residents and sleep

photo courtesy of the New York Times 

The other day, I mentioned the new report about decreasing residents' fatigue. Today, in the NYTimes, there is a very interesting piece on this as well. In fact, I love this. It really illustrates that nothing comes without strings attached, and sometimes we're not sure which is better. I wonder what the dialogue is in medical schools about this. 

cupcakes cupcakes rah rah rah!

I am super excited for tomorrow. My roommate and some friends of mine are going out to dinner to this Asian restuarant, and then to Sugarland for cupcakes/dessert!! Not Magnolia, Buttercup, or Crumbs, but still excellent! I am so psyched for sugary cupcake goodness. 

'tis the season....

This is my last post as a 27-year old.....wow, I feel old. Tomorrow is my birthday, smack in the middle of my finals and final projects. Good times. I got my Vineyard Vines promotion package in the mail yesterday, and I love it. Vineyard Vines is a company that sells clothes, accessories, etc, that are reminiscient of what they call "the Good Life". It's very vacation-y, cheerful, preppy....the clothes never really go out of style. I became a Whale Rep (their mascot is the Vineyard Whale), which means I get to promote the brand and visit retailers in the area, and I even get a small clothing allowance! I am very excited to work with the other Whale Reps here at UNC and at Meredith to do something next semester. 

I can't believe the year is winding down. And then we start all over again. Where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday I took my driving test on my birthday and got my license....I can't believe I've been driving for 11 years. That's crazy. 

I read an interesting article in the NY Times today. It talked about how a panel wants to change residency training again. Years ago, it was made mandatory that residents were capped at an 80-hour workweek, to help prevent fatigue and medical errors. Now they want to cut that back even further. I have mixed feelings - and by no means do I even pretend to know what I'm talking about, since I'm not a doctor. I mean, it's good that they want to prevent fatigue, and yes, I agree that fatigue interferes with good doctoring. But what happens when these physicians are done residency and are on service for weeks, and find themselves unable to handle the hours? I'd be interested to see what seasoned physicians think of this - especially ones that completed residency before the 80-hour workweek cap. 

my future husband

If you could just take one minute (well, about 3) to click this link and watch the video, I'd really appreciate it.....it's Lance, how bad could it be?

be somebody, do something

Such a thug. 

He cracks me up.

how could you ever possibly resist a face like this???

I just downloaded a new cd - Kaleidoscope Machine, by Katie Costello. Excellent. She's from Hermosa Beach, CA, and she's only 17. Her songs convey a much older soul, and her voice is richly layered beyond her years. One song in particular, "Congratulations", struck me - here's a snippet of lyrics: 

why does there exist a need, to be somebody, do something,

whose origins are from the box we all know too well

what i need  is to be okay

being nobody, knowing it'd be alright, alright

what made us think that being happy 

came from a piece of paper that said congratulations?

I was up in NJ for the holiday, and the highlight of my trip was definitely seeing my sweet, sweet nephew. He is almost 20 months old, and - although I am highly biased - one of the cutest kids ever. He loves music, and "dances" whenever he hears it. His dancing consists of swaying back and forth and bending his knees so he bounces up and down....it is so adorable. Sometimes he gets his hands into it and goes all out. He absolutely loves to dance - even to my mother's cell phone ring! (Although in all honesty, her ring is "Sweet Child O'Mine", which has been a favorite of Trey's since he was a baby!). We were watching the movie Hairspray one night, and he absolutely LOVED it. He was enthralled, dancing along with it. He is such a good kid - you can take him to any restaurant and he'll behave. He is getting mischievious - he likes to pull hair and sometimes he hits, but then when you go to reprimand him, he'll open his mouth (his sign for giving you "kisses") and rest his head on you. So he definitely knows his cuteness factor is skyhigh. I miss him already so much. 

This is the last week of classes, so things are getting crazy with work, and I am finishing up my Columbia application to their Sociomedical Sciences program. I really like their program, but I don't want to get my hopes up. Why would I get in now, after being rejected 2 years ago? *sigh*. I miss NY. I do love it here in Chapel Hill, and it does feel like home, but I also really miss Manhattan. I miss beers at Dorrians, Pinkberry runs, even the crowdedness of the city sidewalks. I miss good cupcakes. And good falafel. Anyway, at this point, I will be happy if I get into ANY program. I can't even think about what happens if I don't get in. I can't believe, though, that this is the end of the semester. It has absolutely flown by. Next semester I will be taking: my Master's Paper (like a dissertation, we have to register for it), Reproductive Health Policy, Pediatric Pharmacotherapy, and Neurotrauma in Sports. I'm really looking forward to my classes, the big dork that I am! 

giving thanks

So here I am, in NJ for Thanksgiving, and thinking about all the things I am grateful for in the past year. Oddly, I'm also thinking about Eve Carson. It was her birthday last Wednesday, and I just keep thinking, what are her parents doing? How are they surviving, day to day? What are the holidays like for them this year? How do they wake up every day? It strikes me as incredibly heart-wrenching. This is a young woman who should not have had her life taken from her at such a young age - especially not in the brutal way that she did. I often wonder what she was doing last year, and whether she would have ever thought she wouldn't live to the next Thanksgiving. In my Research Methods class, one group did a project on students' perceptions of safety, and one of my friends mentioned the "Eve Carson effect" on our perceptions of how safe we are in Chapel Hill. Without even having to discuss it, we all knew what she meant by that. And that made me very sad. So much can change in a year, a month, a day, an hour. As Joan Didion wrote in The Year of Magical Thinking, life changes in the instant, the ordinary instant. Which is why I am grateful and thankful for so much this year, especially all the little things. 

