the bottom. Gladly, I don't have to worry about this. Though, I do check my clothes to see if there are any bugs before I wear them just in case.

The dryer we have is broken and it also generates too much electricity causing our utility bill to skyrocket. Though, I do wish they would fix the dryer.

44-46th days - Lots of lab practice

I've been going to the anatomy lab a lot lately. In McMaster, we also had to go to the anatomy lab frequently in order to practice. We had bellringer exams in which a person would be situated at a station for 1 min. and will have to answer the question at that station. Then after a minute, a bell will ring that will tell the person to move to another station. In McMaster, all the bellringer exams were non-multiple choice. Thankfully, this is not the case here at SGU.

I woke up at 6:30 am on Saturday to get to the Mock (practice) bellringer at 7:40 am. There were 25 questions in the wet lab including some image-based questions like x-rays and CT. I didn't do that bad, I missed 6 and the ones I missed weren't completely wrong. My answers were right, but there were answers that were more right. The mock was actually non-multiple choice. In the real exam, I'll be able to pick out those more correct answers.

A lot of the students got scared because they've never experienced something like this. They had no idea it was going to be like that. They also never go to the lab and just study from books and lectures, so for them it was an eye-opener. Not too many people even "passed".

43rd day - tea exploded in bagpack

One of my roomates left her tea mug in her room today, so I brought it with me when I went to school. I kept it in my bagpack and unknowingly, more than half of the tea spilt inside my bagpack. Thankfully, only the corner of my notes were a little wet. I was able to return the tea mug though with some tea left. After all of that, my bagpack actually was smelling good because of the tea leaves.

I went to the anatomy lab today, went over the abdomen pretty much. One guy's job in the group was to hold the Netter's book. The rest was all me, I pretty much pointed out all of the structures. If there was, however, some small artery that I did not know what the branches were, we looked it up in Netters. Though it was pretty simple and I was able to locate all the structures in the cadavers.


I spent an hour in the lab and then I had to go, eat lunch, and then pre-read Histo, which I ended up finishing. The lectures were pretty easy today. I went back home and studied.

42nd day - anatomy lab

I had an anatomy lab in the morning again. This time, there were two people from my FTM program that joined my group. As usual, I ended up naming everything and everyone else just watched. The FTM guys were whispering stuff like, "don't worry we'll get there someday". After the wet lab, I went to the dry lab, and then discussed some clinical cases, then we went again to another room to discuss more clinical cases and did a physical examination. Same stuff.

After 4 hours of that, I had 1 hour to eat. I went to the indian lady at the bus stop again, she had kadu (pumpkin) and daal, so I took those with rice and roti. It was a pretty good deal and filled me up. After that, I went to the library to pre-read what I could (not much considering the time left). Lecture started, the first part was all about the lumbar-sacral plexus. Basically, something you need to memorize by yourself. I memorized the brachial plexus the fast way in 5 mins. There's a fast way for this plexus too. The 2nd part of the lecture was embryology, which you also had to really learn on your own. The 3rd part was biochemistry and he was still on glycogenolysis and glycogenesis which I already did in FTM, so I ended up sleeping during class. I woke up when he got to the clinical conditions.

 I went home, used the fast way to learn lumbar-sacral plexus in 20 mins, even some stuff we haven't learned yet. It's really sad that most of the students will spend weeks memorizing it when there's a trick to learning it. Anatomy's all about tricks and mnemonics, nobody will spoonfeed you all those tricks, you have to be self-assertive to seek them.

41st day - ethics is over

Before my exam started, there was a #2 normal pencil kept on everyone's desk. The prof. had said that you don't need to bring your own pencil since we will provide you with one. Well, regardless, I ALWAYS bring my own pencil/pen/highlighter. I used my own mechanical pencil for the bubbling as I don't have to worry about sharpening it and also, I'm just used to my own mechanical pencil. It was amazing though, almost every single person the exam room was using the pencil provided. There was even a girl who told me that I should be using the pencil provided, not my own pencil! LOL. Both are #2 pencils, in terms of scantron bubbling, both register. I have taken waaay too many exams to know this since all through our undergrad, pencils were provided to us just in-case some moron did not bring his/her own pencil. Though, in undergrad, almost no-one actually used the pencil provided. It was funny how students here strictly follow the rules, even simple ones like this.

Ethics is now done, there was only 1 exam. Now I can fully concentrate on these 3 courses, especially anatomy, my fav. and probably the hardest course.

40th day

Nothing special, just more studying for ethics and some studying for anatomy b/c I got bored of ethics. I washed my blanket and cleaned my room.

39th day - studying for ethics exam

I've been spending pretty much the whole day studying ethics. While, everything is common sense, there are some tricky questions that involve terminology. If you don't know the terminology, then you will not understand the question nor the answer choices.

On a side note, I recently heard of a student from my FTM program who quit and left yesterday back to the states! Yes, that's right, they did not even take the Unified exam and quit. It was too much stress for them. If you can't handle the heat, then better to stay out of the kitchen because it's not even hot yet and it's about to get much hotter later. There's probably more of students like this, but they will take midterms to see if they got any "potential" before they jump to conclusions.

Some jokes

 

It seems I'm a combination of the 1st 3 except I do know how to take care of patients and I'm not competing against anyone except myself. Ninety percent of my class is "The Crier" or the "Questionable Admission" or "One-track mind".

38th day - Good Friday

Since I studied Anatomy for the whole day yesterday, I was ready for the Anatomy Lab. I had a Histo lab in the morning today, but I prepared for that the day before. I made some notes, emailed it to myself, and planned to print those notes once I got to school. When I got to the library, the print room was closed! Oh well, when it was my turn to present, I knew all the slides pretty well and knew everyone else's slides too. As usual, our group is almost the last ones to finish (due to us asking many questions). It's not about speed, but in the end, all that matters is understanding.

