A few words about fake blood

a) It does wash off. So far.
b) It is not anticoagulated! Luckily, in fake-blood hematology, the most effective anticoagulant is water. Studies have shown that a 1:3 water to blood ratio gets stuff moving.
c) If you want to create arterial spray, put your anticoagulated blood in a ziploc freezer (don't take your chances with sandwich) bag and poke a tiny hole in. Bingo! Systolic pressure!
d) Make sure the bag is sealed.
e) Do all of the above in a bathtub.
f) Leave ample time for fake blood to dry because that is so not going in the dryer.
g) Don't tell John I did any of this in our apartment.

Happy Halloween!

I missed my own birthday.

So I've been having a little pity party as of late, the usual "oh-I'm-so-depressed-that-I- have-to-do-first-year-over-again" festivities. But I was so pitiful this time that I bailed out of my own birthday, first out of a fun bike ride (all downhill!) on Tuesday and a birthday dinner last night. I finally finished picking up party detrtitus (kleenex and empty Ben & Jerry's cartons) and got back to my e-mail and the InterWeb. My most exotic birthday greeting comes from Anchorage, Alaska, where my friend Kirsten is still blogging as the snow comes down. She sends me e-mails with the word "sledding" in it and the Google-driven ads on my e-mail go crazy. Dog-sledding vacations! I was thinking fish tacos and Coronas, but now that you mention it ...

John bought me a great big owl candle to be my spirit guide, staring down at my from my bookcase while I study. He also bought me a first edition of The Classic Cuisine of Vietnam, from whence the curry comes. Phew, now I can branch out. This is blasphemous, but I was getting a little tired of it. The cookbook has awesome food photos circa 1979 and a nice story behind it -- when author Bach Ngo left Vietnam, she had thirty minutes notice, so she threw all her recipes in a suitcase and took off.

Ngo's story and the apocalyptic fires raging around us the last few days got me thinking what I would take. I have one box of letters and photos that would go, and I guess my two laptops would contain everything else. I think about disaster scenarios enough (hey, I'm a SoCal native after all) to know this right away, and hopefully I'll remember when the time comes. I also hope I stay calm and do smart things like this one guy who I heard kept calling his answering machine. As long as the answering machine picked up, he knew his house was still there. (Me, I'd be headed for the wine aisle of the nearest grocery store. Is there a Trader Joe's on the way to the evacuation site? Thanks.)

While I sit around feeling sorry for myself, hundreds of square miles catch on fire. Clearly I'm in the right place. Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone. I'll be stumbling around with a Herradura bottle as soon as I am able.

PS - I know you know that I love this blog, but this is especially delightful. Yeah, they kinda do.

Vole Update!

At the moment, I have survived my (second) first anatomy lab and I reek of formaldehyde.

But ... I just learned that voles mate for life. My friend Minh was willing to get close enough to me to report this very exciting fact. He was completely unaware of my recent interest in the rodents.

It seems that voles have more receptors for vasopressin and oxytocin, chemicals that work in voles and human to produce the very romatic-sounding "pair bonding." We get it when we cuddle or when someone leaves the toilet seat down for us.

Here are some vole life-partners for you:

WTFWAMFS?

Loosely translated, kindly tell me when my exam results will be posted because I am going out of my mind.

Out from the Vole Hole

I haven't seen my scores yet, but I'm bouncing back -- even I have a limit on self-loathing and second-guessing.

Special thanks to John for peering down the vole hole and yanking me out with a trip to Brooklyn Bagel this morning, and for sending me this story about bicycle-riding day laborers.

As is the eternal conundrum of the left, how to unite those who ride bicycles to make a statement (and for fun!) and those who ride out of necessity. I've been wracking my brain trying to work cycling into a research project for medical school ... I'll stash this article away for future inspiration.

By the way, I voted for the guy who got the Nobel Peace Prize and all I got was this lousy War on Terror.

But I did discover Loose Change - Second Edition in my local video store! (Yes I still frequent one ... sometimes I get too impatient for Netflix.) I know, I know, sometimes I take my conspiracy theories too far, but I totally had my dad convinced after watching it.

Tonight is Midnight Ridazz ... finally relaxing and getting my ride on!