I am thankful for: my blood family. my "chosen" family. the health of people I love. friends. mentors. my wonderful baby nephew (who will always be a baby to me, no matter how old he gets!). sunshine. warm sheets and cold pillows. smiles. phone calls from long distance friends. gingerbread lattes on cold days. the warm golden amber of autumn leaves. serendipity. synchronicity. good books. breakfasts with Morgan. faith. hope. courage. the wonderful kids I babysit for and have babysat for - Luke, MJ, Rachel, Bryce, Chase, Harrison, Pilar. gummy toothless smiles and incoherent phone calls from these kids. hugs. kindness. prayer. life. the wonderful summer full of opportunities I had at MSKCC. the amazing people I met at Memorial, including my supervisor. all the bloggers and people I've met through blogspot. 

On a lighter note, everyone should pick up the December issue of Elle magazine. I am in it! I reviewed books for them and my book review got printed! So go out now, and buy it, please. Also, if you want to donate to my Avon Breast Cancer 2-Day Walk, please let me know - in less than a month, I have raised $250, but I need to raise at least $1800 -- my goal is to raise as much as I possibly can, though. 

I wish everyone a very happy and healthy thanksgiving! 

miraculous disappearing cancer?

Here is an article in today's NYTimes about how some cancers "might go away on their own". Call me a cynic, but I'm not buying it. They do bring up rare cases of melanoma and neuroblastoma, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. They bring up the issue of breast cancer - and how this might, upon further research, let women with invasive breast cancer "watch and wait" on a lump. But what if the cancer doesn't go away on its own? What if it gets bigger and then the cancer is at a more advanced stage by the time one decides to treat it? I don't know. I have mixed feelings about this. There will be people who read the article and are ill-informed and not ask their doctors about it and might have completely different conclusions that are harmful. I've grown increasingly wary of articles like this.....

figuring it all out....sort of

A week from today is Thanksgiving. 2 weeks from today is my birthday, and also the last day of my semester. I cannot believe the semester is coming to a close. It feels like just yesterday I moved down here again. It's actually been pretty cold down here the past week or so, which is good and bad. Good because I love sweater weather and I have a much better winter wardrobe, bad because it SUCKS walking in the cold or waiting for the bus in the cold. But it definitely feels like winter. I even got my flu shot yesterday. But now I'm feeling all blah and in the mood for a weekend full of laying on the couch under my fleece blanket, drinking soup and watching What Not to Wear. But I can't exactly do that when I have a final secondary analysis research paper due 12/2, another paper due 12/1, a final on 12/2, and a final paper due 12/4 (my birthday, great). Oh yeah - and a possible grant proposal due 12/4 and a lit review to somehow come up with. 

I went to go have my mini-practicum paper signed today by the former chief of pediatric heme/onc, and as I was walking through the hospital, I realized I love hospitals. I know that probably sounds really weird. But I do. I am comfortable in them. They feel familiar; natural. And I know this is crazy. I keep whining about this and not doing anything about it. But I'm not sure there's anything to do. But let's face reality - the financial part would be undoable, and what if I didn't even get in to med school? I'm getting too old for this. I don't want to have regrets. I need to reconcile that I am NOT going to be a physician. I'm almost 28. I am too old to be still debating what to be when I grow up. 

playing God

I'm sitting here in the Health Sciences Library, trying to do work and killing time before my class at 2. I've been really bad with concentrating lately, so I went on cnn.com, and found this really interesting article about how med students aren't choosing family medicine and there will be an expected shortage of over 30,000 primary care doctors by the year 2025, as the AMA calculated. That is craziness. And while it all made sense - doctors are frustrated by all the red tape, etc, - it made me sad, too. Because I'd love to be a doctor. But then I remember my own family physician telling me that if his kids told him they wanted to be a doctor, he would discourage them from doing so. 

I've been thinking a lot about genetic testing. I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I am wary of it because it almost feels like we're playing G-d. But on the other hand, if you could know if you had a high predisposition to something like cancer, wouldn't you want to know so you could take preventive/protective measures? Once you know, you can't not know. Once you get those results, your life is changed forever - either way. Is it worth it? 

Let's Raise Money!!!

I know it's the holiday season, and the economy is going down the tubes for the most part, but I just signed up for the Avon 2-Day Walk for Breast Cancer, in Charlotte, NC. It's not until October 2009, but I have to raise $1800 to walk. My goal is to surpass that and raise as much  money as I possibly can. I like this better than Komen, because it's more hands-on and the goals of the Avon Foundation seem to be much more action and community oriented, rather than self-serving, like Komen. 

So....why am I posting this? I wanted to post a link to my personal page. You can donate if you'd like, and anything is appreciated. I'd really appreciate it as well if you could send the link to anyone you know who might be interested in donating. Cancer affects everyone, and until there's a 2-Day walk for general cancer awareness, I have to be satisfied with this. 

Please go to my page!

Thank you so much!!! Help me raise money!