After the Histo lab, I put on a lab coat and went directly to the Anatomy lab. There, one of my fav. professors, Dr. Burns was teaching the heart to a couple of girls who made an appointment with him. I just randomly joined and listened while answering all his questions at the same time. Then, we went to the thorax, same thing. Dr. Burns was really good and was a nice guy. He looked like Dr. Sheppard from the Lost tv show. After a while, some more students joined the group and it became more fun. Dr. Burns had to leave after thorax though.The girls who made the appointment also left and I was left with all the other people who joined.

I just started with another body and did the abdomen, those students joined and listened. I went over all I could with the abdomen. It was fun. Of course, I couldn't cover everything, but it was still fun. All the students this time were very nice too. We decided that we should book an appointment with Dr. Burns as well.

So we took each other's contacts. One of the guys also loves street meat and studies on fridays until 12 and then goes to street meat at Grand Anse. How can I refuse?? This is exactly what I need, a group that actually studies and then eats food as a reward after. Yay found a good anatomy study group and now I can go for street meet every friday!

37th day

The grades for all our Unified exams came out. I got all As. However, this was not the case for most of the class. The average was around 78%. There were some students who left during the exam in 30 mins b/c they quit since they couldn't understand the questions.

This video summarizes what 90% of the class thinks, especially the very last part:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X2bMzf7udA

36th day - missed some free points!

Everything was good today, kept up with all lectures, and I'm starting to read more of my Anatomy book in order to understand the connections of the arteries, veins, and nerves even though they haven't taught it to us.

The bad news is that I just found out that there was an online quiz posted during the weekend and the deadline was on Monday, this was one of those quizzes that if you did it, you get full points and if you didn't do it, you get 0 points. I was busy studying for the exam that I didn't notice that there was even a quiz posted. The anatomy course also uses a different system than the other two courses called Sakai. The system I'm used to is Angel. Angel actually tells you if you have to do a quiz or a deadline is approaching. In sakai, this is not the case. It was 2 points. The whole course is 325 points. There will be 9 more quizzes. I'll be sure not to miss them!

Good news is that I had chawal with moong daal and it was actually very good! I found it on the upper bus stop. Normally, their food is not that good, but it seems they know how to make their daal.

35th day

Today was a Tuesday, which means 4 hours of Anatomy lab starting at 7:45 am followed by 4 hours of lecture. It was the heart, lungs, and thorax today. I knew my heart very well, lungs I learned on the spot, and thorax I need some revision, but I also learned it on the spot. The dry lab was easy as well, all the clinical related questions were simple. The only hard part was the physical examination which is basically a medical student examining me. I have to take my shirt off and they can DRAW on me with marker! While I didn't like that idea, all groups were required to do it. The thing about physical examination is that there is no way to practice it unless you practice on someone.

The lectures were Anatomy and Histo today. The Anatomy was new stuff and the Histo was old stuff. I didn't get time to pre-read since it was Tuesday. I post-read today. I have no labs in the morning for the next two days! Now I can relax for a bit and just read some more Anatomy meanwhile.

34th day - first exam over!

The exam was easier than I thought it would be. Most of the questions were straight-forward. Sure there were some tricky ones, but if you studied enough, you would know. I actually did not even do any practice questions, all I did was study. Anatomy was the only tricky one. I'm expecting the midterm to be much harder.

The rest of the day, I did my laundry, grocery shopping, and cleaned up my room. I watched a movie, ate some good, and went to sleep. I also have anatomy lab the next day, so I didn't really have too much time to relax.

33rd day - eating pancakes

There is an analogy that we use in med school for studying. It's a pretty good one actually that applies to all disciplines. Each day, there are 4 lectures, hence 4 pancakes. You must eat 4 pancakes a day. If for some reason, you didn't eat a pancake on a day, then you will have to eat more pancakes the next day. Like this, the more pancakes you don't eat, the more pancakes you will have to eat later. This is what happens to most students who delay studying and end up having to study more later.

I have been eating all my pancakes everyday, but in order to review, you must eat these pancakes again. I ate 18 Histo pancakes in 5.5 hours, 22 Biochem pancakes in 10 hours, and 22 Anatomy pancakes in 9 hours. I can eat so many pancakes in a smaller amount of time because I've already eaten that pancake before. Normally, 1 pancake takes 1 hour to eat.

32nd day - my birthday!

Well well, it's finally my birthday. I feel somewhat old - 23. I was studying until 12 today, got 100% done with Histo in 5.5 hours. Tomorrow is a new day, should be done with both subjects. I may go to the bakery just to check what they got to treat myself. Other than that, the day will be spent on studying.

31st day

Since our first test is on Monday, they moved our Histo lab, which is normally on Monday to today. We had muscles and nerves today. Most of the people in my group barely finished studying for muscles, so we were going very slow. In fact, so slow, that the prof. herself ended up presenting some slides and she called me to help her since I have done both and knew my stuff. I pretty much went over 10 slides in 5 mins including clinical questions and practice slides, that's how fast we needed to go in order to catch up to the rest of the groups. It was just me and the prof. doing all the talking and the other students writing very fast. If the prof. had a question, I would answer it, and if I couldn't answer it, the prof. would give the answer. One of the questions was, "What is CSF?" Pretty simple question, one girl in our group said Cerebral Spinal Fluid, then she described where it is found and how it is produced and went into a paragraph answer. Still did not answer the question!! The CSF is an ultra-filtrate of blood, simple answer! I have no idea why the other students didn't know their stuff considering that all of this material will be on the Monday exam. I was going so fast, it was like I was a auctioneer. It gave me enough adrenaline to last me for the rest of the day!

30th day

Woke up, went to ethics small group session. This is where we discuss certain medical cases that are difficult to judge and there's no easy yes or no. Afterwards, I had some breakfast, then finished my Histo lab and then had lunch and then went for 4 hours of class again.