Crunchy

This is a vole. Owls eat voles. Today I feel like a vole.

T minus 45 minutes

And thank you, Stephanie, for reading. I hope you get into that anatomy class. Then we can both smell like formaldehyde at the same time. We can go to Boiling Crab to freshen up.

Awwww

Sorry if this makes you want to barf, but I always appreciate a shout-out. Look at it this way, at my age, I put my boyfriends through an intense vetting process. Don't want them dropping dead during, um, a bike ride.

The Grinch Who Stole Health Insurance

George W. Bush. He just vetoed a bill to expand the Children's Health Insurance Program. Let me get this straight, our fine POTUS doesn't think that poor children deserve health insurance? What are they supposed to do? Get off their lazy butts and get a job with benefits? (Oops, no time, too busy studying for standardized tests!) Invest in their health savings accounts?

Here's a photo of President Bush right after he sold his soul to Satan (again):

And by the way, and he did it while visiting the Amish. Look out -- if he visits a Buddhist temple or Quaker meeting house, we should anticipate that we're finally invading Iran.

Arrrrg.

Geeking out

I'm in serious study mode, but I've found a fun outlet for my nervous energy.

MedGadget is holding a science fiction writing contest. Maybe if I'm not too shy, I'll post my entry here. Here are some of last year's winners.

This Blackwater report is totally nuts. Mother Jones was pretty interested in them back in 2003. (Just wanted to give a shout-out to my alma mater.)

Embryology - the study of what makes Emily curl up in the fetal position.

I love this photo

Reminds me that an ER doc at UCLA is doing some amazing work on the Thai/Burmese border. Check out Tom Lee, MD and the Global Health Access Program.

Off to bed, immunology has got the best of me. In another life, I will be a photojournalist.

Hipster Doctor

First off, many thanks to John -- a voracious blog consumer -- for finding this for me and pulling me out of a studying-for-finals funk.

So there's some serious buzz about Jay Parkinson, MD MPH, who has just set up shop in Brooklyn. Williamsburg, to be exact, which is like the Indus Valley for hipsters. According to the WSJ Health Blog, he's got no office, makes only house calls, and manages his practice on an iPhone and a laptop. His super-sexy web site posits some pretty good ideas about the doctor-patient relationship, and in medicine in general:
"I believe that health care should be accessible, affordable, and personal." Definitely.
"We'll make decisions about your health together ... my main goal is a solid understanding of your own health." Sure thing.
"We can solve small problems early before they explode into something large and costly." Good thinking.

Here's the deal: he's a genius, with a brilliant business plan. But he's not a hero. Er, not my hero. (Sorry, John.)

He treats patients ages 18 to 40 -- a relatively healthy demographic. (I could insert all sorts of snarky comments about latte burns and fixed-gear-bikes-without-brakes accidents, but I'm not that kind of person.) He's bringing a fairly tried-and-true practice model called "concierge medicine" to the Williamsburg crowd. You pay for 24/7 access, a warm and fuzzy doctor-patient relationship, and his connections to "some of the best ranked hospitals in the world with the highest quality specialists."

But what if ...
Something goes wrong? Even his quoted "bargain" price for a trip to the neurologist (for my pesky new problem with migraines, say) is pretty steep: $850.
You don't have the fortune of living in lovely Williamsburg, or you just turned 41?
Maybe you turn out to have a chronic health condition that Dr. Jay just can't manage over his iPhone?

Parkinson isn't the only one who's caught on to health insurance for the hip, young, and healthy. Blue Cross offers Tonik, a no-frills, bargain insurance plan (with a slightly less cool web site.)

I guess Parkinson will improve health care for 1,000 fortunate Williamsburg residents. He seems like a well-meaning guy with a nice smile. But I can't get behind fixing a broken system by opting out of it. 45 million Americans are uninsured right now and another 50 million could be financially ruined by a major illness. Parkinson's got an MPH from Hopkins; he knows this.

I could go on. I should. But I have to study, so in 3 3/4 years, I can flash my winning smile for a county hospital badge, one that's got my name on it with an MD at the end.

Alice Waters and the Three-Legged Chicken

If I were a chicken, I would like to go out as a bowl of Ca Ri Ga -- Vietnamese chicken curry.

