Charlie goes to Medical School

What US Health Care Needs (via Slashdot)

I’m not going to add too much to this.  I’m not exactly a non-partisan guy, but both sides are eventually going to have to buy in to make health care reform work.

Other than that, I’m trying to keep this blog pretty non-political, so everyone enjoy their morning coffee.

[Time Shifted Post: This post was a quick one that I wrote before going to visit my parents. It was basically a recap of that first week or so of summer vacation. Nothing really super about this post, but I didn't have time to proof it when I wrote it. Hope everyone out there is doing well.]

Summer research has already started getting underway, but I don’t start it full time until next week. I wish I had come up with a little more organized plan to enjoy these couple of weeks out of school, but I had spent the previous few weeks trying not to think about summer in order to get my studying done.

Last week, I worked on the apartment for a little bit getting some spring cleaning done. The mess that was my desk is now completely under control, and desk II is back to being our dining room table. Admin cat has been enjoying watching my toils.

We had a spot of bad news with our previous living space which we have had on the market for sale for a while now. Wife and I had a pretty good offer come in, and unfortunately it fell through. If anyone out there is thinking about medical school, start getting rid of responsibilities like this. I have been trying to avoid renting because it is one more thing to worry about, but in this market it is the best option. Hopefully, we can rent it for now and then get it back on the market and sold by the time I am in residency and be done with the whole mess.

I have had a few meetings about my summer research since school got out of school. It was useful as it has taken me a while to get into the right frame of mind. My mentors have been guiding me along for a little bit, but it wound up taking some time and going through their old literature review materials before the right frame of mind sank in. Now that I understand our approach a little more clearly, I am going to update their literature review to look for anything recent and get things under way. I’ll be ready to hit the ground running.

I am trying to branch out a bit with my research. I have met one person who works in a different hospital as a statistician. I want to take an afternoon and meet with her to discuss our methods and get another take on how we are examining our results. I also will be getting some shadowing opportunities which is required of everyone in the program whether their research is in the clinically-based or not.

You don’t get to do everything during a break, so you try to find the stuff you most want to do, but don’t sweat what you can’t. You are supposed to be on a break after all.

You don’t want to return to school or work more tired than you left it.

• It’s official. I don’t have time to post this summer. Well, it’s going to get better. After taking a couple of weeks to travel and do nothing, Wife and I got me into the new work routine and we tried to get onto a diet. After the first week on this diet, I gained weight. My response to this was to freak out and go completely strict on the diet. In the ensuing weeks, I’ve manage to lose 8 or so pounds. The diet involves a lot of clif bars (blueberry crisp and crunchy peanut butter) with a fairly restricted dinner and a popcorn snack at around 10-11. I’ve been using an app on my phone to keep track of calories and trying to stay around 1500. The exercise routine is running about 25 minutes during the week and about 30 minutes on the weekends (the time limit on the machines at school) and hitting the bikes afterwards. Wife has been joining me at the gym, and we’ve gotten good at keeping each other on track. My goal is to lose enough weight to make staying on the diet significantly easier during the school year when I will be needing all of my energy for studying.
• Research has been a little crazy. I was hoping to have a little more time for literature review and preparation for my data collection in the next couple of weeks, but there was a pretty big snafu with my IRB approval involving some misplaced paperwork. This big issue aside, everyone has been very cooperative and quick on the turnaround (which isn’t normally the case, but it is nice to know you can easily get things escalated). The IRB and the people managing summer research have been great. I was actually in the IRB office and was trying to express my appreciation for their help. I said something like to the effect that they were being very fastidious, but that was great because I also appreciate them looking out for my research subjects. However, they were also very quick on the turnaround to me when they could which helped make my approval possible. I should point out that my situation is a little unique because I am doing data collection with actual people which most people don’t try to squeeze into a summer research project. I’m also doing my collection off-site which most people aren’t stupid enough to try to get through for a short summer research project. I am also doing a pediatric study, and people under 18 automatically get the extra special scrutiny for any research project at any IRB. That all being said, I got my IRB approval on Friday!
• Wife and I have friends from my class, one of whom is moving. Not much to say here except I’m glad we did the move at night instead of during the day, and my entire body is sore two days later. I’m having a time even getting up off the couch, but I do want to workout today.
• I still have some posts that I need to finish and publish. However, I’ve lost my eye for proofing lately, so I’m going to have to wait for Wife to get home today to look over them.