They skipped an anatomy lecture today. I also didn't anticipate they would skip it, so I didn't pre-read the next lecture. The lecture was on aortic arch and I didn't have the lecture with me, so I had to use my laptop to follow along. It was an indian guy who was teaching it. The guy took like 15 mins. just on the first slide which was just memorizng the 12 branches of the aortic arch. Meanwhile, I just ended up memorizing all branches in 5 mins.The lecture just went into more detail, so I skipped a lot of slides and went straight to the clinical applications, which is what is important.

I went back home and studied for the rest of the day. I noticed even though my milk expires on Sept. 12th, it expired today Sept. 9th (TIG). The milk smelled so bad that I didn't even want to take a chance.

29th day - Wednesday, the easy day

I talked with Joe today, our mechanic. He's the guy I have to pay the utilities too. It seemed that yesterday, the power WAS really cut from our house. He did something to the meter that reset it (something that is not allowed and if the electrical company found out, he'd be in trouble). Anyways, when my roomate came back, she flipped the circuit breaker AFTER Joe reset the meter and that's why it worked. That was risky, but very nice of Joe to do that. I gave Joe the bill in cash as in Grenada, any other way is very cumbersome. (TIG)

I also need to get a checkbook from my bank here. It will be another TIG process, but it needs to be done so I won't have to pay transaction fees in order to transfer money from my account to my landlord.

Today, our lecturer was late by 15 mins (Grenadian standard time). That's not as bad as Indian standard time, but indian standard time doesn't occur in school. It seems the prof. thought class started 2 hours later and he had to be called to come to the class. That's the mistake of the person who made his schedule. That person sent everyone an email apologizing for the mistake and that it will never happen again.

The lectures were easy. I went home after and stopped by at Charcoals along the way. It seems other than Subway and New York Bagels, Charcoals is the 3rd best place to eat on the island so far that I've encountered. There are probably other good restaurants in the island if you go to the main city, but they are very very expensive. Charcoals, as the name suggests, is good at grilling stuff, so their chicken and fish are great. I ordered a chicken sandwich and they didn't have the same bread this time. It was half the size of the one I used to order before. The lady even told me that their sandwich is going to be smaller, so I asked them if they could add something like fries to make it even. She added 3 dinner rolls instead. Those 3 dinner rolls were some of the best bread I've had, it was even better than the Italian bread in Houston, TX. The best part was, it was free and free food always tastes good!

28th day - Tuesdays

Tuesdays are the worst for me. I have a 4-hour anatomy lab in the morning followed by a 1 hour break and then 4 hours of lecture. Tuesdays are not bad because of the Anatomy Lab. I love Anatomy. They are bad because I only have 1 hour in between my lectures and my lab. Normally, I pre-read 4 hours of lecture in 2 hours or more. This is difficult, but since a lot of the material I am familiar with, so it is do-able. Since I only have 1 hour though, I use that time to eat. I had 40 mins left after I ate today, in 40 mins, I finished 1/4 lectures. Then, during class, as the professor was teaching, I was also pre-reading ahead of each slide, so that when he arrived at the slide, I would know what he was talking about and know what notes to take, if any.  Most of our lecture notes already have most of the things that the prof. says, but since students have not seen the notes ahead, they end up writing down much more than needed.

Honestly, I feel also very tired on Tuesdays, so I was almost falling asleep during that first lecture. In the 2nd lecture, the dean came to teach, so I forced myself to wake up and it was pretty easy to follow him since the stuff was basic. However, I didn't pre-read this lecture, so I wasn't as efficient as usual.

The next lecture was Carbohydrates, a topic I've done in my undergrad and something I had to know for the MCAT. We had approximately 10 mins before the next lecture. During those 10 mins, I pre-read the entire carbohydrate lecture! That's what happens when you know the topic already. I went through the whole lecture, highlighted what was needed and important. I could have technically walked out, but I stayed for the entire lecture. He spent more time on it than I did and ended up not finishing.

After that, I went back home just to find out that I have no electricity in my house. It was because the utility bill was not paid in advance. I went back to school and studied there instead. I have the money for the utility bill with me already, I just need to give it to the right person at the right time. I thought that time was the 8th of the month, but it is actually the 5th for utilities. Oh well.

Hahaha oops it seems like there was a short circuit in the house and all I needed to do was flip the circuit breaker. Electricity works again! (TIG)

I ended up waiting for 2 hours in the bus stop for my bus tonight (TIG).

My first exam is on Monday, an exam called Unified, 2 days after my birthday.

27th day

I had a histo lab in the morning. The school website that is used to access our lectures and other course info. was down during the weekend, so many people were having problems. Fortunately, I finished the histo lab prior to those problems. When it was my turn to present, as usual, things were very smooth. I was answering questions from the students more than the prof. was. It's like I gave the prof. a break when I present. It's funny how many times you have to repeat yourself though. Some students forgot about the basic things that we learned in Lab 1 and the discussion ended up clearing concepts in Lab 1. We are on Lab 3! This kind of wasted our time, but oh well.

After the histo lab, I changed into my scrubs and went into the anatomy lab for some practice. There was already a prof. in there with a large group of students going over the forearm. I joined the group and just watched. He later asked to identify a muscle on the forearm and it seemed nobody knew. Since nobody answered, I gave him the answer. There was a guy from FTM in the group. I said hi to him, no response except a mean look as if he was frustrated. Oh well, to be expected. I can't help it if I know the answer.

Eventually, some of my friends from the Histo group also came and one of my friends from Mac. I was still answering questions from the prof. while they came, so I guess they figured out I knew my stuff. After the prof. was done, they all asked me if I could review everything the prof. went over. I said sure, why not and I went over all the muscles of the forearm with them. It was fun, I felt like the doctor teaching students. Some students I didn't even know joined the group thinking I was one of the upper year students. Haha feels good to be respected.

After the lab, I heard there was a "special" session going on with the prof. in another room. Me and my friends checked it out, but it ended up being students asking the prof. any questions they were confused about. It wasn't helpful to me, so I came out of the session and did something more important - preread for the upcoming lectures. I went to the library and finished pre-reading.