I've taken the recipe on as The One Thing I Cook, and I had a craving for it this afternoon. (Photo by John)

I pondered the chicken's point of view while driving 14.6 miles round trip to purchase lemon grass and other wholesome, organic ingredients at the Whole Foods in Glendale. I drove the whole way without A/C (to save the planet), so I felt hot and sweaty when I arrived. Just as if I had ridden my bike.

Inside the supermarket utopia, I wandered around in a daze as usual (must be the hemp shopping bags) and forgot to buy, um, chicken. Then I stared intently at a woman while she talked on her phone the entire time the checker checked her out, bagged her groceries, and processed her check. (Who writes checks?)

So after a brief moment of earth-mama joy when I thought a big green snake was crossing the freeway (it was a garden hose) I drove over to Ralph's and bought chicken -- the Picnic Pak. I am such a white hippie girl, but raw chicken on the bone so grosses me out.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be studying for finals.

Alice Waters is publishing "The Art of Simple Food" -- it's hailed as "The Joy of Cooking" for the Chez Panisse crowd. It's supposed to have easy recipes for cooks who like that scene but don't always have the time to squeeze their own agave nectar. (Would tequila be close enough?) It sounds like a good way to venture out from the comfort of the Ca Ri Ga.

PS - here's the recipe.

Into the (Sort Of) WIld

My good friends are in Anchorage, Alaska right now. They've been blogging since they got there this summer. Kirsten is one of my best friends from Santa Barbara, and Chris, her husband, is a professor on sabbatical. They have a son, Soren. Their writing covers navigating moose on bicycle, recipes for 60 pounds of halibut, and knitting squid hats. They're funny in the best way - dry, and they take pictures of moose poop.

Autumn Migration

Monarch butterflies migrate thousands of miles each year to winter in Mexico. (I wish I could say the same.) So as my orange and black winged friends head south, I'm migrating my blog back to Blogger. Interim posts can be read on my on-again, off-again MySpace page.

In a nutshell:
I quit medical school. Er, took a Leave of Absence.
I met a wonderful person named John who makes me laugh and corrects my grammar.
I started riding my bicycle again.
I started medical school again.

My sister bought a horse, which I thought would cause an uproar in la familia, but he's more like our first grandchild. His name is Bugsy ... I'm crocheting him a blanket right now. In brown, I guess.

I'm at that age where people I assumed would be around forever aren't anymore. A Wrinkle in Time author Madeline L'Engle is one of those people. She passed away on Septmeber 8th at 88. "There is such a thing as a tesseract."

PS - When you (I) constantly blog about yoga and transcendence, it usually means that you're (I'm) a complete mess on the inside. Good blogging demands mess on the outside. I promise to do my best. No more yoga poses unless they enhance your sex life, but we're still freeing Tibet. On bicycles.

What the ...?

Everything is so much more complicated that I exoected. It's like medical school -- we're learning how ro manage myocardial infarction, but the real work is outside of school. The stupid things you say over a beer stick with you all night. Blacking out is often so welcome. But I try to remain moderately disinhibited ... able to converse about real life things, but not sinking into existential wallowing. Dodgeball helps, although I'm not always sure I'm in the right mindset to be throwing thing at other human beings. No throwing up. Do laundry. Maintain minimal progression on the laundry front. Read, even if it's with accompanied by a 40. Draw pictures ... come visit my transcendental dry erase board. We will get through this, but by bonding together instead of my instict to hole up in my apartment alone. I will put the legs on my couch this weekend and everything will become so much better. All my best for the weekend. Find some sun, get some, may you be blessed with the universal cardiology "Ah-Ha." Namaste. No really, I mean it.

Homecoming

I'm in Santa Barbara, at my parents' house, where I grew up. I just got back from a two-day house-hunting adventure in Los Angeles. My dad grew up in LA, so he was a great tour guide. Two close family friends came along too, so I had an entourage at each open house I attended. I had to explain that it was only me who was going to be living in these places, not all five of us.

Being in LA really made me less freaked out about medical school. After quite a bit of searching, my mom and I found the David Geffen School of Medicine, which is sort of hidden inside the UCLA Medical Center. It was good to see it; it made it less mythical. I bought a t-shirt at the bookstore, like a big dork.

