UNC here I come!!!

OK so I'm just a bit excited. I just found out today that I got an audition rotation at UNC-Chapel Hill, aka the Mecca of Emergency Medicine. !!!!!! Not only do they seem to be willing to let me on the property, which is awesome enough in and of itself, they are letting me do only 3 weeks instead of the normal 4, which is incredibly nice of them! So now I am not going to be visiting Gettysburg (at least this August), but I think I can handle that. I also have to reschedule my board exam (written) because I can't take a day off when I only have 3 weeks there. And now I have about, oh, three months less to finish my ER book - whoops! :-) Maybe they'll cut me some slack as it's my first ER rotation......riiiigghht..... :-)

So for my updated schedule for this year: (though this can and will change all the time!)

July: Infectious Diseases at the NIH in Bethesda, MD

July 24th - Noah goes to Philly to take the national physical exam test (fun!!)

August: 3 weeks of ER at UNC-Chapel Hill (Mecca)

August 21-Sept 16th: Radiology at Duke

Sept 19th-sometime in October: Possibly CCU at Duke (not confirmed)

Sometime in Oct-Sometime in Nov: ER at Maricopa (if my school didn't accidentally cancel it
along with my burn rotation, which is quite possible)

Mid-Nov to Mid-Dec: TBA (i.e. I have no idea)

Christmas "break": Noah will either be working somewhere or in Scotland, hopefully the latter

January: TBA

February: Cardiology at Eastern Carolinas in Greenville, NC (i.e. the place with the combined IM/ER residency)

March: TBA

April:TBA

May: Something easy as I just won't care anymore

More fun with Nissan...

So after all the fun I've had in the past 3 years with Nissan, I happened to Google my car's model to see if there were any recall notices on it....Hmmm...I thought that if they had those, then the company was obligated to inform you, right? Nope...Turns out there are two on my car. Problem #1 is that water can get into the rear axle housing, causing corrosion and this might cause the axle assembly to SEPARATE FROM THE CAR while driving (!!!!???!!!)...Isn't it comforting to know Nissan is on top of safety issues like this! :-) Problem #2 is that (again) water can get into the pump terminal on the fuel-sending unit, causing an abrupt stop in fuel delivery to the engine, causing the engine to FAIL WHILE DRIVING, possibly causing an accident (this is straight off the NHTSA website!!!)....Hmmm..Anyone thinking about buying a Nissan (particularly Xterra) out there?? I'd recommend going with the Volvo instead! :-)

So we're done…for a bit anyway!

So yesterday we took our 4th-year test, after 3 weeks of lectures, and it was great…OK, not really. It really stunk - they took most of the questions from the lectures themselves, not from the notes, so we will find out in a few weeks if Noah will be re-taking it! Just kidding (hopefully!). We have to wait a few weeks because someone in our class just had a baby Wednesday, and they won't release our scores until she takes it, which apparently will happen whenever she feels like it…How knowing our scores will help her on the test, I'm not sure, but for whatever reason, it's a big security concern with our ever-vigilant Clinical Ed department…

Along with the test, we were given a survey about OCM III/IV from the aforesaid Clinical Ed. dept….Below are some pictures of us giving them our constructive criticism… I suggested that topics such as "Advanced Head and Neck Dissection" perhaps are relevant to say….the ONE student who is going into ENT in our class, but that our time might be better spent discussing things that are a) going to be on Boards or b) that more than one of us are ever going to need to know. I am sure they will take my comments to heart, and make a sincere effort to improve the courses for next year….Okay, of course they won't, but it felt good to vent!

After the test I spent some quality time at the pool and reading a non-medical book, and then we went out to dinner with Chuck & Melissa (and baby Lucas!) because they're moving back to Vegas today. I took a bunch of pictures which are below:

Today (sad to say), I started studying for Boards, even though I don't know when I can take them now. Most people are smart enough to schedule one easy month so they can study for Boards a bit, but I didn't think to do that. So I have a totally hard schedule until about February, and sometime in the middle of the mess of applications, interviews, normal rotation work, etc., I now have to study for Boards!!! Oh well….what can you do…

More later…..

Katie and Allison filling out their sure-to-be-discarded surveys

Eric gleefully filling out his survey

A bunch of us standing around, debating answers after the test

(the normal routine!)

Chuck & Melissa and baby Lucas

Golda holding Lucas, who doesn't seem to mind being passed around like free candy!

Me holding Lucas, who as I found out has a great Moro reflex! (that's the quite-entertaining startle reflex, for non-medical people)

Learning how to blog!

Okay yall, I am just getting started, so give me a bit to get this going...I started this so I could post pictures of where I am and what I'm doing this year...Wish I'd started this last year but oh well! I'll be at more interesting places this year anyway! So as soon as a) I figure out how to work my digital camera and post pictures and b) actually have something cool to take a picture of, I'll get started! :-)