There were 2 lectures of Histo followed by 2 lectures of Ethics. After the Histo lectures, more than half the class leaves. I stayed because I'm used to not skipping class even for ethics. It was, however, pretty boring. After the 4 hours of lectures and 4 hours of starvation, I thought I deserved some really good food. I went to the indians selling indian food at the bus stop. They are there everyday, but it's not the healthiest nor the best indian food. However, I was in the mood, so I got chicken biryani+palak paneer+chicken+roti for 25 EC. Not bad. I ate it cold, but it wasn't bad. The chicken biryani was good and I haven't had roti since I got to Grenada, so that was good too. Overall, I would say 5/10, but I'm used to it by now. If I warmed it up, it would probably be 6/10.

I stayed at school because there were apparently some meetings going on that have something to do with internships with WHO. How could I resist?

26th day

I finished Histology in the morning. It took quite a while actually, but I wanted to be thorough. I was doing my laundry while studying. I went to school to withdraw some money, but the ATM wasn't working! (TIG) So I took a bus to Grand Anse and used their ATM machines. There's only 2 ATM machines within the area. I then went to the grocery store to do some shopping. I then went to a new place that wasn't there before, New York's Bagels! I went inside and it was the same guy from the New York Bagels from campus. He recognized me straight away and we had a long talk about his business and how he would be moving. The guy is desi and he's going to add some desi stuff to his menu. I had no idea he was the owner hehe I got connections now. After that, I went back home.

Since all subjects (biochem, histo, anatomy, and ethics) are pretty much done, it's time for review! I have a lot of practice questions for each subject, so I'll end up doing them. Anatomy is the most fun as I have a book that has more than 200 practice clinical related questions that would help me for the USMLE. Obviously, I can't do all 200, at least not yet. Therefore, I will be doing some practice questions the profs. themselves posted and also some old practice tests that students have been able to get their hands on via mac daddy. I explained mac daddy in my earlier posts.

Facebook statuses - something to be used wisely

I woke up this morning and checked for any email or facebook msges. Instead of a blog like this, a lot of people rather just use facebook to publish their status updates. I would do that, but I would end up insulting waay too many people. Here is example of the type of medical students that go here say:

"thinks that MCAT scores and GPA matters very little when it comes to entry into med school. As long as you're SUPER DUPER socially retarded...you're in. Oh, wait, they accept about 10% normal kids...and see how they react to the other 90% socially awkward people."

The person who said this took FTM twice..ahem they dropped out of pre-med midway the first time. Also, obviously, the only people who agreed with this statement were former FTM students. It's funny because I've been wanting to say something similar for a while, but I can't. For me, the statement is the same except change socially to mentally. If these guys were looking for a major in which their "ultimate" social skills mattered, maybe they should have considered acting, but oh wait, acting requires brains to memorize lines.

25th day - A productive Saturday

It's a saturday, so I should be getting my full sleep today. Apparently, I woke up at 7:44 am without an alarm. Looks like my biological clock has already adjusted. I made oatmeal today and kichidi for lunch. Some of the bottom part of the kichidi got burnt, oh well, still ate the top part.

I finished DNA replication, packaging, transcription, and post-transcription. This was the hardest part for me so far, so I'm glad I could finish all 4 of them. The 2nd hardest part was embryology, but I finished that after I finished the DNA stuff. It's easy if you read through it slowly.

There has been a persistent mosquito in my room. Every time I try to kill it, I fail. It's as if the mosquito is getting smarter. I even gave it direct hit with the bug spray, yet it still lives. Way to go evolution.

Since I finished both embryology and DNA, I watched a movie and even got to exercise today. I'm trying to exercise 3 times a week, fri-sun. Since my roomate is gone, his master bedroom is available. I use it for my exercise room and it's very good. I exercised a lot today, almost as much as I do when I go for my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes. I took a shower and a protein shake afterwards.

I still had some time in the day, so I finished reviewing respiratory disorders as well. The only thing left now is Histology, which I should finish tomorrow.

24th day - Curiosity kills the cat, only if the cat is stupid

Today was a biochemistry small case study group. Here, we are given case studies, but have to apply biochemistry concepts to solve and diagnose it. Simple stuff. However, not so simple when I ask a question about the "why". We had 2 cases, both dealing with heart attacks. I solved all the questions with ease, but after the session was over, I asked a simple question, "In case 1, why did the patient feel the chest pain for the first heart attack and not the chest pain for the 2nd one?". The teacher said that the first one was due to ischemia which caused some pain. This result caused more cells to die, leading to another heart attack. That is, the 2nd heart attack was not due to ischemia and that is why she didn't feel pain. This was the wrong reason and I proved her wrong. We were given a graph analyzing her serum and after a heart attack, there is a sharp peak of CK-MB. After two days, these CK-MB levels return to baseline and then she has her 2nd heart attack where the CK-MB levels peak again. If the 2nd heart attack was not due to ischemia and due to cells continually dying from the 1st ischemia, then the CK-MB levels would be constantly increasing after the 1st peak, but they were not. They were decreasing! She agreed with me and we went to the biochemistry course director to ask this question. After a lot of talking, the biochem prof. said "you will encounter many things in medicine that you will not know the answer to."

I wasn't exactly happy with this answer, so I went to the anatomy course director later. I showed him the case and asked him the question. He gave me a looong speech about how there are many cases wehere people are healthy and get sick suddenly. This does not answer my question. Eventually, he admitted he does not know the answer. I had my own theory on this that had to do with neuroscience.

My theory was that sensory fibers of the heart that carry pain sensation are sympathetic fibers and they normally cross in the chest OR arm. In the 1st heart attack, the area of the heart that died had sensory fibers crossing to the chest wall, while in the 2nd heart attack, it was an area that the sensory fibers carried to the left arm. This was just a case study, so I couldn't ask the patient if she felt any pain in her left arm, but most likely she did. This was my final answer and it made sense to me. I think a neurology prof. would have reached the same conclusion, but I don't have anymore time to run around and ask more profs.