Something really important to me about moving is finding places that fit me, like bookstores and yoga studios and coffee houses. I found a great cafe called Literati that serves delicious organic food and coffee. My black bean soup and organic greens made me just a little more relaxed about the Big Move.

To sum up: I'm sunburned, have heard too many bad jokes (thanks Dad), and I just might survive this whole medical school thing.

Namaste.

Cold feet in the summertime

So it's been a month since I was accepted to Drew/UCLA. About 40K people apply to medical school each year. 16K are accepted. I was one of them. So why am I so anxious and miserable? I'm having nightmares about bloodied bodies being opened up in the OR, waiting for me to come fix them. I've chewed my fingernails to the point that I'll need reconstructive surgery on both my teeth and my hands. When co-workers say, "you must be so excited," I smile a huge smile and then run away.

I'm not up to this.

I'm scared. I'm scared of sitting through my first biochemistry lecture and being in way over my head. I'm scared of holding a scalpel that first day to my embalmed cadaver. I'm scared of the quiet hum of the freeway when everyone leaves me alone for the first time in my stucco apartment in Los Angeles. I'm scared of searching for a coffee shop to study in. I'm scared to look for a bar that's not a meat market. I'm scared of standing in Trader Joe's with a cart full of frozen dinners realizing that I'm totally on my own.

This is where faith would come in handy. I'm reading a book by an Episcopal theologian, John Shelby Spong, called The Sins of Scripture. It talks about some of the more oppressive texts of the Bible and how they can be interpreted in historical context to not be so destructive. It's refreshing to read about a faith that I'd almost given up on, and see my own beliefs reflected. I think I'll be checking out a church in Pasedena, St. Edmunds, where my good friend is a priest.

And yoga will also help. Sigh. I have not been in so long. I need to find a yoga studio down there that meets my needs, both spiritually and physically.

I'm starting to read the I Ching: The Book of Change:
"Instead of emphasizing the eternal, the unchanging, the immutable ...the I CHING is the only book of ancient wisdom that makes change itself the center of observation and recognizes time as an essential factor in the world and in the development of the individual."

Knowledge is the best defense against fear. I am also reading First Cut: A Season in the Human Anatomy Lab: an excellent bookk about the anatomy lab, and about our relationship with our body and with our inevitable death.

Okay. Another day? Let's do it.

Going back to Cali!

It's official. I've been accepted to the Drew/UCLA Medical Education Program, and I've accepted their acceptance. I got the phone call on Thursday, and I've had four days to decide. Wow. All this time I thought I was going to Pittsburgh, and now I'm headed for Los Angeles. It's all a little overwhelming ...

Here's the deal with Drew/UCLA. It's a special program that trains doctors to work with underserved populations. I'll spend my first two years at UCLA, and then I'll do my clinical years (3rd & 4th) working at county hospitals and community health clinics through Charles R. Drew University. Drew is associated with MLK-Drew Medical Center and I'll also be training at Harbor UCLA Medical Center.

I made this decision while on an awesome little vacation with my mom and dad. My dad is a retired high school teacher, and while he was still teaching, he found out about this special program where you can take a group to camp out on Alcatraz. My dad is fascinated by Alcatraz, and I'm pretty into it, too. (Did you know that Alcatraz means "pelican" in Spanish? Did you know that American Indian activists occupied the island for 18 months in 1969?) We walked all over the island, and saw lots of parts of the prison that you don't see as a tourist. We watched a fireworks show from the roof that night, and then we slept in actual cells. I've slept over three times now, and I can vouch that there's definitely some paranormal stuff going on. You hear a lot of things -- voices -- that you can't explain. I love it!

Got to go ... I've got a lot of planning to do!

Hero

In yoga, Hero Pose is a meditative pose, a great way to stretch out the legs and chill out at the end of the day. I feel like I need it right about now because my life is moving at a crazy pace. I got my financial aid offer from the University of Pittsburgh today -- very generous. I've never received a scholarship before ... it makes me feel pretty good, a little bit of a hero. I also got my nose pierced -- one of the things I swore I'd do after I was finished interviewing for medical school. It didn't really hurt, just a pinch and then a strange metal thing to get used to in my nose. Kind of makes me want to sneeze. Life is good.