In class today, I actually sat with the FTM crowd, but it was with the good people. It was nice, I had a nice conversation with them.

23rd day - Blackout!

Today was an easy day. I finished pre-reading the heart and lipids in 2 hours, so it gave me some free time. During class, it was raining like crazy. The electricity went away twice in the class and the teacher had to restart.

I went back home. It was my roomate's last day, so we were gonna go to this restaurant to eat that was close-by. It was walking distance and as soon as we approached the restaurant, LIGHTS OUT! Power outage of the entire island for the next 2 hours. I went back home and watched a movie on my laptop with the remaining battery life that I had left.

Once the power came back on, I saw people's comments on facebook that it was a complete blackout for them, even on campus and that there was no generator. All I can say is TIG.

22nd day

It's a Wednesday, which means nothing in the morning today. I could wake up at 8 instead of 6. I was able to pre-read all 4 lectures of anatomy+histo. I came to school, ate lunch, went to class. I found out that I ended up pre-reading 5 lectures, not 4 by mistake, oh well, that happens a lot. Now I'm ahead :)

I still have to read that post-transcription stuff, but I'll dedicate the day for ethics today. In ethics, they gave us a course manual, around 100 pages. I'm on page 20, so I'll read 80 pages today and I'm done with the course. We only have 1 exam that's in 3 weeks. Everything else, I'm caught up with and will take me 1 hour max to review all the lectures from any course. In 2 weeks, we have a test called the Unified, it's a test that comprises of all our courses - Anatomy, Histo, and Biochem. Ethics is not included. For Anatomy, I have practice questions from the Gray's Anatomy Review book, for Histo, I have quizbank questions from last year, and for Biochem, there are practice questions online. I'm all set in terms of preparation.

After class, I went to one of my friends' dorms on campus today and man, it was SMALL!! Take my room and cut it in half and that's what room he had. He was even sharing it with a roomate, so you have to cut it in half once again. The reason I went to his dorm is because he had a program that I was looking for called "MacDaddy". It's a program passed around from student to student that contains all of the questions, lectures, etc. from upper-term students. Obviously, it will not contain tests, since those change from year to year and are never given out. However, that's where I found quizbank for Histo.

21st day - bad day

Today was supposed to be a good day because of anatomy, however it wasn't. Like usual, I went in the morning to the anatomy lab. I was in a 4-person group in the wet lab identifying stuff on cadavers - simple, was able to identify everything. Next, it was dry lab, was able to answer all the clinical questions with ease. Next, was small group case studies. That was easy too, but we did get another uninterested teacher that just wanted to get it over with. After, this 4 hours passed, I had 1 hour to go before class started. I used that hour to eat lunch.

Lecture started with 2x anatomy, which was easy since I just had anatomy in the morning, all the clinical cases were easy to understand. Next, was something I wasn't expecting. We had 2x of biochem and the topic was transcription and post-transcription. I was completely caught up with biochem up to the translation, but because of the morning anatomy lab, I didn't have time to pre-read. I couldn't understand the lecture at all! That was the first time that has happened.

After the lecture, I was so angry with myself because that was a waste of a lecture. Normally, I pre-read, so the lecture is easy for me and it is easy for me to post-read. Oh well, I went back home with the intention of spending time on that lecture.

When I came back home, my roomate, Aalok, informed me that he is taking a "leave of absence" due to family problems. He said that he will start his Term 1 in January and still pay the rent for his room until then. He will not have to re-pay the tuition either and he has talked to the Dean and confirmed. He will be leaving on Friday! Wow! The only person that from the FTM program that I picked as a roomate is leaving! Great...Now not only am I living off campus isolated from the on-campus students, but my roomate is also gone. Oh well, 3 more months and I'm done. Time to focus!

The rest of the night, I spent studying transcription and finished. As I thought, it's not hard once you go through it yourself. Post-transcription is still left.

DES - Department of Educational Services

In our university, we have a institution called DES that basically sets up little sessions for reviewing our courses. This is actually pretty useful and I used it last term in the FTM program. In McMaster, we had something similar called Tutorials, but tutorials were part of the course and were mandatory. Here, it's optional for some courses.

Most of the people who graduated from the FTM program, even people who got GPAs between 3.5-3.8 were placed into AEP (Academic Enhancement Program). For these people, it is mandatory to attend the DES session. Normally, whether you were placed in AEP or not was stated in the letter of admission and it wasn't for me. I guess I was omitted since I got 4.0. Yay.

I still plan to go the DES sessions though because it serves as a nice review.

20th day

I had Histo lab in the morning today and oh my, we had a bad teacher this time. From the first look, I could tell she was either extremely tired, bored, or just did not want to be there. As usual, we took turns presenting. We were supposed to present slides for connective tissue and blood. I forgot to prepare for the blood, so I volunteered to present the connective tissue. I ended up presenting all of it, which was good. The blood stuff was actually pretty easy too and didn't need any preparation. I had asked a lot of questions, but some of them she seemed like she didn't care or didn't know the answer. One of the questions was "If platelets are just fragments of megakaryocytes, they do not possess a nucleus, so how do they know to clot?". She clearly did not know the answer to this nor anyone else in the group, even though some of them are bio and microbio majors. She even answered me back with another question, "Red blood cells also do not have a nuclei, so how do they know?". I answered her question stating that RBCs originally had a nucleus that degenerated later in its development and they don't need a nucleus b/c they have hemoglobin which attracts the oxygen and just serve as carriers of oxygen. I asked similar questions, but her answer would either be "you don't need to know this for the exam or I don't know". Most of the students also prefer to just know "what is on the exam" and not anything further. Too bad I can't take the exam right now lol.


After the presentations were over, I asked the professor of the course and he answered me clearly. It is due to the presence of chemotactic factors and receptors on platelets that allow them to know where to go. I hope we get a more interested teacher next time, someone who actually enjoys the hows and whys, not just the whats.

I had an omelette for breakfast and studied biochem until class started. I wasn't able to actually finish pre-reading biochem (this is the first time that's happened). It's because we are learning some new things that I've never seen before like dna replication. I took 1 Biology course in the 1st semester of the 1st year of my undergrad and that's the only time I learned about dna replication, so I had to go a little slower to read it this time. Because of this, the lecture was hard to keep up with today. I'll have to post-read now. Oh well.

Tonight's biochem+anatomy. Anatomy I got down like the back of my hand, literally, so it's just going to be review. I have to do some case studies though for my lab tomorrow.

19th day

I woke up and zipped through the 8 lectures of Histology that I did yesterday in 40 mins. Then I read two new lectures that took me an hour. After that, I took a shower, went to school and did Biochem for the rest of the day. I couldn't get a bus to go to school since on Sundays buses come less frequently. Although, a local was kind enough to give me a ride even though I didn't ask! I sat on the back of his truck and he didn't ask for anything in return. All of the people in Grenada are nice. It's only the students here that have adopted bad manners from other locations. While I was studying in the library, someone flooded the toilet, so I left (TIG).

Hurricane Earl and it's radius

Oh, and if you have been watching the news, you should know that there is Hurricane Earl coming in the east caribbean, but don't worry, it won't hit me. As you can see from the image above, Grenada is much more south than the hurricane. However, Antigua is almost at the center and will get hit. That's where another caribbean medical school was that I almost selected called AUA. Further south is another island called Saint Dominica that has another caribbean medical school, Ross University (I almost went there too). Ross and and SGU are the best schools at the moment with SGU ranked higher. Pheew good thing I picked SGU. Though some of my friends went to Ross, I hope they will be ok.

18th day

Today was pretty productive. Woke up, had some oatmeal, instantly started studying anatomy, finished anatomy completely, started laundry, started Histology, finished Histology, exercised, took a shower, ate lunch, finished laundry, and Histology for the rest of the day.

I ate outside and also had time to watch a short movie at home on my laptop.

17th day - 2nd week is over!

It's a friday today. I actually went to the anatomy wet lab in the morning. I went over some stuff in the arm and back, but I felt like I needed to do some more studying. A professor did arrive eventually to guide the students. His name was Dr. Brahman (Dr. B) and he asked a simple question, "What muscles do the axillary n. innervate?" I said the teres minor, deltoid, and the long head of the triceps. He said the long head of the triceps is innervated by the radial nerve and not the axillary nerve. I didn't say anything back, but actually in almost all the books and resources online, it says that the long head of the triceps is innervated by the radial nerve AND the axillary nerve. He also asked another question, what muscle causes aDduction of the arm? I said pectoralis major (right of his notes) and he said wrong, the answer is pectoralis minor. I didn't say anything again, but pec. minor is responsible for depression of the scapula and aBduction of the arm which was evident based on the direction of the muscle fibers.

I didn't stay for too long as I had to pre-read 4 lectures in 2.5 hours. I ended up succeeding as the lectures were still basic. After the 4 hours of lecture, I went to the library, finished my ethics assignment, and read some of my favorite subject - Anatomy.

It's a Friday and I might go out or I might just stay and study like usual. I ended up studying 10 lectures of anatomy in 4 hours. Those are all the lectures we've done so far, so I'm done yay.

16th day - internet arrives

I had a bioethics small group in the morning. I basically discussed some very basic ethical issues within my group. Since I had the same group as last time, it was fun. Then, I had 4 hours of lecture in the afternoon as usual.

Afterwards, I went to the emergency club to do the airway workshop. It was kind of boring. They showed us 20 different tools to do something that seemed relatively simple. Yet, in EMT, these tools have been around for years. I tried to clear the airway obstruction using the tools myself and it was not easy. It took me two tries with a lot of help to finally get it right. I hope one day somebody designs better and easier tools to use for emergency situations. The emergency club took way more time than I would have liked. I may just quit and just go to the surgery club.

The internet finally got fixed the 3rd time. We can connect now, but it it is extremely slow. We will have to daisy-chain another router to boost the signal strength.

Variety in Engineering across the world

So I've met a Nuclear Engineer from MIT (she's in my group) and a Biomedical Engineer from John Hopkins. Apparently, John Hopkins has the highest ranking program for Biomedical Engineering (BME). I asked both of these guys what they think of SGU so far. The MIT girl said it is much easier (first person to agree with me). She's very smart and thinks through her case studies instead of memorizing treatments. The JHU guy says that it's a lot different for him and that anatomy is very hard. This was very surprising for me. It seems that the BME program in JHU does not include anatomy.

Another BME from Duke University and another one from Boston University. Both are finding med school difficult at the moment.

So I guess, no matter, what university, there's not much difference.

15th day - still no internet, but productive nonetheless

Today was quite a productive day. I was already ahead b/c I had pre-read for Histology and Biochemistry the previous day thinking those lectures were that day. Because of this, it only took me 30 mins to 1 hour to review 4 lectures. This gave me ample time to do some chores. I also had no lab in the morning, so perfect time to call Lime, the internet provider.

When, I called them, it took them a while, but they finally figured out that it was the modem itself that needed some programming. I told them this the first time they came that I couldn't even detect the router, but they told me it would work after they'd activate it. Obviously, that was wrong because a router is supposed to be able to broadcast a network with or without activation of the internet. They asked me to physically bring the router to them. So I walked all the way to the Lime store, it was around a 20 min. walk, but I didn't mind. In fact, the Lime store was next to Subway, which was what I was looking forward to.

Subway is the best food on the island. I've tried pretty much every restaurant far and wide that all the students have and also had indian food. Nothing beats subway though. The indian food is just not on par with it, maybe because they don't have good vegetables or rice available. Anyways, they fixed my router and I was able to connect to it and I had a subway sandwich afterwards.

I still had some time until class started, so I walked to a barber shop! This was the same barber shop I went to last time. I had even shown a picture of myself the first time I came in order for the barber to copy the haircut in the picture. I had left that picture accidentally and he still had it! The haircut was 30 ec, around $15 USD and he did a good job, so I gave him 35 ec.

After the haircut, I went to school where I still had 30 mins remaining, so I pre-read some more, actually I ended up pre-reading the lecture for tomorrow also. When class started, everything was a breeze as usual. Histology is getting more tricky though, it seems to be the most challenging subject for me as I previously stated. I just need practice though and I should have it in a snap.

After class, I went to the grocery store and bought some milk (I was out). They unfortunately, only had skim milk, so I bought a gallon of that. I took a bus back to campus, then from campus, I took another bus back home. When I got home, the first thing I tired was connecting to the internet. As expected, I could connect to the router, but the internet was still not working because there was no response from the DNS server.

Oh well, another TIG, I will have to call Lime again tomorrow, the 3rd time is a charm.

14th day - first great academic experience

Today was the most tiring day, but it was also the most fun day. I woke up at 6:30 am, took, a shower, had oatmeal, and changed into my scrubs. I had to catch a bus in order to be at my anatomy lab at 8 am. It started raining heavily outside, but unfortunately my umbrella was in my locker at campus. So, I used a orange raincoat instead which covered my top but not my pants. I anyways went out and started walking. Luckily, the bus showed up just when the rain was about to hit the cats and dogs level.

I got to school, went to my locker and got my umbrella. I then walked all the way to my lab and started as soon as I got there. It was 4 people to a station, so I just picked one. I went through all the stations with ease and the students in my group were now asking me all of the questions instead of the prof. for convenience. I got all the questions the prof. asked right to and one of the profs. even asked what my name was after I answered it. He didn't ask anybody else what their name was. This was the wet lab and we went through many cadavers and x-rays. It was easy and fun. Many students asked me if I would accompany them to the lab sometime this week lol.


After the wet lab, I went to the dry lab where we were assigned into groups based on our last name. This is where I got REALLY lucky. Everyone in my group I have met in someway or the other and all of them were very smart. Most of them knew me as well. The group composed of a girl from MIT, a girl from Toronto, a girl from my Histo group, a girl who sat in class with me, my CPR partner, 2 other girls, and 1 guy who I met during orientation. All of them knew their stuff, so it was fun to work with them and discuss the clinical scenarios. We rotated questions after we were done answering the set we were given. There were around 20 questions total. You don't write down the answer, you remember it. Afterwards, the teacher would pick random people from the group and ask them to explain the answers. I didn't get picked, but I would have no problem if I did.

This group would be my anatomy group permanently for the rest of the term! All of us had the same alphabet in terms of last name, so we would also cross each other in other groups. After this, we went to the small discussion groups in another building. Here we talked about more case studies in detail and questions relating to the anatomy. I had answered all of these in advance, so I already knew it. Each table was assigned a prof. He wanted us to explain it in our own words and not read the answer, which was exactly what I'm used to.

After this, we entered our physical examination where the boys in the group had to take off their shirts and be the patients. There was only 2 boys including me. After a while, it got chilly not wearing a shirt in a A/C room, but I coped with it. We did all kinds of stuff involving the upper body.

Then, we sat down again to discuss another case study and then I was free to go. The whole thing took 4 hours. In one hour, lecture was going to start, so I went to get something to eat and then pre-read some biochemistry. Then, it was 4 hours of lecture - 2 hours of anatomy+2 hours of biochem. I knew my anatomy like the back of my hand literally and I ended up pre-reading the next 2 lectures of biochem because I thought we already finished the ones today. In a sense, I was ahead. Anatomy and Biochem, the hardest courses to most, were my favorites.

After all of this, I was pretty tired. I was still wearing my scrubs too. I went home and rested for a bit. Then, I went back to school again to study some more.

Today was a good day. I was happy that I am in SGU and that they're people like me who actually like medicine.

13th day

I had a histology lab in the morning. We were supposed to be prepared for the presentations of the slides and I accidentally studied the wrong slides. I literally studied what I could in 5 mins and presented that for 30 mins. I presented 6 slides with on-the-spot improvisation. Each slide I was looking at for the first time. Without knowing what tissue I am looking at or reading the background about it, I presented what I could see on the slide in terms of the cellular characteristics and I did well. Histology seems to be the most challenging subject this term because of the subjectiveness of these pictures. There were times when we had questions in which the professor could not answer and then the professor invited other professors to discuss the question and then they agreed upon an answer. It's like looking at an X-ray scan that is highly distorted and then trying to figure out what it is. In real life, they would just take another tissue sample and put it in a light microscope.

Apparently, our group was lagging behind because all of the questions (I was partly responsible). Because of this, the main professor came to our table and went over all the slides and clinical questions with us in speed mode. There was a question about what can happen if the cilia in the lungs do not move. Since I forgot to pre-read the lab, I did not know what was written on the slide as the answer, but from my common knowledge, the first answer that came to mind was  - Cystic Fibrosis. The professor said no and that CF is due to other factors. The answer was bronchiectasis not to be confused with bronchitis.

This bugged me for a while, so after class I looked it up. The condition of damaged cilia is known as bronchiectasis, but CF can cause of the impaired cilia. CF is due to a genetic effect that blocks the CFTR channel which is responsible for exchanging bicarbonTe and chloride. When this channel doesn't work, the mucus in the lungs becomes sticky and dry, so the cilia is unable to move it leading to impaired cilia. So CF is the cause and bronchiectasis is the effect. Then, can a patient with CF also have bronchiectasis? Yes, yes they can. This is the answer I would've appreciated from the professor, but instead they just said CF is completely different. CF is NOT completely different and does relate to damaged cilia. Oh well.

After lecture, I went back home only to find out that I could no longer use the wireless from downstairs. Therefore, I went back to campus. While I was walking, it started raining (yay me). I also had my umbrella in my locker, so I quickly ran to a place where I could have some shelter. There, I waited for the bus to take me to campus.

Pictures of Grand Etang Forest

12th day - Chores and Review

I woke up today after hearing the footsteps of ten thousand soldiers - it was raining hard! Today, I plan to do all my laundry, cleaning, etc. The rain even says I should stay home.

I met an engineer today that is afraid of viruses and doesn't know how to zip a file - this can only happen here, a rare sight indeed. He was a BME from Duke at that with a MSc.

I went to school to get my rice which I had bought earlier and stored in my locker and forgot to take home. When I got back home, I could finally make something involving rice - kichidi. I got a pressure cooker from home, so I made kichidi. It was very good!! No jeera, but it was still very good.

11th day - CPR certiified

I got my CPR certification today. They made us watch a video and then do CPR on a partner. I got to kiss a girl. Just kidding, we had dummies in which we inserted a pipe through and blew through that. I know CPR now for adults, babies, and also choking.

Afterwards, I started my bioethics assignment, which surprisingly, I enjoyed. The article was one of the most logical articles I've read concerning health-care anyways. Here's the article if anyone wants to read:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande

The main point of the article was that most doctors care more about maximizing profit by telling patients to do more tests and/or through privatization than optimal care for the patient. By doing this, the costs of medical care skyrockets. There are, however, physicians in the world who will only do tests that are necessary for the patient and compromise that extra profit. Are more doctors turning into entrepreneurs? Can a physician be good without a reward? Can a physician be evil to get a reward? These are the questions you must ask.

10th day - first week is over!

Today was a typical day. I had a bio-informatics lab today - what does that mean? It means I spent an hour learning how to use pubMed, something I learned in my first year of undergrad.

We had 2 histology+2 anatomy today. Everything so far is good. I went straight home after classes. My plan was to finish bioethics, but as soon as I got to reading, I fell asleep. I woke up like at 8 pm. I would've gone to Fish Friday, but seems like this Friday night will be just some chatting, cooking, and studying.

9th day - Internet arrives!

I got a call in the morning from LIME, the cable and wireless company. They tried to call me yesterday, but I was in class. I arranged for them to come in the morning. They needed directions to our house since most of the houses in Grenada don't have addresses. So while I waited for them to come, I pre-read biochem.

Once they came, they changed the channel on the modem manually and called the company to activate it. The guy told me afterwards if I have any medicine for a cold b/c he wasn't feeling good. I didn't have any advil, so I gave him robitussin.

This way, I didn't need to give a tip. We anyways deposited 500 EC for this so they owe us service.

We got a funny prof. today for class. As normal if the prof is funny, the class will like him. It doesn't matter if the prof. can actually teach, all that matters is if he is funny or not. It turned out he was also a good teacher, so it didn't matter. After the whole class was over, I hear people complain more and more about studies. Term 1 is supposed to be the easiest too. Most students are so used to memorizing every detail and having time to read the whole book, studying like this is a completely different thing for them. It took me 3 years in undergrad to finally learn the optimal method of studying. People are still studying longer, I'm studying more efficiently.

After class, there was an upper termer who overheard me explaining the development of the nervous system with my hands. He came over and said that he was a 4th termer and that all 1st termers need to is memorize the slides and that you don't have to understand it so well. Wow. A 4th termer is telling me to not "understand", but to "memorize". This is where you have to use your own brain and common sense to filter out nonsense like this. Sorry, but I'm still an engineer, and I will not lose what took me 3 years to understand. Students here are trying to transition from memorize->understand and he's telling me to do the opposite lol. The worse part is that upper termers think they are doing you a favor. No thanks. The last thing on my mind is learning the minimum amount of material to pass the course. I'm not aiming for just As, I'm aiming to be a good doctor overall. It's too bad that 90% of the students will take whatever upper termers say as law.

When I came back home, I found that the internet was not working (TIG). I will have to call them again in the morning sigh. If you're wondering how I'm writing this post it's because the the floor below us does have internet :)

8th day

I had an 8 am Histology lab today. It was more of an intro. lab. I woke up at 6:30 am and was able to do the daily routine. Then, I went outside to wait for the bus, but it was taking too long. So I walked to Texaco, the gas station where all bus routes intersect, it took me 10 mins to walk there. I got the bus and got to campus on time. I got my lab coat out of my locker and went to science hall. Unfortunately, the lab wasn't in science hall, but in taylor hall, so I had to walk to the other end of the campus.

I made it anyways. I picked a table and sat there. I had no idea that the table I picked was the group I would be stuck with for the rest of the term. I picked a good table anyhow and all the people were good. I did some histo already too, so I was the only one answering all the questions from the prof. again. I felt bad, but that's life, if you know it, you know it. We have to do presentations on the same stuff the prof. talked about next week. A student is selected at random from the group and asked to present the material. Another prof. will grade that student. I don't mind, I'm used to presentations and I know my stuff.

After that, I got breakfast and pre-read all of biochemistry. Apparently, I went ahead and read more than I needed too, but it didn't matter b/c I had already done all of that stuff before. It was just acids and bases, simple stuff with some clinical application in respiration, kidney failure, and liver disease. All stuff I've done before.

The lectures today were histo and biochem. Histo was first and we went through it pretty fast. Since I had the lab in the morning, the knowledge was still fresh in the head, so the lecture was easy. The biochem was also easy since I pre-read. Then I got some more food. Then, I wore my scrubs and went to the anatomy lab. There was a session going on for Term 1 students to give them tips in anatomy. I went, but I found out it was the same tips I've been using since year 4 of my undergrad.

Then, I went to the library and pre-read all of anatomy and went home at 11:25 pm.